Yep, I've played more incredible games that only ever came out in Europe outside of Japan. The EU name is lame, but the original title is possibly one of the greatest to have ever existed... The Zombie Vs Ambulance!
This blog is brought to you by the letters Z, A and the Return of the Living Dead franchise.
Zombie Virus / Simple Series Vol 95: The Zombie Vs Kyūkyūsha.
"Is the driving better than Watch Dogs?" "Yes... And that's a fact!" These are actual words said about this game when having a conversation with Yummylee about The Zombie Vs Ambulance. This has me wondering if the driving in this budget PS2 game is actually good or that the driving in the big, blockbuster game is some of the worst I have ever encountered.
It has been suggested that maybe my perspective on these budget games might have shifted due to the high volume of rubbish I subject myself to on a regular basis. When I start saying games like this are "alright" or "pretty good" is that in comparison to other games in the series or video games as a whole? I don't like questioning myself about things like this. I like to think my taste in games is varied and interesting, and like silly B/C/D grade movies, I can see the positives in what are largely pieces of shit. The Zombie Vs Ambulance is genuinely ok though... for a few hours anyways.
The setup is as simple as this. You're in a hospital when an earthquake happens which causes people to turn into zombies. Have you got that? There is absolutely no other setup than this. Luckily you're in a hospital when this happens as you have easy access to zombie curification. Being a paramedic it's your duty to round up the survivors spread around the city using the best vehicle for the job... an ambulance.
You start the game on foot running around a half empty garage with a stern looking lady in a lab coat that teaches you how to play the game and a "sexy" nurse in inappropriate clothing for the situation that gives you your stats on how many things you've killed, how many people you have saved and how happy everyone is. I am skeptical about whether the ambulance driver (Unnamed) you control was actually a paramedic before the outbreak started as he looks like some dude I went to college with that was way into skateboarding. He has two earrings in one ear, shorts, a vest and some trainers on. The only thing to signify that he has any experience as a medical professional is the white coat he wears over the top of his rad sk8ter-wear.
After chatting to everyone I run sk8ter Boi over to the only ambulance available and drive into the city. The default ambulance has pretty good handling and can store up to two passengers. When I am in the ambulance I can drive around using the map to decide where I want to go, but can't be gone for too long as the huge picture of the hospital lit up yellow in the top left of the screen darkens the longer I am away from everyone back at base. I'm going to assume they feel much safer when I'm doing sick grinds and nosefliptricks (???!?) for their entertainment.
As I drive around the city I can either run over or avoid the zombies running around the streets. If I hit enough of them in a row a lady will shout out GOOD! Keep hitting them and she'll also tell me my combo chain is both GREAT! and EXCELLENT! I once ran over a chain of 52 zombie, but she stops around the 30 mark which is a little disappointing. The zombies, like Dead Rising don't really pose all that much of a threat, so it's a little strange as the farther you get into the game the more variations they introduce. (Zombie dogs, big zombie, gun zombie etc.) Sometimes one will grab onto the side of your ambulance requiring you to wiggle the sticks to throw them off, but for the most part you'll have no problem with them.
The main goal is to save as many people as possible. Every time you collect a set amount of survivors a politician will appear randomly on the map. (Starts at ten per politician.) Collect three of them and they'll open up another section of the city. Once you pick up a survivor a timer ticks down and a huge arrow appears on screen directing you back to the hospital. If you don't get back in time the human will turn into a zombie which is signified by some huge teeth appearing in the middle of the screen. The only way to deal with your infected passenger at this point is to repeatedly drive into walls, probably harming everyone else in the vehicle for life. The different types of survivor you can rescue range from civilian men/women, soldiers, police officers and mechanics. Soldiers and police officers increase the hospitals defense, and civilians boost your morale. (If you run out of morale it is game over apparently.) The mechanics are easily the most important to rescue though. Mechanics mean upgrades, and the more mechanics you rescue the better upgrades they can install on your ambulance.
