GamePro: I've spent the past week playing through Rock of the Dead, and despite my best efforts to appease curious co-workers and baffled onlookers, I haven't had too much luck describing exactly what kind of game it actually is. I mean, sure, it's a game where you fend off legions of alien-spawned undead with the power of plastic guitar rock -- that much is obvious -- but what genre does it belong to? Is it a music/rhythm game like the Guitar Heroes and Rock Bands it so borrows from, a rail-shooter like the House of the Deads it so parodies , or some sort of hard-rocking, cross-genre amalgam of the two?
As part of GamR Mag's 2013 Zombie Week event Christian Orkibi presents his list of the Top 10 Zombie Games suitable for younger audiences.
"It’s not often that you hear someone ask whether a game involving zombies is suitable for children. Its not really a combination you’d think to place together, kids and zombies, but occasionally a game comes along that brings humour to the walking dead and provides a good introduction to a fearful foe at an early age."
Backlog Quest is a month long special event on Clearance Bin Review featuring daily game reviews of the games that have sat on the shelf for simply too long; old and new.
From Day 9 – Rock of the Dead, Tristan Rendo writes,"Rock of the Dead is a success or a failure depending on how you want to view it. Considering that the game’s main goal seemed to be giving gamers a Rob Zombie fueled game that gave them something other than Rock Band or Guitar Hero to play with their plastic instruments, it was a success. The fact that the game is stretched out about two hours too long and features some horrible graphics and an over reliance on royalty free classical music played on electric guitar makes it less so. So much like Neil Patrick Harris’ career, Rock of the Dead has some high points and some low points."
PSX Extreme: "Okay, so I have all these freakin’ guitars hanging around, from the likes of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Power Gig: Rise of the SixString and Rock Band 3. They’re all over the place. And beyond using them for review purposes, I’m really not a fan of the genre and so, these plastic instruments are just going to keep gathering dust at a rapid clip. But then, along comes Rock of the Dead from Epicenter Studios, a game that has you battling various denizens of the dark with those very same instruments, and I go, “oh, cool!” Remember that old Dreamcast game that took advantage of the keyboard for the console, The Typing of the Dead? This is basically the same idea, only we’re using different peripherals – either a guitar or drum set – to “fight.” It really is a good idea…it’s just too bad that it looks bland, feels bland, and leaves you with a general “meh” feeling."
