Zombie Baseball

Zombies are a never ending source of inspiration for game makers, but I have never thought mixing baseball and zombie survival could work. This game is tackling a genre that has been revisited thousands of times but it does it right, with a couple of nice innovations.

Design
The game is basically about defending your home, attacked by waves after waves of zombies, each wave composed by tougher and tougher enemies. The original part is that you will have to repeal them using your baseball hitting skills, using balls tossed by your girlfriend.
A short in game tutorial introduces the commands, and you will immediately start to knock off zombie's head. More and more enemy types will appear every day, but their main characteristics is to get more resistant, faster, or eventually taller which can actually make a difference.
A good addition is the use of experience points, that will let you upgrade stats over time, and award you new bats with special powers. But as said in the game, the less powerful bat is the only one to "cut zombie's head and get more score".

Gameplay
Nice physics, and properly managed difficulty curve, make the game enjoyable. Hitting will take some practice to be efficient. Hitting a bit too late will send the ball fly up in the sky, while swinging to early will aim the ball at the ground losing a lot of momentum before eventually bouncing to an enemy.
You are rewarded for more accurate shots, and the cherry on top is the headshot achievement. Using the right bat, a headshot will send the zombie's head flying away and the game will keep track of distance record, which is strangely satisfying. There is also a headshot combo counter for a bonus.
The fact that the initial angle of the ball will vary, for a given hitting position , when you increase your power stat can however be a bit confusing.
You can also choose from two different bats for any given hit, which can be helpful in some circumstances.

Presentation
Graphic design in Zombie Baseball is questionable, characters and monsters are cartoony and simplistic while the background is some sort of photo realistic. Nothing is looking terribly bad, but graphics are not very consistent.
The music is appropriate and not too annoying. Sound effects are well chosen and give a funny felling of standing in the middle of a baseball game, mixed with typical undead groaning. The main character voice comments are also quite hilarious.

Zombie Baseball is maybe not a genre defining game, but it provides a fun challenge to spend some of your time.

Play Zombie Baseball on Armorgames