Spooks, spirits, zombies, ghosts, ghouls, demons, devils, mummies, zombies, vampire lords, zombies, hags and horrible thingies that live in the crypt are all about tonight! They are creeping, crawling and cavorting around the castle of Count Valdemar, over six spookily scarifying levels.

In an arcade adventure scare-em-up the Count (you) must collect magic skulls, so that the spooks can be buried with dignity along with the rest of their bodies. Special tiptoe boots, daggers (large or small sir?), keys, zombie disguise potions and jewels are available to help Vald' clear his ancestral home of things that go bump in the night, day and anytime inbetween. The game revolves around surviving a maze of horizontally-viewed rooms and passages, filled with nasties that leap out and bite the Count in the head.

Day Of The Dead
The scene is set with a cinema intro sequence, the curtains draw back and the credits flick up on screen. A hand pushes up a grave; the dead are rising! This sets the scene for the shock-horror style of the game. Each enemy is a pastiche of a familiar B-movie friend.

Zombies slide forward with one leg broken and heads lolling on shattered necks. Frankenstein monsters stagger forward, their square shoulders swinging from side to side. Dracula-esque vampires swoop down from the ceiling tuxedos and capes at the ready.

To back up the strong graphics, authentic corny sounds echo throughout the haunted house. Trap doors creak the way only trap doors can and screams shatter the silence. The effects are either amusing by their sickening aptness or just purposefully duff.

Zombie Flesh Eaters
The quality of the animation and sound is just as well, because, Zombies is tough. When it's not being tough it's dull. The platform nature of the game and its relatively slow pace means the whole impetus for play lies in the effects.

These are amusing, especially the death scenes which feature a gloriously graphic exploding head, but there are under 20 foes and once you've met them all there is little reason to continue. The puzzles too, tend to be repeats of ideas touched upon earlier in the game, just compounded for greater difficulty and so become irritating and not a fresh challenge.

To call Zombies a spoof game sounds insulting, but it should be viewed as a compliment. They have captured the B-movie feel, but this theme alone cannot support a game. It makes you laugh, for a while, it puzzles for a time, but in the long run it is not fascinating enough to merit long term play.

Zombies falls short of the standards of puzzle-play set by Millennium in their last release James Pond, although it has equal, if not greater, graphic humour.