If a game's value was directly correlated with it's purchase price, Dead Effect could be one of the best deals in gaming. At just about $8 on Steam, the mobile game turned full on shooter might not take many chances with it's content or gameplay, but it might just surprise you with it's depth and (mostly) serviceable gameplay. Unfortunately though, the same problems that plagued the game's initial mobile release rear their ugly heads here, and they are even more apparent on the bigger stage. Like a minor league standout baseball player, Dead Effect is good, but it just doesn't stand up to the competition in the big leagues.

It's easiest to compare Dead Effect to a Scifi Channel original movie; one of those where it's so silly that you can leave it on in the background while you're doing other things and still understand what's going on. Essentailly, you're on a ship, zombies also happen to be overrun with zombies. Your job as either a paint-by-numbers guy space marine or paint by numbers girl space marine is to, as you may have guessed, rid the ship of the undead. There's some other stuff that happens but it's all really silly and you're sure to forget most of it before it happens. There's nothing groundbreaking here and I often wondered while playing the game if the developers tried especially to make the game so familiar for the sake of accessibility.

"...it is built extremely well for an $8 game..."

What might surprise you though is how well put together Dead Effect truly is. Please understand I say that relatively. While the game won't have you throwing down Half-Life 2 and claiming a new FPS savior, it is built extremely well for an $8 game, especially one ported from a mobile game. The game responds well to much of what the environment throws at it (though there are a few times when the framerate dropped significantly). While it was satisfying to score headshot on the undead and take them out one by one, the game also frequently resembled its mobile predecessor by failing to make most enemy encounters satisfying and instead just having you empty clips into each enemy on repeat until they fall to the ground boringly. Sadly, Dead Effect is full of these moments where the port from the mobile experience could have used just a bit more time, and feels rushed as a result.

The game has a satisfying amount of weapons to take out your undead enemies with and though they're what you'd expect, the mix of pistols, shotguns, crossbows and even a electrically charged glove do a  great job mixing up the action. You'll get a scorecard at the end of each level that will give you money to spend on upgrades for each weapon along with your armor and stats. It was surprising just how much depth was hidden within Dead Effect, especially when you consider that each of your upgraded weapons transfers over to the game's survival mode. One question though - why can't I run? For some reason Dead Effect requires you to move throughout the entire game at a single speed, which isn't a huge problem because the game's environments are so small but it's more of a hassle than it has to be to escape a horde of zombies clawing at your back.

"...seems to perform miles ahead of it's predecessor."

Visually, Dead Effect has been given an upgrade from it's original mobile release and everything seems to perform miles ahead of it's predecessor. More often than not, Dead Effect handles the action pretty well with only a few frame rate drops to speak of. Dead Effect is also completely voiced, which is great in theory, but comes off extremely cheesy. Lines like "I think I'll check for information at the information hub" and a sort of worried "I wonder what's going on here" seem forced and delivered so awkwardly that I had to wonder if they were delivered by the Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin "Two Wild and Crazy Guys" characters.

If you're looking for something to play that's going to challenge and surprise you, you're looking in the wrong place; but if you're looking for a quick, cheap and (mostly) serviceable shooter, you could do worse than Dead Effect. It's a definite step up from it's debut as a mobile shooter, but the same problems still rear their ugly little heads and at the worst possible times. At only $8 on Steam, Dead Effect is clearly a budget buy, but one that you'll get more use and fun out of than you might expect.