The First Zombies Game I Loved

I respect the Resident Evil series a great deal. Even though, I could never finish one game in the series, the story and lore of Resident Evil always fascinated me. But before the first Resident Evil became a reality on the original PlayStation, there was one game involving zombies that stood heads and shoulders above the rest. The game wasn’t perfect by any means and would never win any “Game of the Year” awards, but who cared? What mattered was that the game was ridiculously fun and entertaining. Shout out to my friend “Zirp,” who played this game with me for countless hours back in the day and we laughed ourselves silly until it hurt. The game I’m spotlighting in this post is Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

To this very day, I can’t believe it was LucasArts that developed this game. Zombies Ate My Neighbors centers around main characters Zeke and Julie, who battle zombies and other horror characters through approximately 50 levels that take place in a variety of settings based on popular horror films. Another aspect of the game is to rescue as many people as you can before the enemies get to them. You’re given a variety of weapons to accomplish your task. And like many games of that era, it is very unforgiving. It doesn’t help that the controls are sometimes a bit wonky, which I believe may have been purposely done to make the game more difficult.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a prime example of why I emphasize that fun is what we should value most in gaming. It wasn’t the best game either graphically or technically. Yet it is one of the best Super Nintendo or SEGA Genesis games to play with a friend. The level variety is fantastic. You will not get bored as you play through the game because it introduces new environments regularly with some interesting ideas and twists.

For some nostalgia, I played Zombies Ate My Neighbors for a bit a few weeks ago. It’s not the same when you play it as a single player. In fact, it’s much harder. Maybe someday a modder will create a mod that allows the second player to be AI controlled. But if you do play the game and find it difficult, do not hesitate to use level codes. The only drawback to level codes is that you don’t carry over all of your inventory that you would have gained over the course of the game from the first stage. Game Genie codes (which could be implemented on a Super Nintendo emulator) can be used for further cheats that will give you infinite lives, weapons, etc.

If you’ve never played Zombies Ate My Neighbors and its sequel, Ghoul Patrol, this is the month for you. The two games are being released digitally on June 29 as a package for $14.99 and will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. That’s a great deal for these games and they represent retro gaming at its finest. According to Polygon, both games will include a quick save system, achievements, and some bonus content.

I recommend these games if you like retro-style gameplay with a mix of wacky fun. There isn’t much I can say about Ghoul Patrol because I’ve only played it for a few minutes. But Zombies Ate My Neighbors is worth the price of admission by itself. Such great memories.

-TVGA
admin@videogamersadvocate.com

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