Brains! Brains! Brraaaaainnnnns! Considering the fact that zombies love to eat brains and one of the classic sci-fi enemies are the giant floating brains, it’s amazing that a concept such as Teenage Zombies has never been done before given how making a story about the two would mesh so well together. Though Teenage Zombies isn’t as grand as the concept itself, it’s still a fun and hilarious game for the relatively short time it lasts.

THE STORY SO FAR
The Earth has been attacked by the “alien brain thingys” (their words, not mine) and there isn’t anyone alive who can stop it. Though it’s a tiny bit sad to think of three dead teenagers being the stars of the game, it’s a good thing they did die or else the Earth would be doomed. Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys (Teenage Zombies from here on) tells the story of Zack “Half-Pipe” Boyd, Lori “Lefty” Lopez, and Finnigan “Fins” Magee as they rise from the dead, drawn forward by their natural undead instincts to hunt for those squishy morsels of sustenance – brains!

The story of Teenage Zombies is told through comic book like cutscenes where you turn your DS to the side and hold it like you would a book. The story, surprisingly, is the funniest one I’ve experienced since Psychonauts, and is easily this game’s selling point. The idea of zombies battling alien brains is great enough, but the writing is hilarious, mostly consisting of The Big Brain chatting with No.1 (his trusted assistant). The gameplay is pretty good too, but I usually found myself playing more to experience the next cutscene than get to the next level.

GAMEPLAY
Teenage Zombies feels a lot like games such as the Oddworld games and The Lost Vikings given that the gameplay is more about using various characters to move through areas and solving those puzzles rather than straight-up action. In order to beat the game you’ll need to use each of your three main characters’ special abilities to help the group advance since you can’t beat the game without actively switching between characters to solve the environmental puzzles. Lefty has the ability to grab on to ledges and extend her reach to grab onto higher than usual grips as well. Half-Pipe has no legs and must ride his skateboard, which allows him to go through tiny gaps and go up ramps better than anyone else. Fins is able to climb on walls – thanks to his newly formed tentacles – and can also hang from and shimmy across ropes and other wires placed through the levels.

The main gameplay involves around using these special moves to get from the beginning of a level to the end, which is the main goal for each level anyways – get to the end however you can. In the early stages you can solve everything with just your characters’ natural abilities, but as you advance you’ll have to start picking up powerups to help you survive and get through the more challenging moments. Fins can eat garbage, soap, and peppers to use powered up vomit to damage enemies or cause devices to malfunction. Lefty can shoot a rivet gun at enemies, grab an umbrella to slowly descend falls, and can suck up and shoot projectiles with a vacuum. Half-Pipe, meanwhile, can get giant wheels on his board to cruise over enemies, hoverboards to let him get to higher heights, and spray cans to help you rocket up steep embankments.

Though the game is centered around navigating around the environments as its biggest challenge, you’ve also got enemies to combat as well, some of which come by solving puzzles while others you can simply pound on into submission. Enemies include such things as floating laser shooting brains, brains that have a mind-control grip on cops who shoot guns, miniature tank riding brains, brains in mechanical like dogs, and giant sewer alligators that will eat you up. Most of the enemies are easy to destroy and part of the challenge anyways comes from figuring out the puzzles to get around the enemies and danger in the first place.

It’s nice the game gets more challenging as you play, but nothing really changes from one level to the next in terms of how you play. Players will die here and there while they learn the ropes of a layout, but given how many brains there are to destroy and eat to regain your health, you shouldn't die all that often. A bigger problem we found were several game freezing bugs that completely put us in places we weren’t supposed to be and then froze the game until we turned it off and restarted the DS. The bugs weren’t major or anything, but they were an annoyance from time to time.

Scattered throughout the game are several minigames to help break the gameplay up for a short time, such as letting you shoot brains into a net with a stylus flick, flinging Lefty towards the sky by stretching a rubber band, doing moves with Half-Pipe on a half-pipe competition, and several others. You’ll also be challenged by The Big Brain himself, giving you a series of little Brain Age like games to make you think. Some of the minigames are better than others, but overall more an afterthought added later than a natural progression of the game.

GRAPHICS
The comic cutscenes are nicely drawn and look good, but everything else is pretty much average. The characters and enemy units are animated well and look good, but the background images of the levels and the same obstacles being used over and over from one level to the next is a little too repetitive and a bit lazy.

AUDIO
There isn’t a whole lot of game narration, but much like the writing the voice work is equally funny and delivered in a pitch-perfect tone of humor. The sound of zombies puking fire, swatting mutant rats, and other such noises are good, but not particularly inspired. The background music is also too muted for it to really standout and impress us.

IN CONCLUSION
Teenage Zombies isn’t an amazing game, but it is a pleasant little gem that features some great comedic writing and solving the puzzles using the zombie abilities can be really fulfilling when you really get in a groove and know what exactly to do and when to do it. If you’re looking for a simple and easy to get into and enjoy DS game, you won’t necessarily find a bad product for your money when it comes to Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys.

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