In the media, there are countless zombie themed movies, games, books, and anything you can name. I can even say that all of us adults have definitely watched or played a zombie movie or game at least once. The App Store isn’t one to shy away from this entire craze either. Zombie themed games comprise a considerable portion of the games in the App Store. In fact, the iPhone section of the App Store even has a Zombies! quick link. Truth be told, however, not all are reviewed in high regard. Only a few are truly unique and innovative. With this huge number of games comes poor copycats and tired uninteresting gameplay, which mostly follow the same formula - either a survival horror adventure or simple zombie-shooting action. Hence, this article is here to provide you zombie lovers with a list highlighting 4 popular games (with ratings from review sites) that stand out for being unique and innovative.

Unique Innovative Zombie Games: Infect Them All

148apps: 3.5/5.0

no dpad: “MUST HAVE”

Unique to this game is the fact that you play as the zombie with the goal of infecting all the people, which range from innocent clueless people to soldiers who fire at you, in the entire area. Simply put, you’re now the bad guy out to spread the infection. How cool is that? There are even 4 different types of zombies to choose from each with unique attributes. Innovative points come from its default control’s use of the accelerometer, usually only seen in marble rolling, racing, or flying games.

Unique Innovative Zombie Games: Zombie Highway

slide to Play: 3/4

App Spy: 4/5

The scene is one that is common in zombie stories – survivors driving along a deserted highway in a post-apocalypse period. As popular as this scene is, there were no games in the App Store that replicated this iconic scene, that is before Zombie Highway arrived. This game gains innovative points simply for providing gameplay centered on you driving along this zombie-infested highway, dodging abandoned cars, and ramming and gunning down zombies off your car.

Unique Innovative Zombie Games: Plants vs Zombies

IGN: 9/10

Pocket Gamer: Gold Award

Nowadays, there are several zombie-themed Tower Defense games, but PvZ will likely get credit as being the innovative game that integrated this theme in the popular Tower Defense genre. Especially unique to this game is the weapons you use to drive off the walking dead. In PvZ, there are no guns, rockets, or lasers. Instead, you have an interesting assortment of plants at your disposal ready to defend your house. A plus to this game are the hilarious descriptions of the various plants and members of the monstrous horde.

Unique Innovative Zombie Games: Zombie Escape

IGN: 8/10

Pocket Gamer: Bronze Award

This is unique and innovative because this time around the core gameplay is redirecting several people away from zombies until a chopper arrives to rescue them, and you accomplish this through the tried and tested line-drawing mechanic, which prior to this game, has mostly only been used in traffic control games. You’re also aided by useful weapons and unique tools such as raw meat, sniper shots, and sleeping gas. Despite having all that in your arsenal however, in the later levels, the game can really get frantic, which is great for casual gamers wanting a little touch of hardcore gameplay.

In spite of the already overwhelming number of zombie games in the App Store, people can’t seem to get enough of them. Several of these games may be misses, but at the end of the day, the dead continue to walk and the infection is growing. We could only hope that more of these games down the road are as unique and innovative as those listed above.

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