The upgrades range from better tyres (Tires, but it's totally spelt tyres in the game!) jet boosts, armour, survivor scanners and mounted blades for the front of your ambulance. Once you get a certain amount of mechanics you can build bigger and better ambulances that carry more people and handle better. In order to build the upgrades you need to research them by running over a set number of zombies, the higher the upgrade the more zombies that need to be killed, with the new ambulances being the most expensive. I unlocked three different sizes of ambulance and a police car during my playthrough, but never found out what the fifth unlock is. There seems to be so little information about this game in English online that I couldn't find out what the conditions for unlocking the final vehicle are. The bigger vehicles are slower, but carry more people and the smaller ones are much faster. Strangely the police car is easily the best vehicle in a game about ambulances. Despite it only being able to seat two passengers it is super fast and has an insane turning radius on the spot.
Makes sense.
The game's biggest problem is how repetitive it is. There was something oddly addictive to begin with. The loop of saving people and unlocking things was quite satisfying, but after a handful of hours realising you're doing the same thing over and over and over again is quite tiring, especially once you have unlocked everything in the shop. The only thing to break up the core gameplay loop is the bosses... "what!?" I hear you say. Even the ambulance driver is surprised about this and has the exact same reaction.
The bosses in this game are something else. The very first boss is a giant mutant worm that you need to trick into zipping past you so you can drive into its side. Seeing as the ambulance has no weapons, the bosses seem to be more about knowing when to drive into them than any kind of pattern. The second boss is an army zombie that climbs up the side of buildings shooting and throwing grenades at you. All of the bosses can actually do a lot of damage, so you have to be pretty cautious, especially with the army zombie as the entire fight takes place in a thin alleyway. It mostly becomes a case of driving forwards and reversing for ten minutes until he stops for a few seconds in the middle of the road. Thankfully the other bosses I encountered take place in large arenas I could just drive around in circles and hope for the best. The worst fight has to be a giant laser beam shooting moth as about 99% of the time it is flying around in the sky. Obviously this is a pain for road vehicles, and the time to hit the moth when it is on the ground is so miniscule it feels like luck when you do any damage to it. Why are you fighting a giant moth in this game?... I don't know... I just don't know.
The first real cutscene I got in The Zombie Vs Ambulance was about five hours into the game (I'm using the term cutscene pretty loosely here.) and all the doctor lady had to tell me was that the zombie outbreak and the giant monsters are somehow connected to the earthquake. No shit! I continued to play this game for nine and a half hours... that is NINE AND A HALF HOURS, and to be fair I kinda enjoyed my time with it for a while, but after the city opened up for a fifth time asking me to do the exact same pattern of things I just couldn't do it anymore. I'm a little saddened that I'll never find out why this city is split up into zones like a Mario game (desert, ice, forest.) and I'll never see the final boss which I assume will be some variation on an army zombie, a giant worm or a laser moth... It will be truly upsetting if I somehow find out it is a combination of all three, but I have a vast backlog of terrible games to endure to make me feel alive.
I was pretty shocked at how ok this game actually is. I expected it to be borderline broken, but I was surprised to see that there are a bunch of systems in place that all make sense, things that someone has clearly thought about. Sure, the bosses are kinda wonky and it could do with a little more variety, but I've played much less interesting games with higher budgets. Maybe this really does come down to the other games I have been rotating through recently as the vast majority of them are really, really awful with almost no redeeming features. Maybe my standards really are at an all time low. I dunno, the second I start seeing the positives in Sonic 06 is when I will need someone to punch me right in the face.
The driving really is better than in Watch Dogs.
Probably one of my favourite moments in any zombie film ever.
End bit.
I have a feeling that the next game I'm going to talk about has Japanese girls in bikinis in it. If you are by any chance following my descent into madness you will probably see that Japanese girls in bikinis are a pretty common theme within the Simple 2000 series of games. Every one of these games I survive put me closer to finally playing Billy Hatcher though, surely that will be the greatest reward of all.
Thanks for reading and be excellent to each other.
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