Whiskey & Zombies Review

Whiskey & Zombies is set in Louisiana during a zombie apocalypse and tells the story of the McCreary family who stumble upon a horde of the undead on their way back home. The fate of humanity rests on this family of drunks and the further you go, the more you’ll discover more about each family members’ motivations as they try to reach the Bayou.

Whiskey & Zombies is a top-down twin-stick shooter/fighter where players will battle the undead with their fists and any additional weapons that can be picked up as you scavenge various zones of Louisiana. There’s a catch though. While you do have a health bar, the game has a unique drunk system. You see, the characters are infected with the virus, but getting drunk fights off the virus allowing you to continuously fight.

But be careful. Drink too much and your aim will suffer and your character might even pass out. And on the flipside, if you don’t drink enough, your stamina will get eaten up by the virus and you might even turn into a zombie. Thankfully, playing with other players (up to four players), they can save you from your zombie form. As you explore areas, you’ll find a handful of weapons to aid you such as katanas, machineguns, shovels, shotguns, etc. You also have a Drunk Rage meter above the character’s head; once that’s full, you can press Y and go into drunk rage… which slightly increases your attack power and speed. Once you’re done with Story mode, you can tackle Survival mode or Last Billy standing for some local multiplayer chaos.

Players can choose from four McCreary family member, all of which with their unique abilities. First up is Hank. He’s the well-balanced character; strong and fast and can handle most zombie related situations. Then there’s Tammylou; she’s fast and vicious although her attack don’t do as much damage. And due to her small stature, she gets drunk fast. Up next is Grampa. He’s kind of like a tank; slow but resilient. And has a high requirement for alcohol. And finally, Jethro. He’s the slowest of the bunch, but very strong. But like Tammylou, he’s a lightweight when it comes to booze.

Once you’ve selected your family member, you can choose from a handful of levels from the overworld map. Each area will have a different level of difficulty. It’s just a bit ridiculous that there’s only one easy level and the rest are either hard/very hard. Once you’ve cleared all the levels, you’ll unlock one final chapter. Chapter objectives are pretty similar; collect booze, put them in the truck and leave. The difficulty will come in terms of enemy challenge and map area; the bigger it is, the tougher it’ll get.

As mentioned, the game is presented in a top down perspective, which allows developers to put little to no effort on character design (more on that below). Each level, or chapter, is uniquely designed in a different themed area such as prison or cemetery for example. They are also of varying sizes for some variety. The soundtrack is pretty bareboned; sounds a bit like some music that would be from the 1800s; it’s kinda hard to explain, but for whatever reason, I kept being reminded of Back to the Future III oddly enough.

The problem here is the presentation. The top-down perspective makes everything small and while the game will sometime help you by pointing out interactable items with a big arrow, because of this viewpoint, it sometimes not easy nor clear what you can interact with. Another little inconsistency is the character design; Tammylou is described as small, yet if you play as her, she’s as bulky as Hank. She’s also as slow moving as Hank. While you can also access a map of the level, it’s just a handdrawn one and it’s pretty much useless/unnecessary.

Another frustrating thing I’ve experienced with Whiskey & Zombies is bugs. Not just superficial bugs, but screw you bugs. One of the levels, where you need to put three cases of booze in the back of a pick up truck, every time I tried putting one of the only 3 cases I could find, it would yeet out of the screen. Another time, the truck when crazy and flipped out, throwing out the first two cases I had found. Every time I retried, one of these issues stopped me from completing the level. And the biggest nuisance: the enemies are dark. Meaning if you happen to walk around darker/shadow filled areas, you won’t know if there’s enemies until they hit you.

Whiskey & Zombies had a lot of potential. I’m not a fan of the top down/twin stick genre, but I was surprisingly enjoying it early on, but the more I played, the more annoying and tedious the slow moving characters made things. Things like cheap attacks from “invisible” enemies, struggling to find doors because of the perspective can be overlooked and dimissed, but moving at a snail’s speed kills any long time fun. This game is ideally enjoyed in short bursts (thank you Quick Resume) but if you’re an impatient gamer looking for a fast-paced experience, you can easily skip Whiskey & Zombies.