When I went to PAX, tucked away in a little corner of Destineer’s booth was a game with one of the weirdest names I have ever heard. I just had to try it out. Turns out it was a pretty fun demo. When I found out it was only going to be 20 bucks, I figured I’d give it a chance (though it is kind of a hard game to find). So what kind of game IS Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ? Read on to find out:

Zombies are invading Fairy Tale Land, and it’s up to a grown-up, machine gun toting Little Red Riding Hood to stop them. Joining her is the ninja star throwing Momotaro, a character from a Japanese fairy tale. Together, with tongue placed firmly in cheek in the humor department, they’ll mow down zombies in fairy tale lands like Hansel and Gretel’s forest and the Three Little Pigs’ house.

Gameplay is a shooter, similar in concept to classics like Space Invaders. You can only move left and right on the bottom of the screen, but you use the stylus to aim your weapons. Hold down on the touch screen to fire, and lift to reload. You can also move around with the stylus, but it’s much easier to use the D-pad. Collect power-up weapons like shotguns, lasers, and flamethrowers for when those zombies get too close for comfort.

The 3-D graphics are pretty good for the DS, and the play control is fun and really uses the unique capabilities of the handheld. Only problem is that it gets pretty difficult, and if you die near the end of a stage, you still have to start over at the beginning of that level. And you’d think such an arcadey game would let you keep some kind of score, but it doesn’t. But for only 20 bucks, Little Red’s Zombie BBQ is a pretty entertaining, albeit slightly twisted, shooter game.

Kid Factor:
Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, and Mild Suggestive Themes. With a name like Zombie BBQ, you’d expect the game to have some crude humor. The game is violent, as you shoot down zombie limbs with machine guns and animated guts go flying. But the characters are so cartoony that it seems more silly than violent. There are a few instances of damn and hell in the text. And the Mild Suggestive Themes stem from the fact that in this game, Little Red Riding Hood isn’t so little anymore, she’s rather well-developed now, if you get my drift. Because of all this and the game’s difficulty, Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ is best for teens and older kid gamers and up only.

Tags: Game Reviews