Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

With it recently being Halloween we've been treated to a horror-themed title which many will surely be pleased to see arrive on the VC. Anyway enough from me and on with the erm... game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Zombies

Points: 800
Publisher: Konami
Developer: LucasArts
Released: 1994
System: SNES

Perhaps more popularly remembered by its Western title 'Zombies Ate My Neighbors' is a game that garnered a lot of praise and achieved cult status after it was released thanks to an original title and well-utilised premise harking back to the days of 'classic' horror films; not to mention that it was pretty damn fun to play.

How the game plays is simple, you simply need to rescue your neighbors before the Zombies well... eat them! Armed with a pistol filled with holy water that's capable of taking down most enemies you basically just go nuts and shoot anything that groans; of course for the bigger baddies you're going to need greater firepower and that's when the likes of the Bazooka and Dynamite come into play, not to mention Potions that alter your physical form.

Once all of your neighbors have been rescued you simply locate the exit and warp to the next level and then... you guessed it, rinse and repeat, repetitive? Yes but in this case it's the kind of repeated tasks that lend themselves well to the way the game plays because it really is a huge amount of fun throughout.

Things start out pretty simple but as you progress the monsters will become smarter and your mission will become that much more difficult but thanks to the fine-tuned controls and range of weapons you'll always want to keep trying no matter how tough things get and believe me the later levels are rather 'trying' to say the least.

It may not the best-looking 16-bit game but this is more than made-up for due to the diverse range of backdrops, enemies and everything around you which adds to the charm of the game; audio deserves a special mention too because each track exudes audible excellence adding even more to the experience. Basically there isn't any other game like this and you really don't want to miss out on it if you've yet to play this classic title, well worth the points.

Verdict : A ghoulishly good game.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
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