Mow down more zombies with more weapons, more character choices and more ways to upgrade. Everything that was good about Zombie Shooter is back with more of everything that is good for decimating hordes and hordes of zombies.

Release Date

July 2009.

Pros

An improvement on the first Zombie Shooter, there are now characters that tell you what you should be doing in the game. All the conversations are one-sided, but at least the speech sound OK. This essentially meant that there is a better story, but I was too busy mowing down zombies to pay attention to what it was all about.

You get to drive vehicles in some missions. It is not as good as the likes of Zombie Driver HD, but it still does give the game more variety. There are also a couple of missions where you are in a vehicle but only aim and fire. Kind of like a moving gun stand.

There are a lot more weapons in Zombie Shooter 2 than in the first game. They are categorised into types like pistols, machine guns and shotguns etc. Each individual model has its own characteristics, though, so pick your favourites to get the job done.

With the addition of an inventory system and being able to sell stuff, Zombie Shooter 2 feels even more like an RPG than its predecessor.

The level designs are more detailed and varied. It allows for more tactical combat rather than straight run and gun. Don’t expect Rainbow Six level of tactical flexibility though.

Gun stand! This is the good gun stand almost identical to the one in Alien Shooter – Revisited. That is, you get to upgrade your gun emplacement in between waves of zombies.

The dark parts of the game are almost completely black, so investment in a good flashlight or night vision goggles are a must.

Cons

Text does not display properly. Not sure if this is a Windows 10 issue. Running the Windows 10 compatibility troubleshooter did not fix it. Setting the Windows text display scaling to 100% also did not fix it.

There are more music tracks in Zombie Shooter 2, but other than the introduction/menu music, which is identical to Zombie Shooter, the rest of the music did not sound as good as the first game.

Same like the other shooters, a mission can take quite a long time and you cannot save in the middle of a mission. The longest mission took me 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete and the game’s recording time said that it took me 9 hours and 41 minutes to complete the whole thing on hard difficulty. Be advised that this time did not take into account repeated play of some levels.

Despite the improvements from the older games, Zombie Shooter 2 is still a “shooter”, which means it is still very repetitive.

Other Points

Around the 18th of December 2019, the Steam version of Zombie Shooter 2 received an update to support full HD resolution. The GOG.com version has not been updated and there is no patch for the GamersGate SecuROM version. So, if full HD is a requirement, Steam is the way to go.

Even though there are a lot of weapons, there are only three slots to arm them. The slots are for small, medium and large weapons. As such, you can only change quickly between one and three as opposed to one and nine in the first Zombie Shooter. Each slot does cycle through all your available weapons for that slot though, so you can still use all the weapons you are carrying. It just takes a little bit more time to swap.

For those that like to tweak their atmosphere, there are options to play the game in black and white and have the grainy film effect. Personally, I find both settings annoying, but they are there for those who want them. I have taken screenshots of all the different combination of modes for this review.

Just like the first Zombie Shooter, you get experience and when you level up, you can choose which attributes to boost. There are also more attributes to choose from.

Zombie Shooter 2 does have survival mode, but I did not play it much.

I probably will not be playing the first Zombie Shooter anymore. Zombie Shooter 2 is better than the first game in every way.

Biases

Most of this review is based on the GamersGate SecuROM version of the game. More recently, I have been playing the Steam and GOG.com versions of the game.

I have completed the main campaign once on hard difficulty. I also played a lot of gun stand.

I really liked Zombie Shooter, Alien Shooter – Revisited and Theseus – Return of the Hero.

I also really liked Zombie Driver HD.

DRM

For my GamersGate version, the first time starting the game after installation, the message popped up

“This software must be activated prior usage. For activation a valid SERIAL is essential. Please enter your SERIAL in the supplied text area and press ACTIVATE to unlock. Press CANCEL to abort. “

After inserting the serial and clicking activate, the game phoned home to activate.

Zombie Shooter 2 is available DRM-free from GOG.com.

Minimum Requirements (as stated in the Readme.txt)

Operating System: Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP
Processor: 1.7 GHz CPU
Memory: 256 MB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 2.5 GB available
Video: nVidia GeForce2 / ATI Radeon 8500 or better video card with 32MB video memory
Sound: DirectX 9.0c or better compatible sound card
Input: Windows Compatible Keyboard and Mouse