Review: Z-Run

There are plenty of arcade runners available on the phone market, actually the phone market is oversaturated with these kind of games. Mostly the objectives of these games are to run as far as you can while dodging enemies and obstacles. Z-Run tries to bring this genre on the PS Vita, it is not the first on the PS Vita, though it is one of the few that are available on the device.

Most arcade runners are usually endless and Z-Run does have a endless mode called "Survival". Z-Run also has a adventure mode where there are levels to progress through. I would summarize the story for adventure mode right about now but I can not as there is no story at all. The adventure mode could be summarized as run through a city and beat the shit out of zombies. The game throws you into the levels as one of the two characters available, Alex and Claire. The ending of the game is simply beating the last level and the credits roll.

Ok, so there is no story to speak of, so does the game at least redeem itself with interesting level design? The answer would be no. Most of the levels look the same just with different routes to take and some with kinda different scenery, they are all located in a dark and drab city. There are literally levels that repeat other levels that you played before. You could be playing the same exact level that you played 10 minutes ago but with zombies in different places. Thankfully the adventure mode only lasts about 2 hours.

Graphically the game's textures and character models are decent, although the level design is boring and the animations are terrible. The animations make everything in the game seem like robots. The sound does not really help either. Everything sounds weak and the guns sound like peashooters, even the shotgun. The menu music and the music that plays throughout the levels does sound pretty good, the music is from a rock band from New York called The Spin Wire.

I will not lie, I did have a little fun with the game. The game's basic concept is dodging and killing zombies. The controls work as intended, the game does use the face-buttons and analog sticks on the PS Vita. There is a use for the touchscreen, it is gimmicky and terrible - more on that later.

You can slide, jump, glide (The game calls this the long jump, although the character literally glides in the air longer than it is humanly possible to.), sprint, melee, and use weapons, such as shotguns and katanas, that are scattered throughout the levels. Using any these actions besides walking will use up your energy bar and if you run out of energy before it regenerates, your character will start to stagger. This mechanic makes the game strategic and it makes you think when it is necessary to use these actions.

There is also a health gauge which it should be obvious what that one does. If you ever are close to running out of either of the two gauges, there are potions that you can pick up that will fill them up a bit.

Between levels you can upgrade your abilities with either of the available characters. You can upgrade your health, energy, how many weapons you can hold and etc.

Every time you kill a zombie it will splatter blood on the screen. This is where the touch-screen comes in. You have to wipe the blood off your screen, if you do not you can not see anything. This was god awful during the later levels where there are zombies flooding the screen. You have to move your fingers away from some of the most important buttons and there is a big chance that you will die from something you did not see because of the blood or your finger being in the way. 

After I beat the game, I played around in the options. There is a way to disable the blood effects, which disables that gameplay mechanic. I totally recommend turning off the blood as it makes the game a little better.

What also brings down the gameplay is the zombies themselves. The AI is all over the place. Some of them will attack you and miss, others will just stand there. Most of the zombies will jump and home in right at you if you do not dodge or slide. There is no way to predict if they will miss or hit you, even sometimes when you dodged and they obviously missed, you still can get hit. Sometimes there will be a zombie that will swing at you and miss, wrong, after you run pass it you will fall back to where the zombie swung at you and you will get hurt. I died plenty because of this terrible lag.

Z-Run is rushed and it just seems like a quick way to make cash on the zombie and the arcade runner epidemic going on right now. The game had potential to be better than the average runner. Everything like the environments, reused levels, animations, sounds, wonky AI, and the zombie's hit-detection lag bring down its potential. Z-Run could have been fun and fresh take on the genre but with all of its problems, I can not even recommend this to the fans of the genre.

*This game was given to us by the Publisher.