If you are a person who likes to have a good laugh at or enjoys all the old zombie movies or even the newer ones. Then this could be a game for you. This game comes in a small box, and has several expansions which you could pick up as well.

The base set Zombies!!! game comes packed with 100 plastic zombies, 6 plastic shotgun men, and a fairly big stack of cards and a whole wack of chits with hearts and bullet icons. The rule book is not really a rule book, but more like a rule sheet. And a whole pile of city map tiles.

Shotgun Guys = These are you or your other zombie survivalist.

Zombies = Really, do I need to say what these are for?

City Tiles = Small square sheets that are bits of a map which are laid out as the game goes on. Buildings, streets, stores, etc.

Cards = These cards can be used by a player to either help or hinder others, or just help themselves. They range from a wide range of cool, silly, ridiculous and down right nasty things. Even weapons or items can be found for use with some these cards.

Chits = These are used as counters that represent health, and bullets. These are placed through out the city as it grows. You will learn that you want to get these before others do. (nothing worse then getting stuck deep inside a zombie infested city, with no bullets left for the shotgun!) Which will help you modify your dice rolls during combat and other events.

The Object of this game is to survive! And to survive, you either need to get to the helicopter pad or kill 25 zombies first. The key word is first, because there are other players trying to do the same, and they will do what they can to make you a zombie snack.

Mechanics: Do not go and buy this game expecting detailed rules, realistic settings and logical outcomes. Like I said the box is small, the rules are on a sheet of paper. This is a simple game, with simple mechanics.

In short,
A person lays a city tile (placing zombies and tokens as per instructions)
Fights what ever zombies are on his tile
Draws cards
Moves
Moves zombies (as per instructions)
Then discards a card. (which means end of his turn)

With in short order, the city grows fast, and so do the number of zombies! The goal of the game which is simple is to escape on the helicopter or kill 25 zombies!!!. The helicopter tile, which is one of the tiles buried in the city tile deck. Now, the person drawing the Helicopter tile, usually places the card closer to him and further away from others. Causing a mad rush to the helicopter. This can call for a rather intense race with cards being played all over the place. And everyone making a B Line for it. People, who are completely on the other side of town will either do what ever they can to kill as many zombies as they can OR to make it as hard as possible for the others which are closer to a ride home then they are.

After playing a few times, and reading some of the cards you will no doubt be thinking of all the silly zombie stereotype movies. More times then not, I am brought back to thinking about any of the “Evil Dead” movies. As cards effects or artwork lean heavily on all of these style movies.

This game can be taught to people with in minutes of them sitting at the table.

Some of my thoughts on the game:

Is the game scary? No, not really. It’s a fun game, meant to provide lots of fun and back stabbing opportunities on other players.

Does it make you feel like you are in a deserted city with nothing but the undead and you are hopelessly outnumbered and about to die a gruesome death? Not really. I find it more of a comical relief from every day life, where you can blow lots of zombies away and try
and push some of your friends into the doorway and close it behind them.

Is the game fun? Absolutely, if you go into it with a good sense of humor and
spiteful revenge and expecting nothing more then a fun easy game to play.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, but it’s not for everyone. Like I said, it’s a simple fun
fast game. Realism and logic is kinda out the window on this one.

What are the components like? The zombies are all the same mold. If they had a few different molds tossed into the mix, it would have been better. (But you can buy a bag of zombies, and they are different styles) The chits in the base set were all black, which makes it kinda hard to see. But, this was fixed in later sets, where the heart tokens became a bright red color. The tiles are just a bristol board square with a bright shinny gloss. It’s a little hard to see if you have bright lights on. But this game is more fun in a darker room anyways.

Would I buy the expansions? I will and I have. All of them. Each one adds something a little new and different. And you can mix and match the sets to your like or dislike.

That’s my view on this game. Out of a 10, I give it a 8!

I hope this helps

Regards
SGJ

Good review

This is indeed a game that must be taken lightly and is best enjoyed in a casual atmosphere were the game itself is secondary to having fun and goofing around.

Having said that I must disagree strongly on the 'fast' part of the review. I've played the games several times and it has never been less that 2 hours long. In fact a third have been called due to people being ready to move onto something else.

There are also several good rule variations to be found here on the geek, that can make the game a little gamier, for those who want get a little more out of it.

For the record its a 6 for me.

Good day,

You know that since before reading the reviews here of Zombies!!! I never considered it a long game. There has been times where the game has been almost 2 hours long. But most of the games have been around the 60 minute mark, give or take a few.

But to me, and maybe I should have stated earlier that a fast game is anywhere around 60 minutes to play. But, thats just me. For some people a fast game is 30 minutes or less. Thats light speed for me. But then again, I am very use to playing games that take hours to play.. so its a good relaxing quick game for me.

Thanks for your comments

Regards
SGJ

I've played it one and a half times now (I'm in the middle of a game now, we left the board alone at Jerry's house to guard it)

The first game went fast. I was able to reach the heliport successfully with the alternative food source card letting me skip over 4 zombies rather quickly.

Second game - currently the "half" game has been ongoing for about 2 hours now because my wife and I keep rolling lousy dice and dying. I'm still trying to reach the heliport, she seems intent on killing 25 zombies. She's been up to 18 on 2 seperate occasions, only to lose half of them to death. I've been as close as 1 space away from the helicopter before death. It's frustrating in a way, but that's the part of the game that's great. The fact that it's not easy to win, even in a two player scenario where the two players aren't directly competing the same way.