If a vote is held among straight male gamers for the “most popular military unit”, the sniper will undoubtedly be at the top of the list. Since its birth, this military unit has been endowed with the sense of pretentiousness of “taking a person’s head from a thousand meters away without making a sound”. In peacetime, it has been exaggerated by many literary and film and television works, which has added a touch of poetry to this military unit.
When it comes to snipers in video games, the first thing that comes to mind is the eternal double sniper level in “Call of Duty 4”; or the beret hiding in the woods in “Red Alert” who can kill an entire team by himself; some older CS players may think of the powerful Johnny R.
However, these are just some icing on the cake elements of the game. There are not many games that truly use snipers as the protagonists. Even today, there are even fewer that can continue to launch sequels, which makes the Sniper Elite series particularly precious.
From 2005 to February 2020, the series has released four sequels and four spin-offs, totaling eight works. The game is set in World War II and tells the story of a sniper played by the protagonist who goes deep behind enemy lines and single-handedly turns the Nazi army upside down. The most well-known of these is the bullet time and the X-ray perspective when hitting a specific part. Therefore, this selfie is called the “egg explosion simulator” by countless players.
The “Zombie Army Trilogy Collection” officially released on the 31st of last month is exactly the collection of the first three parts of the game spin-off “Zombie Army”, which is a collection of cold rice that was launched on PC, PS4 and Xbox platforms in 2015. The launch on the NS platform is also a play of “old wine in a new bottle”. As for whether this bottle of old wine is aged or delicious, let’s taste it to find out.
How does old wine taste in a new bottle?
After all, this game was once sold at a discount price of less than 30 yuan on the Steam platform. If the NS platform does not have a portable gaming experience, it will not be competitive. Although the performance of the NS can only reach the level of PS3 and Xbox360, the frame rate of the game is very stable during the actual experience (forgive my poor eyesight, I can’t tell whether it is 30 or 60), and even in the portable handheld mode, the resolution and frame rate are not reduced at all. For those friends who want to fight zombies on the way to work or when traveling, this alone may be worth the price.
In terms of the visual expression, the details of the game, from the vegetation to the characters’ faces, are the same as those of the PC version. Since almost all the scenes in the game take place at night, the disadvantage of the light and shadow performance is just covered up. It makes sense, after all, this is an old game released in 2015. Even if the NS is weak, it is more than enough to handle this game.
Having said the good, it’s time to talk about the bad. As soon as you enter the game, you can find that “Zombie Army Trilogy” on NS is another violent port. Except for the occasional bugs in the game, the Chinese localization level is comparable to that of a machine translation. Although the default language of the game is simplified Chinese, many Chinese characters in the game make me feel like “I know every word in this sentence, but I don’t know them when they are put together.” It’s okay that “body control” was translated into “motion control” and confused me for a long time, but translating “hold your breath” when opening the scope into “empty dragon” is really too confusing. I don’t know why.
As for the two new features added this time, HD vibration and somatosensory aiming, the former feels good overall. Due to its size, the joy-con cannot provide as strong feedback as the Xbox controller, but it is also more delicate and changeable. The somatosensory aiming of the latter is a bit difficult to tell at a glance. Although the somatosensory aiming function has been added to the NS version, don’t think that you can always hit the target like in “Splatoon 2”.
First of all, somatosensory aiming can only take effect in the sniper rifle’s scope mode. In addition, according to the author’s test, even if the sensitivity of the somatosensory control is adjusted to the maximum, the amplitude of the aiming can only be called “fine-tuning”, which is probably the degree to which you aim at the neck and can slightly adjust it to the head through somatosensory. Most of the time in the game, we still have to rely on the perspective of the right joystick to aim. Unlike TPS games with cover systems such as “Uncharted” or “Gears of War”, the fast pace of “Zombie Army Trilogy” will not give you time to aim slowly. The suicide soldiers that appear from time to time in the enemy army will even run wildly to launch suicide attacks on you. This has caused the game to have no problems under the keyboard and mouse operation of the PC platform, but it is too difficult on the host platform without assisted aiming.
The Inextricable Relationship between the Führer and Zombies
World War II is the most recent global war, and it has been brought to the console platform countless times from various perspectives. The original works of the Sniper Elite series focus on sniper soldiers, and the story takes place from Berlin, Germany to North Africa, but its main plot and gameplay cannot jump out of the established framework. In summary, it is a few links such as infiltration, sabotage, and assassination.
