Thank you Gamers Gate for giving us this game to review.

A disease has spread that turns people into zombies. Unless you\'ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know that zombies - have rotting flesh - eat brains - will attack any human that isn\'t a zombie.   Your name is Ben Riley and your goal is to locate survivors, food, medical supplies and ammunition from the deserted town. You must gather everyone and everything into your fort and defend it from the zombie apocalypse.

The concept here is rather unique; it’s a survival horror game with RPG elements When you start the game you must choose a profession for Ben.  This profession will determine his base stats which include Smarts, Power, Speed, Finesse and Toughness.    The realism also makes this game unique.   You won’t start off as a sharp shooter and will often miss your target.  You’re also not an Olympian and will tire out and have to stop and catch your breath.

In this game you’re running against the clock.  With each new day, you’ll discover food and weapon stashes and locations of survivors.    It takes time to get to these areas and you usually won’t have enough time to complete all the missions before nightfall.  You can still do missions at night, but there’s a lot more zombies and it’s best to conserve your ammo.  It’s too hard to come by.

If you rescue people, they can join your party and help you scavenge loot and attack zombies.  Your party also has various skill sets, make sure to utilize them!  If a party member is wounded you can leave them at the fort to heal and build up the defenses.  The fort is the only place you can save, I wish there was a quick save option.

If a party member dies or you don’t have enough food, the morale will drop.  If the morale drops too low, some people may leave your party.  One thing I learned the hard way is that if you leave a party member behind, there is no way to get them back.  Make sure everyone is with you before you go into an extraction point.

The artificial intelligence is lacking in this game.  It’s way too easy to lose a party member behind a car or a fence.  They are smart enough to switch weapons when they run out of ammo.  I didn’t expect the zombies to be that bright but the party AI is frustrating.

My biggest complaint is the camera controls.  This game is in a third person view and you have to constantly correct the camera angling.  You get used to it after a while but it’s still very clunky.

The artificial intelligence is another aspect lacking in this game. It’s way too easy to lose a party member behind a car or a fence. Luckily they are smart enough to switch weapons when they run out of ammo or things would be a total wash. I didn’t expect the zombies to be that bright but the party AI can be really frustrating.

My biggest complaint is the camera controls. This game is in a third person view and you have to constantly correct the camera angling. You get used to it somewhat after a while but it’s still very clunky and very unforgivable. Perhaps they\'ll put in a patch that fixes this.

The physics can go a little over the top at times with bodies bouncing around like ping-pong balls, but that\'s what ragdolls are for aren\'t they? The graphics are outdated and the textures are not very sharp. The zombie models are recycled to town and back, but they do have unique attacks and personalities. The model animations are a bit strange at times. Sometimes instead of walking the NPC’s slide like they’re on escalators. When your character Ben takes damage his body distorts into rather unnatural and impossible positions.

The main menu has music but the game itself is relatively quiet. There is no background music and the sound effects are sparse. It does add to the realism - all you hear are the gruesome growls and screams of the zombies and the loud, staccato reports of automatic weapons. Occasionally people will make comments, but most of those pop up on screen in text.

I haven’t run into any stability issues but I didn’t start playing until version 1.07 was released. The patches released have offered stability fixes and new weapons. Speaking of weapons, you’ll get to use guns, swords, axes, bats, crowbars, shovels and more.

With zombies, come weapons. With weapons comes violence. This game is about as violent as you might expect of a game titled Fort Zombie.   With every hit you’ll see blood splatter, limbs fall off and blood puddles.  The zombies are grotesque looking and often displaying their internal organs.  Other than violence, you’ll see some swearing in the text and manual for the game.  Lastly, some posters on the wall show cleavage.

Fort Zombie retails for ten dollars and I’ve seen it as low as five dollars.  I was disappointed by this game, I thought the concept was good but the execution is poor.  The game play is too mundane and the AI and camera controls make it a chore to play.  I couldn’t find an ESRB Rating for this game but I think it would qualify for an M rating.  I don’t recommend playing it in front of kids, they won’t hear much, but there are plenty of blood and guts on display.