DAY 9 / GAME 9 Zombies Ate My Neighbors

DAY 9 / GAME 9

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

            I'm not sure what prompted my brother to get this game.  Or where he got it from.  Maybe this was another one that we had tried out at our uncle's house, or maybe my brother bought it on a whim.  As he tended to do, completely based on the back of the box.  Whatever manner of magic brought this game to my doorstep doesn't matter this time around.  All that matters is that I was one of the few who were lucky enough to have enjoyed it.
           

           Zombies Ate My Neighbors was developed by Lucasarts and released by Konami in 1993.  It never really clicked for me that it was a Lucasarts game until a lot later on since most of their stuff was released on PC only and their logo wasn't even on the box.  But it really did feature the usual quirky Lucasarts-esque humor.  They even slipped in a hidden Day of the Tentical level.  Once on a whim, I bugged Tim Schafer via Twitter asking if he'd ever worked on it:  "..My only contribution was a suggestion for a level name: Mars Needs Cheerleaders."  

            Each level had a unique title card with various early horror movie themes such as Dr. Tongue's Castle of Terror, Lumberjack Hedgemaze Mayhem, and Terror in Aisle Five.  The whole game, which is a top-downish, isometricy shooter-style gaunlety game;  Requires you fight your way through levels in an attempt to rescue various survivors before they get eaten.  Different survivors are worth different points, cheerleaders being worth the most, schoolteachers being worth the least, if I remember correctly.  You grabbed a variety of weapons from waterguns to silverware and different monsters were more or less susceptible to different items.  I see that box says '55 levels' and now that I look into it, there really were 55 levels, but I swear there were more.  That game felt like it would never end, and back when you wanted games to last forever.  You'd never know when another great game would come out, or when you could afford a new one, so this was just the best thing ever.

             We never did beat that game.  Maybe one day soon I will.