ZOMBIE ARMY 4: DEAD WAR

A surprisingly lively undead shooter

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There are two versions of the Second World War that exist in fiction: the war-is-hell one, a venue for telling stories about what it means to be forced to kill your fellow man; and the pulpy, boy’s own-adventure version. As WWII-set shooters increasingly gesture towards the former, Zombie Army sits firmly in the latter camp – and camp really is the operative word. You’re not just going to war with Nazi zombies, but undead sharks and zombified Panzers with fleshy innards tucked away under their armor plating. There’s a resurrected Hitler in there somewhere too. It is, in other words, pretty much exactly what you’d expect and hope for in a game titled Zombie Army 4: Dead War.

The Zombie Army series grew out of Rebellion’s Sniper Elite games, and the link is clear, especially in those moments when you’re squinting through a rifle’s scope, lining up a headshot and then being rewarded with a cutaway of your bullet rearranging, in gratuitous slow motion, the contents of your target’s skull. The big difference, apart from the simple matter of your enemies’ immortality, is that