Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green

A rough looking game that still manages to satisfy a cheap zombie thrill. Graphically it's substandard with bad animation and blocky looking enemies. The sound is terrible too, with a dull popping noise made by most of the weapons.

Having said that the variety of ways to control the undead are quite imaginative, the guns range from pea shooters to Molotov's and assault rifles and a lead pipe or golf club can be amusing to beat or hack undead rotting corpses, which given half a chance will spew toxic bile at you.

Not a classic first person shooter like Halflife or Call of duty but with plenty of zombie's to shoot, maim or burn, and an interest in George Romero or Luci Fulci's films, this game isn't too bad.

6.5/10!

LOTD: The Road to Fiddler's Green has a lot going against it. That's probably inevitable, given its bargain-bin price tag, as well as the fact that it's a movie tie-in. Graphically, it's very bland: textures are boring and lacking in detail; buildings (in the downtown areas) look like they were pulled from a PSX game; and even the zombies, for the most part, are pretty uninspired (and there are far too few variants). Sound is nothing to write home about, either. In many cases (I won't say all cases), level design is a monotony of identical rooms and corridors. The first half of the cornfield level is particularly lame, and four ultra-generic sewer levels were certainly unnecessary. Some of the weapons are more or less useless, like the .22 rifle (although ammunition for this gun is easily the most common) and the shotgun (which has an effective range not much more than eight feet, in-game). The game's coding is apparently a mess: collision detection is extremely poor, and half of the multiplayer servers won't even connect. Its plot could easily fit on one side of a napkin, and that's an entire transcript, not a mere summary. Nor is it very challenging: pickups are very plentiful, if you're willing to search through every drawer, cabinet, and locker you find.

So why did I give this a five? And why do I still play it at all? Aside from the fact that it's the only commercially-produced FPS zombie game for the PC, the developers did get a few thing right, sort of. First, there's the mêlée weapon system. Not counting your fists, you can pick up any of six close-combat weapons, each of which does a different rate of damage at a different range and a different speed. Some, like the axe, can take off arms and even heads. There's a very simple joy in backtracking through a hallway with a handful of ghouls trailing you as you hack them apart one by one. It's a slow process (a good swing with an axe can take up to a second) and it requires good timing, but I find that adds to the atmosphere.

That's the other plus: atmosphere. Generic as your surroundings may often be, limited visibility (from darkness, corners, or corn) and unplaceable moaning nearby can often combine to get your hair up. An unexpected horde of zombies, pouring from every opening, can induce the same reaction. And while they're slow-moving, so are you. In LOTD:RTFG, you are not a god--you're a hog farmer who's just trying to stay alive. Your weapons take time to use and time to reload, and you've got to stand still to aim properly (essential for blasting heads apart with the revolver). You can't hit caps lock and run through a level--you can sprint for a while but it tires you out.

Bottom line: if you can put up with the technical shortcomings, this is a cheap--and, damn it, fun--game that can satisfy a genre fan's zombie craving. Until something better comes out.

This game doesn't have a lot of things. It misses a LOT more than it hits. But it's cheap. And I have found several redeeming qualities about it as well.

The sound can be repetitive, but it sets the mood very well. Some think: "wow, only 4 notes constantly repeated." I personally think that it is this very aspect that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

I am a very experienced gamer, having played everything from Galaga to Call of Duty. And never, ever, have I found a game that made me actually FEAR encountering another enemy. You really don't want to continue. But that adds realism, because that means you are thinking EXACTLY like you would if that was not Jack the Farmer but You. It's not that the enemies are terribly difficult to defeat, if you play the game long enough you can kill every single zombie without even firing a gun. But you would just really prefer if that next corner didn't have zombies waiting around it. But you always do, so you have to just keep on trucking.

Buy this game, but only if you want to be GENUINELY scared. Because you will be, should you be able to look past its shortcomings. honestly, what Horror movie fan Doesn't want to be scared?

The whole idea of this game is more than appealing to me as I am a massive zombie fan, be it Romero's movies, Fulci's movies, Dan O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead, or even Peter Jackson's Brain Dead. I love nigh on all undead movies (one or two aside though). I have over 25 novels with a zombie theme to them.

The music score for this game (on every level in the game) is one of creepiness and tension. Take for instance the music for level 2. The score for that level is one that is just eerie as hell it's self!. It doesn't help either when you see the zombies coming through the rows of corn at you with the music in the background, very creepy!. And in being so the game should only EVER be played in the dark hours, lights out, with headphones. When you do this you forget the flaws the game has for a time and are immersed in the world on display.

We need more games of this type, and soon. I cannot wait for Dead Island to arrive on the PC as it looks like a cross between "Lost" and "Zombie Flesh Eaters". Hell, anything with zombies in it that is half decent or very good has my attention. And this game, although it isn't very good, it is playable. I myself have completed it on the PC 11 times now. I used the Land of the Dead X3 mod file for it when playing it. This adds double the zombie count to every level and it also gives you enough ammo to deal with the extra zombies as well, if you're careful that is!.

The graphics were passable, even though they were about 3 steps behind the modern FPS games out there. I for one go for immersion and experience during game play than fancy graphics and shallow experiences during game play. As a horror movie and video game fan I love the atmosphere in this game and it for this reason I award it 7 out of 10. If the zombie hit detection was better then it would have got a 9 from me. The zombies take too many bullets to go down. If you can let that slide, I can, then you might just see yourself enjoy the creepy world on display in this game (played at night time of course).

Anyone in the industry out there that is listening, if you can make it happen do so!. Bring out the supposedly cancelled "City of the Dead" game as it was similar in style of game play to this game. Hopefully minus the zombie hit detection flaw that is!.

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddlers Green - 7/10.