Zombie Escape-The Driving Dead for iPhone

Zombie Escape - The Driving Dead attempts to inject something new into the increasingly stale zombie game genre, but it runs into numerous performance and design-related issues. The game, while interesting and at times quite fun, never plays smoothly; and because of strange decisions by the developers will almost certainly be a frustrating experience for most gamers in its free iteration.

The initial setup for Zombie Escape, after installation, is a frustrating process. It takes some time to navigate the menus, not all of the buttons work right away, and a lot of what you're trying to read or watch is hidden behind onscreen ads, which only further hinder performance. The game, itself, looks good and runs smoothly in the background. You control a vehicle--at the start, an ambulance--and must find certain items and complete certain objectives to unlock the next area, all while avoiding zombies that will latch on and attack your vehicle. While the speed with which a fairly heavy ambulance takes damage from relatively slow zombies is interesting and the game's corridors and maps are often very generic, the lighting, layout, and overall execution are quite well done, making for the right ambience.

The biggest issue, however, at least in the free version of this game, is the ad that appears in the middle of the screen, on top of the game, blocking a good chunk of screen and making it unnecessarily hard to accomplish any of your goals. If you upgrade or can ignore the ad, there is a decent game here, albeit with some menu issues; but for those playing the lite version, this is almost a game breaker.