A far cry from their previous outing in the wonderfully bright and sunny adventure world of Lili, BitMonster Games has returned with a horrific zombie shooter called Gunner Z, whose blend of fast-paced gunplay and night vision imagery work wonders towards making you pray that such a world never comes into existence for everyone reading this article one day. But despite its unique and engrossing atmosphere, not to mention its exhilarating and pitch-perfect gameplay, there are too many other aspects of the game (particularly the shameless microtransactions) that will leave players feeling a bit too lifeless themselves afterwards.Now let's talk first about the good in Gunner Z: the graphics and the gameplay. The actual action in the game plays out predominately in a zombie-overrun city through a night vision lens. Everything in the world is embodied through black and gray hues, with your enemies lighting up in a glowing and ghastly white light. It's a wonderful idea, and polished to perfect in its actual execution: the dark atmosphere is both frightening and frantic, and it makes you feel claustrophobic in the best possible way."The touchscreen controls are an absolute breeze to pick up and get used to, with your right thumb panning the screen to reposition your crosshairs, and your left thumb tapping on the fire button in the opposite corner. You can simply hold down the fire button to spray a wide range of bullets at a clustered pack of zombies, although it's recommended to lift your thumb up and switch to singular tapping for more one-on-one encounters. You'll also have two different weapons to choose from with the simple tap of a button, which lets you mix things up with alternating machinegun and rocket artillery fire; this especially comes in handy once the game starts introducing bonus red enemy types and environmental hazards like roadblocks and landmines.
Lili is all about discovery. It opens with its titular protagonist making an unexpected one: that the island to which she's traveling in search of rare flowers is inhabited by a race of living wooden "Constructs." Gameplay, however, gives way to a much more unfortunate revelation: that not all that glitters is gold, and that lots of polish an adventure does not make.
Whenever a larger, established developer decides to strike out on their own and "go indie," it always warms the cockles of my heart. Often, working for a larger entity means a greater degree of creative restraint. So imagine my delight when I find out today that former Epic Games lead gameplay designer Lee Perry is hitting the road, armed with only his hobo bindlestiff and a pack of ramen. And by that, I mean a gorgeous Unreal 3 Engine title in the works.