14 DAY TRIAL // There are quite a lot of promising games on Steam Early Access nowadays and among them is the intriguingly-named ZAMB! Biomutant Extermination from independent developer Nano Games.
The title promises to deliver a fun action tower defense experience in which players can control two characters that must defend hacked reactors from waves of, you guessed it, biomutant creatures. With two distinct characters, a suite of powers, and plenty of varied environments, the game looks quite promising.
Does it deliver on its goals or should it be exterminated itself? Let's have a quick look.
ZAMB certainly looks like a mobile game and borrows heavily from such titles, from the stylized visuals to the separation of missions and much more. However, this doesn't mean that it's a shallow experience. Quite the opposite, there are a lot of role-playing mechanics at work.
For starters, the game features two different main characters, between which you can swap at any time. There's Cye, a hands-on brawler who uses energy claws and different powers to eliminate foes and there's Chrome, a long-range specialist who can fire projectiles and set up turrets.
You earn money during a stage by eliminating foes and your goal is to defend the various reactors from the minions of the mad scientist villain. They spawn from certain points around the map and you are free to organize the defense in whatever way you want.
When you're not controlling a character, he's guided by the AI but, at least when it comes to Cye, the AI tends to always take him right in the middle of enemies, which promptly gang up on him and lower his health drastically. As such, you're more often than not forced to control Cye and just make sure he doesn't get killed. If one of your protagonists dies, he can be respawned at one of the hacked reactors.
In terms of actual gameplay, the title is reminiscent of Orcs Must Die, although with an isometric view, instead of a third-person one. You can set up turrets and traps, as well as use weapons and different attacks that you buy with the money earned from killing foes.
Between matches you can upgrade your attacks, abilities, loadouts, and gadgets, so there's a lot of depth.
Unfortunately, there are still some issues, particularly in terms of performance. The game doesn't run that well on powerful PCs, with framerates in the mid-20s on an Nvidia GTX 670. Disabling the Steam Overlay helps and Nano Games has confirmed that it's going to solve this crucial problem ahead of launch.
Even so, ZAMB! Biomutant Extermination is looking quite good.
