I’m one of those people that doesn’t always ‘get’ art. It can take time for the best of us. Imagine how Vincent van Gogh’s contemporaries would have been kicking themselves now, if they’d known how much some of those stunning paintings they had no interest in would come to be worth.
Am I putting Zombies Ate My Neighbors up there with the deft Dutch dauber’s Starry Night and Vase With Fifteen Sunflowers? You bet your hilariously retro 3D glasses I am. It may not be one ofthe best-received Genesis games ever, but I just can’t resist it.
Now, I was born in 1988, which means there are some 90s icons that I was just too young to appreciate. Terminator 2 was one of them (though young me did happen to catch a glimpse of the scene in which the T-1000 impales John Connor’s foster father through the mouth, which terrified me nicely just before bedtime). This Konami-published title was another.
The fact is, even if you were old enough to be gaming then, you might not really have noticed this title on its release. It didn’t exactly have a big name attached to it, but it did have the advantage of exposure on both the Genesis and the SNES.
Today’s Game of the Year material, it probably wasn’t. However, those that did dive in back then were treated to a tongue-in-cheek shooter with an engaging scoring system and a boatload of humor and silly references.
There’s something delightfully B-movie about Zombies Ate My Neighbors, something it embodied several years before the original Resident Evil arrived (kicking off one of Capcom’s most beloved franchises) and showed us what B-movie cheese was really all about. It revolves around a nefarious scientist, who is unleashing his titular zombies (and all manner of other cliched monsters) on the land.
Who’s there to save those neighbors from their grim fate? You, in the role of either Julie or Zeke. These plucky youngsters must roam top-down environments, blasting horror-inspired enemies away in true arcade fashion.
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There’s a little more strategy to the whole affair, in that neighbors equal points and the aim is to get to the next level with as many saved as you may. The thing that’s most endearing about the game, however, is its Ghostbusters-eque humor-horror blend.Reviews don’t always do horror games of any description justice, mark you.
If you’ve never played the game before, as so many haven’t, the screenshots on this page alone really do enough to convey the kind of vibe on offer here. Playing through in multiplayer is a couch co-op delight, the likes of which we just don’t see enough these days.
It’s a vibe that also defines another Sega Genesis game, Haunting Starring Polterguy, which was released the very same year. In this adventure, the player explores a house as a pesky poltergeist, frightening the occupants through any means they can.
Most of the objects in the Haunting house are interactable, and each has its own comedic effects, which different family members react to in different ways. Like Zombies Ate My Neighbors, its cheeky and unique humor has been rediscovered by a new generation, and so cult classic status was assured.
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Both games are true jewels of my Genesis collection (I cherry-pick my favorite releases for my most beloved console), and are as unique and playable as they ever were. Zombies Ate My Neighbors’ follow-up, Ghoul Patrol, is still more than worth playing too.Lots of games are better with zombies in them, after all.
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