Dead Block

Though Dead Block's zombie combat would benefit from easier targeting, its rockabilly music, amusing characters (zombie clowns, anyone?) and manic pacing more than compensate. The campy madness only gets better in split-screen co-op, so not having online multiplayer is a shame, but for hectic puzzle-action fun, this game delivers.

Dead Block is a fun and fresh proposal, although a bit simple and not very lasting. Hilarious and very fun between friends, it is a good game to enjoy this Summer.

A new arcade game made for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. The humour is the most important thing about the game and will let you play with a smile on your lips. Three anti-hero to block a horde of undeads, is it enough to overcome the all to samey levels?

In many ways this game is like a zombie. It's not too bright, nor does it require much effort to defeat, but it's still fun to toy with every now and then. If you're a zombie aficionado, Dead Block isn't a bad way to kill time while prepping for the next zombie gaming apocalypse. For everyone else, just hunker down and wait.

While the cute visuals and great soundtrack are a compliment to the game, there isn't quite enough to save this from being anything more than a middle-of-the-pack game that you might pick up on a rainy day.

Dead Block is decent if somewhat cheap entertainment, but it's hard to recommend given the dozens of other and better zombie games that are out there.

The lack of Xbox Live play kills it dead. [Nov 2011, p.107]

There's not much that can save Dead Block from the depths of mediocrity.

The idea of barricading yourself from zombie hordes and working cooperatively to survive is a solid scenario. However, the controls and constant QTE's hinder interaction and the game hastily leaps into repetition.

Dead Block is a building defense game with a lot of potential, but ends up being too shallow and repetitive.

Dead Block fills the zombie apocalypse with rampant vandalism and ingenious booby traps, yet somehow the result is exceedingly dull.

Dead Block takes a popular genre that thrives on increasingly manic gameplay meant to evoke higher and higher tension levels, and turns it into something dull. It may have had the beginnings of a genuiningly fun game at some concept stage, but the end result is a repetitive game that you'll likely get tired of before it ends.

It's as if it was plucked from the earliest days of downloadable gaming, back when digital games often relied more on single-minded gimmicks than the fully fleshed-out concepts of late, and $10 seemed like such a great deal for any game you could play with buttons on a console. That era has long since passed us by, and we're better for it.

With just a smidgen more subtlety it might have worked, but the cod 1950s B-movie horror shtick is rammed home in CAPITAL LETTERS and SHOUTY VOICES at EVERY OPPORTUNITY to the point where you just want to tell Digital Reality to just PLEASE SHUT UP.

A messy, boring, button-mashing waste of time. [Nov 2011, p.111]

A prime example of failed execution in almost every respect. It controls poorly, the levels are boring, and the trap/barrier concept is never very well explored.

On an exclusively conceptual level it is possible Dead Block could have worked. However a thorough misunderstanding of what makes the zombie genre enjoyable leaves this feeling far more like work than it should. Tower defense fans are better off sticking to their tower defense games, and zombie killing fans are better off sticking to games that emphasize killing zombies.

If you're not tired of zombies yet you will be by the time you've survived this game. It provides its cheap thrills, and building traps is fun at times, but the ridiculously slow speed and the boring weapon selection suck this dead corpse dry before you've even started.