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Release a game simply called Zombies today - as this Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive title was named in Europe - and the best reaction you could expect is a weary roll of the eyes as an undead-saturated medium groans at the very prospect of more shambling cadavers to wade through. The world was different back in 1994, though. Resident Evil didn't even exist back then, and the prospect of thinning the reanimated horde was still fresh. Or as fresh as a mobile carcass of rotten meat can be.Zombies - or Zombies Ate My Neighbors, to use its full US title - wasn't really a horror game, though. At least, not in the blood and guts sense. Developed by LucasArts and published by Konami, it was a wonderfully witty and playful tribute to B-movie horror and sci-fi of all kinds. The titular zombies may form the baseline threat, but the game draws on every kind of monster and menace to ever loom over a drive-in.
In terms of construction, Zombies is, like so many older console games, deliciously simple. After choosing to play as either Zeke or Julie (or both, in two-player), you roam around maze-like levels looking for a stock set of suburban survivors. Reach them before the constantly spawning monsters do, or they get munched. Let all the survivors die and it's game over.
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