Zombies, Run!: First Mission Review

I used to run occasionally, but that was a year ago and the most I’ve done since then is to stare at my running shoes before quickly throwing a towel over them to hide my secret shame.

So keep that in mind as I review the first mission of Zombies, Run!.

As I mentioned before, the beginning of the mission has a three minute introduction in which there is no running. If you’re anything like me and you want to stay grounded in the game’s universe, I recommend using this as a warm-up period. Do some stretching.

This is especially important if you’re like me and you can’t run more than ten minutes without fainting. I wasn’t able to run long enough to make it to he second checkpoint, which meant I had to sit through the introduction again the next day.

I also recommend holding onto any items you find until after you complete the first mission. The game gives you information for all the buildings in Abel at that point giving you a better idea of where you should put everything. At this point, I don’t see how the base plays a part in the game. It just seems like a neat graphic for your runner to come home to.

My initial problems with the accelerometer are not as bad as I thought. It does settle down after a while and stops counting off paces when I stood stock still. The main problem with the accelerometer is the that the zombie chases are disabled. This seemed like the funnest portion of the game when I first heard about it, but it’s only available if you have an iPhone.

There’s also no way to input how long one step is. So while you know if you’ve gone 1000 steps, you won’t know how long that really is in miles or kilometers unless you’re willing to crunch the numbers yourself.

Aside from the nitpicks, Zombies, Run is a great app. It got me out of my chair for the first time in over a year and I actually look forward to running the next day, if only to find out what happens with Sam and Runner Seven and the doctor lady whose name I can’t remember. The voice acting is serviceable at its worst and considering this is an independently funded and designed game, the voice acting is, for the most part, pretty good.

They’re going to implement for free content over the next few monhs, including repeatable supply missions. I want to see how the storyline develops over the next couple of missions and I want to see how the supply missions will be handled.

The story drew me in and gave me a reason to keep running, even when I was flagging. For whatever its flaws, it does what it’s supposed to do: make running fun.

Dylan Charles