As a sniper who is alone and deep behind enemy lines, even the slightest negligence may lead to his death. Therefore, the game requires us to be as careful as possible in every action. So the overall pace of the game is very slow. In the level, we need to spend a lot of time sneaking into the mission location, and then we have to attack the enemy according to the instructions. We must not act recklessly.
Rebellion probably realized this, or was influenced by zombie games such as Left 4 Dead, and released its first spin-off, Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army, in the form of an expansion pack in 2013. In the story setting, Hitler, who saw that the battle of World War II was over, released a super army composed of zombies in a last-ditch effort. Although this story sounds very ridiculous, after all, there is a precedent of Wolfenstein 3D, so Rebellion’s move can at best be regarded as inheriting the fine tradition of its predecessors.
This time, “Zombie Army Trilogy” is said to be a collection of three spin-offs, but in fact it can be regarded as a coherent game. The game is divided into three major chapters with a total of 15 levels, and the process is not long.
Unlike the slow pace of the original works, the biggest feature of the “Zombie Army” series is its relatively refreshing pace. When you open the game, there are no lengthy CG clips or dense battle reports. When you select the game mode and click Start, you will immediately enter the loading screen. Even the weapon selection is completed on this page. It can be said that the two big words “simply” are written directly on the screen.
The game also directly skips the infiltration stage. All we have to do is move forward to the destination and kill all the zombies in the process. The overall process of each level is basically copied from the “Left 4 Dead” series. Every once in a while, the player can enter a safe house for supplies, and then go to the next location after replenishing. The battle is mainly composed of blocking battles and encounter battles. In the encounter battle, zombies will suddenly appear from all directions and block the player’s way. In the blocking battle, we will be given a certain amount of time to prepare. When the time is up, a large number of zombies will emerge at each intersection. How to use the environment and props becomes the key to winning this battle.
Speaking of combat, I, who was quite confident in controller games, still failed. Even at the normal difficulty, the frequency and speed of enemy spawning were already very tricky, which was different from how to deal with enemies one by one in the original game. Facing a tide of enemies, if you can’t kill them quickly from a distance, then once you get into close combat, you have no chance of winning.
This is also reflected in a series of game settings. First of all, like all zombie games, only headshots can kill them, and destroying the torso and limbs can only temporarily slow down their movement. And these zombies move in different ways, so even with the help of slow motion, it is difficult to accurately aim at every zombie head that is shaking up and down (not to mention some special individuals who are wearing helmets and cannot be killed with one shot).
If this situation is not too bad on the PC side, it becomes particularly tricky on the NS version without assisted aiming. Although the game also equips players with weapons such as shotguns and submachine guns, the limited amount of portable ammunition and the unimpressive damage force players to use sniper rifles as their main weapons.
Therefore, more often than not (especially in sniping battles), the game relies more on scene weapons (such as gunpowder barrels, oil tanks) and throwing and installing weapons (such as trip mines, landmines and grenades). These weapons can eliminate large groups of zombies in an instant. How to cleverly find the right time and burial position also adds a bit of strategy to the game.
On the other hand, the “Thousand-mile Egg Explosion Technique” that made the original game famous is still one of the core gameplays of the game. However, in order to maintain the fast pace of the game, the close-up shots of X-rays and bullet times are further compressed under the default settings. On average, it may not be triggered once in sniping 20 zombies. But I have to say that every time it is triggered, the shot is still exciting. The physics system perfectly restores the entire process from the bullet entering the human body to colliding with the bones and shattering them. Every bullet flying out of the lower body makes the author feel a tightness in his lower body.
Conclusion
In general, in terms of gaming experience, Zombie Army Trilogy did not bring me any special surprises. The stable frame rate and the uncompromised graphics were expected, and the somatosensory aiming was tasteless. However, just like Diablo 3, Devil May Cry 3, Resident Evil series and other games that we have played on the PC platform again and again, just seeing them being moved to portable platforms one day and being able to play a game anytime and anywhere is enough for us to cheer for a long time.
As a cold dish, “Zombie Army Trilogy” is also such a work, with guns, cannons, and countless zombies. Just imagine that on the subway on the way to work or on the plane, there is such a refreshing game that you can play a few times anytime and anywhere. Finally, the current price of this game is about 200 yuan, which is still slightly overpriced. It is recommended that you wait until the electronic version is discounted to about 130 yuan for the best purchase.