Dead Wrong

On paper, it seemed like such a good idea. A "shooter" where you fight zombies... using a guitar controller. Rock of the Dead was released within a week of Rock Band 3, however, so there was absolutely no chance of me actually playing it at the time. Still, the appeal was undeniable. And they even sweetened the pot for geeks like me by having the lead character voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, and his girlfriend by Felicia Day -- a Dr. Horrible reunion!

Sadly, the "A" for concept scores far worse in execution. The graphics are fairly chinsy, the dialogue sub-Syfy Saturday Night Movie, and the soundtrack frustratingly repetitive. And yet I could probably still overlook most of that and somehow love the game at least a little...

Except that they messed up the interface too. Whenever "notes" are displayed on screen for you to play, instead of coming at you in a vertical arrangement, as in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, they appear horizontally. And it's not even like an actual staff of music either, as the lower notes are actually higher on the staff. Was this decision made to try and steer clear of some imagined potential lawsuit from the makers of Guitar Hero or Rock Band? I can think of no other reason to make such a change, other than major league stupidity.

This one unfortunate decision renders the game nearly unplayable. If you've played as much Rock Band as I have, then your brain simply can. Not. Read. This. Correctly. And if you haven't played enough Rock Band to be bothered by this? Well, this game pretty obviously has no appeal to you.

I played through about four levels of the game, fighting brain scramble every step of the way. (And bad audio/video sync too -- the calibration system for this game also sucks.) I felt like I had to justify the money I'd spent on the game by playing it for at least a little while. But after that one session, I put the disc back in its case, and I haven't brought myself to pull it back out since.

What a horrible waste of such a great idea! I'm not sure I can put a letter grade on this one, as I can't decide whether that concept should earn brownie points, or whether the crap game should be rated even more harshly for ruining it. So suffice it to say: do not buy this game. Not even used.