Pound of Ground

Publisher:
Akella
Developer:
Centauri
Genre:
Fantasy Shooter
Release Date:
Nov 08, 2010 (US)

Zombies are cool right now, the new 'Walking Dead Series' is brilliant, Deadrising 2 was a great game, and the Red Dead Redemption undead expansion looks awesome. Who doesn't like zombies? So you'd think the combination of the walking dead, shotguns and a bright red hot rod would work a treat, but sadly you'd be wrong.

Lets start with the paper thin story, you play as Johnny Meyer who wanders out of the desert dazed and confused and runs head first into a zombie encounter. From there you're tasked with driving your blazing red car around the desert with the occasional town shutting down the gas spewing machines that are causing the undead to rise. As your memory slowly returns it becomes apparent that Johnny was on holiday with his newly married bride when things went wrong.



Well I think that’s the storyline, I couldn’t really fathom it due to the horrendous voice acting. I wouldn't normally mark a game down for voice acting and while I respect their attempts to create a 'B Movie' feel, it gets very annoying very quickly. Meyer for instance clearly missed his calling as a ventriloquist as he seems able to talk without moving his lips. You can skip the cut scenes though so lets move on from that.

Gameplay wise its a fairly standard affair, a lot like someone has taken the questing mechanism from World of Warcraft and based a game around it but on a shorter scale. For the most part its extremely repetitive, there are highlights when you get to drive around in your Red Sports car as new areas are unlocked but even they wear a bit thin. Combat consists of either running around beating undead brains in with a baseball bat, blowing their brains out with different guns or mowing them down with your sports car. Things are nice as you get new weapons but for the most part the shotgun works well enough.



The unfortunate thing is there was potential in this game, you can see it now and again but unfortunately its almost entirely eclipsed by the repetitive gameplay and the horrid voice acting.