There’s little more nourishing for the soul than going for an afternoon spin through an arid desert full of zombies. Your machine gun leaves pock marks in chest cavities, heads fly as the walking dead meet your whirling circular saws and you can sit back behind the wheel of your armoured monstrosity and feel a moment of survivalism Zen.
True, there’s little you haven’t played before in Earn to Die. It’s essentially a side-on terrain-crosser with tilt buttons borrowed liberally from Ski Safari and its ilk. You rampage into deadheads, over canyons and through towers constructed from wooden crates and explosive barrels – and when you take down a bunch of vapid ex-people the scene will slow down and you’ll be told ‘Awesome!’. The vibe of Carmageddon sits strongly here.
The rub, and the compulsion, is that on each level you’ll run out of fuel. As such you return to a well-stocked garage (armageddon has been kind to the used cars market) to spend the money you somehow earned out on the killing field to upgrade engines, wheels and zombie dismissal apparatus. On your next foray then, on that self-same level, you’ll be better equipped to drive further and faster than ever before.
Eventually you’ll reach the end of the level – but it might just take you buying a better car. Which’ll need upgrading won’t it? Then there’s the next, trickier, landscape that’ll need covering. Better go back out there and mash up some more zombies pal! And so we grind on, borne back ceaselessly into the past…
The compulsion for improvement, the generosity of the cash awarded on each foray and the simple destructive pleasure of rampaging through Earn to Die’s increasingly rickety and explosive environments make it a fantastic little game. It simultaneously gives pleasure and frustration at a finishing line that’s forever out of reach – and rubs the buttons of my dirty little human mind in knowing ways that never quite make me uncomfortable. Well worth a dainty little download…
Earn to Die can be purchased from the App Store for 79p. No, hang on. 69p. Crikey. Scared myself there. Or maybe have a squiz at the free web version.
