Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of Zombie Army Trilogy. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.

Playing Zombie Army Trilogy reminded me of sneaking downstairs to watch cheesy late night horror movies as a kid. It's stupid and I'm well aware of that, yet despite all of it's flaws I'm still enjoying myself; sort of like if you really don't think about - it's not as bad of a game as it might seem to be. It may feel dated and hokey but there's something extremely fun about plowing through the game's quickly paced levels, especially with a group of like minded friends. Now go forward soldier.

For the uninitiated, The Zombie Army Trilogy is a spinoff of sorts of the Sniper Elite franchise; think of it as the Jefferson's to Sniper Elite's All in the Family....only you know, with more shambling undead. The core mechanics are the same, you play as a sniper and do your best to take out the army of undead soldiers that Hitler is raising in a desperate attempt to win World War II. Zombie Army Trilogy is essentially a collection of the first two games mashed together into coherent missions with a previously unreleased third chapter thrown in for good measure. There are some new playable characters (most notably the first ever female soldiers in the series) and weapons to play with.

At least, that's what the game was supposed to be. Where Sniper Elite at least feigns strategy and gives you an almost puzzle like environment to try to solve your way out of, Zombie Army Trilogy just throws all of those ideas to the wall and everything else along with it. It's common zombie knowledge that one zombie is rarely a problem, but a horde, now that;'s a different story and Rebellion does a great job populating the screen with enemies. It's fun and all but it takes away from what the game was really meant to be, especially if you're playing by yourself. It's extremely tough to set-up and perform a good sniper shot because you're constantly being attacked from all sides. Like the core line of games, the ultimate pay off is hitting the perfect shot and seeing the x-ray effect that shows the bullet as it rip's through your target, but I rarely got to see it because most fights turned into basic third-person shooters and Zombie Army Trilogy does not play that role well.

You'll have a lot more fun though if you play Zombie Army Trilogy with a group of friends. In fact, the whole thing feels like a completely different game when playing with like minded folks. One or two takes positions to sniper while the others handed population control on the ground. It's hectic and fun in all of the wrong ways. This is a game that you don't take serious by any means and you'll enjoy laughing away the cheap deaths thanks to the game's liberal nature with save points.

It's just a shame that the mission structure is so lacking that it almost makes the game boring. Most missions go like this, go into an area, eliminate the zombies, move on to the next area, find an artifact and eliminate the other zombies. The game has a horde mode added on to it but you probably won't want to spend much time with it since almost every section of the game feels like a horde mode on it's own. It's a bit more forgivable since the game is so liberal with check points and you're constantly facing off with the undead but about midway through the game I started to grow tired of the same  formulaic levels over and over again. Again, there's a bit of fun to be had when the game introduces new weapons and enemy types but that's a fleeting feeling at best.

It's also pretty undeniable that Zombie Army Trilogy looks and feels rather dated. I get it, the games originally came out years ago it's to be expected but some of the animations here are just plain cringe-worthy. I found myself using the kick and stomp move (you're only real melee attack) quite often and I noticed quickly how unnatural it made my character's body turn. I may not know much about skeletal system but I do know that spines are not supposed to bend that way. The game also uses dated techniques like randomly spawning enemies and invisible walls that you can't pass until you complete your objectives.

If you've got a group of like-minded friends who aren't afraid to just let go and play a dumb action game for a few hours, Zombie Army Trilogy might be worth your time. There's a good amount of fun here if you're willing to look past it's dated mechanics and visuals. If you're coming into the game looking for anything but an afternoon's worth of fun, you're looking in the wrong place, and you're advised to stay away. Still, I can't lie - I had a lot of stupid fun with Zombie Army Trilogy.