Zombie Panic in Wonderland Review

As a younger lad, I was fortunate enough to experience large arcades in the local malls, not quite in their prime, but certainly a few years before their decline into the dark days of a few busted cabinets shoved into a neglected corner, one malfunctioning change machine dropped nearby as an afterthought, joysticks and buttons crippled, raped of their former glory by snot nosed punks with their hip shoes and music posters on the wall. Uh, anyway, like most future murderers, I always gravitated towards any game that featured a gun controller, and in particular any game with a gun that involved shooting zombies. I spent absurd amounts of quarters on CarnEvil and House of the Dead, and even after finally beating them, I'd always want to go another round.

There really wasn't anything quite like blasting zombies, at least until a certain gathering of mucus-infested children of a younger, hipper, generation descended upon those pristine hunks of plastic, forever tarnishing the ever-satisfying triggers with their greedy little mitts - but their hotbed of reckless destruction can only last for so long, because the purveyors of the arcade are only bound to live in obscurity for so long, and the eve of reckoning quickly approaches. So about Zombie Panic in Wonderland. I've always yearned for a replication of the arcade experience at home - sweaty palms around a controller, noises blaring all around, people gathered around to watch. But really, no game is capable of bringing all that into one's living room. The House of the Dead ports do come close, but it's just a fact of life that you can't have a true arcade experience in the home. And Zombie Panic in Wonderland may be the first game I've ever played that appears to have taken that notion to heart.



Zombie Panic in Wonderland isn't a genre-defining experience, a hilarious romp, or something you'll remember and discuss at every opportunity. What it is however, is an arcade-style shooter that just oozes charm - from the cute little strut that the characters do at the end of each level to the tiny dwarfs that meander about during heavy gunfire, the game is full of little touches that make it a great experience. For a mere $10, you really can't lose if you have any interest in this sort of title.

---

LOOK WHO CAME:

Dr Light ate your Magicite