Survival Crisis Z

Very Occasionally, Out of the bowels of a much-humped genre (the 'help, zombies!' genre), comes something incredible. In this case it's the wonderful intricacy of Ska Studios' Survival Crisis Z.

You play as one of five classes, each with different weapons, abilities and item load outs. You control your character from an isometric perspective, moving a reticule arrow to aim your gun, firing with the CTRL key. This control system takes a little getting used to, as the difficulty curve is a bit on the steep side, throwing hordes of undead, G-Men and Rebels at you in Story Mode with barely a few minutes to help you learn the ropes. SCI also manages to scare the shit out of you, with a low, thumping bass that constantly keeps you worried about what's around the corner.

The Arcade mode is much more visceral, with hordes of the walking dead shambling into your gunfire. You can pick up power-ups, multipliers, and point-coins, as well as different weapons like machine guns and flamethrowers.

Survival Crisis Z is an excellent, totally free game, and we'll be sure to cover it in full in next month's Freeware.