When reviewing a game, I generally like to start with a bit of background to the story, but Burn Zombie Burn! really has no background. Rather, watch any zombie-killing movie, such as Dawn of the Dead or simply understand that “zombie = bad and must die,” and you will have a solid understanding of what you are getting into with this game.

As in most games, you are the protagonist. Your mission: Kill as many zombies as possible (Free Play), kill as many zombies as possible in a minute (Timed) or keep your girlfriend Daisy safe as long as possible by killing as many zombies as possible (Defend Daisy) — essentially a very simple, intuitive gameplay mechanic. Along the same line of simplicity is the three-fourths-overhead view and easy controls for running around and firing bullets. The difficulty enters with actually hitting your targets, because running around and shooting will result in randomly hitting zombies that are not yet posing a threat to you. There is an aim button, but after playing for a few hours, I wondered why auto-locking on the nearest target was not implemented. Holding the L1 button to aim becomes an annoyance for no foreseeable purpose, and I generally tend to believe annoying the player should be avoided at all costs.

Without getting too far into the gameplay, I would like to make mention of the music and sound effects for this game. Unfortunately, whether it was purposeful or not, both are lacking. From the PlayStation 3 menu select screen all the way through the levels of the game, the music is abrasive and bombarding. There appears to be a rock theme on top of wailing voices, but having this music at a tolerable volume still sets you up for cringing while flipping through the menu options; each selection fires an incredibly loud gun sound — it seems there was no normalizing or balancing of the audio in this game.

Burn Zombie Burn! is not totally without merit as the humorous efforts of doublesix did not go unnoticed. The title of the game made me smile and fits nicely with the overall idea that if you’re surrounded by too many zombies, you simply whip out your ever-burning torch and run through the crowd. This ignites the zombies, giving them more speed and power but weakening their overall health. Picking up a certain megaphone-type secondary weapon allows you to blast a group of zombies with what appears to be radio waves and set them dancing to the moves of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” When you die, your body either explodes or is pulled into the ground in a hellish manner.

The weapons in this game, while not entirely original, were entertaining. I truly enjoyed equipping the lawnmower and literally mowing through zombies. The different types of zombie creations also were a nice touch. There is a basic zombie that is slow and weak, a helmeted/charging zombie, a manhole shield-wielding zombie, a spinning ballerina zombie, an explosive zombie, an irradiated zombie and a massive, fire-breathing zombie. Kicking around dynamite will knock out large waves, but I found it frustrating to never know what my goal was in each level. To unlock other levels, you have to be awarded a bronze medal, but I never saw the points total or number of zombies I needed to kill in order to be awarded said medal.

Burn Zombie Burn! presents itself as a tongue-in-cheek, archetypal zombie-killer but, somewhere along the way, forgot about necessary polish. After a few hours of play, I truly believed I was playing a final beta version of this game that was a couple of weeks away from going gold. Unfortunately, this is the final product. From a writer’s standpoint, I would have appreciated some sort of storyline to go along with the game. It wouldn’t have to be on the grand scale of a Japanese role-playing game, but simply something to make it worth my while to continuously slaughter hordes of the undead.

If you're as particular about polish and prefer a story to your games (as I do), I'd suggest passing on this one. However, if you just enjoy going around killing zombies, this game might be for you. Personally, though, I feel that doublesix has the ability to produce a game of higher caliber given more time, and I would not be opposed to playing one of their future releases.