Review Date: January 17, 2011
Developer: Sarah Northway
Publisher: Two Towers Games
Platform: Browser
Genre: Strategy
When zombies take over the world, what will you do? That's the question that Rebuild, an incredibly addictive browser-based strategy game, asks. It's your goal to rebuild the world as we know it through careful planning. It's not particularly difficult, and it's over surprisingly quickly, but while it lasts Rebuild is hard to step away from.
Aim For the Head
You'll start out with just a small area of well-defended, zombie-free land. And from thereit's your goal to reclaim the city. The game is divided up into a grid, with each square containing a certain type of building with its own properties. There are suburban homes and apartments for people to live in, police stations and malls to barricade for defensive purposes, farms to provide food, bars to cheer people up, and much more.
And then there are the people. You'll have a ragtag bunch of soldiers, scientists, leaders, builders, and more. You can train them to take on new jobs but you'll need to make sure that they're happy and well fed. The game is a balancing act between ensuring that your budding plot of civilization is safe and livable, and expanding your reach across the city. The surrounding area is teeming with zombies, and it'll take plenty of soldiers to eradicate them all. Thankfully, you can recruit new civilians as you explore.
It's an extremely addictive premise, and at the beginning it's hard to stop playing. Day after day will go by (of in-game time, of course) as you fight against the undead, strategically planning the best areas to take over first, while managing your small but growing population. But soon you'll realize that the game sadly provides little challenge. Once you have a nice little settlement it's pretty hard to lose it. The waves of zombies don't provide much of an obstacle, and it really just becomes a matter of time before the city is yours.
The Bottom Line
The lack of a challenge is disappointing, but Rebuild is still worth playing. It's a unique take on the well-worn zombie game, and it's a dream come true for any self-styled zombie aficionado. It's incredibly satisfying watching as the city turns into something resembling a normal, livable civilization, all based upon the decisions you made. The zombies may go down easily, but they're still fun to kill.