Tower Defence Borderlands Zombie Apocalypse
Gross is an Indie FPS tower defence game where you defend against hordes of zombies developed by Hangry Owl Games. Firstly, I don’t have much experience in tower defence games, so it was nice to try a new genre out. Unless you are counting all the Call Of Duty Zombies modes over the years, I will classify myself as an expert or, for the more pessimistic, a gamer who has played far too many hours of them. I love the premise of defending against hordes of zombies and seeing how long you can survive while building your own defences and using weapons to fend them off.
Straight away, when starting to play this game, it reminisces the Borderland game series. The graphics, controls and RPG elements like health damage. You start with a decent tutorial to get you accustomed to the game. You find your way to your RV (caravan), where the game begins properly. Gross is a mission-based formula where each mission is based around getting your RV from A to B and collecting cash to build defences, obstacles and guns to survive the waves of zombies attacking you. The zombies are your usual cannon fodder, but as you progress, there are different types, like big fat zombies, swamp monsters and my all-time favourite leprechauns, plus there are a few more enemy types.
The FPS element adds a nice touch, as you have more of an impact on how the missions and defending play out. There are a lot of weapons to choose from shotguns, machine guns, and rocket launchers. Each weapon has two ammo types which affect and can drastically save you. One of my favourite ammo types was the freeze rounds which froze the enemies in place and then slowed them for a while. So you can catch your breath. The other type was FMJ Full metal jacket rounds which shred through hordes of zombies, and watching the damage numbers going nuts is satisfying.
Onto the defensive items and obstacles. You start with being able to build barriers and cannons that get you through mission one while you still get adjusted to the game. Then you can make some pretty cool stuff like electric fencing and sentry guns. After mission two, I found my go-to defensive master plan. If you are interested, leave a comment below, and I will reveal it. It did bring back great memories of planning out strategies with my mates on Call Of Duty on how to survive longer.
I like the Borderlands-style gameplay and RPG elements. However, the graphics could have sat with me better. In 2023 I found the graphics to look outdated (think early Minecraft). I know that’s a style, but I did not feel like it matched the game. Consider games like Left 4 Dead and even Call Of Duty Zombies from 10 years ago doing a similar style game. My biggest negative, and I suggest to the developer this game is in desperate need of, is multiplayer! I understand not having multiplayer within the story mode but once completing the game, which is relatively short at 7-10 hours. You unlock endless horde mode, which is just begging for multiplayer. Notice how I referred to Call Of Duty zombies quite a few times within this review? Well, that’s because I feel this game is best to play with someone. After a while, there’s only so much you can do before it becomes too repetitive. My last criticism is the title of the game, Gross. It wasn’t gory, gross or scary. Before reviewing the game and hearing the title Gross, I expected it to be over-the-top guts and blood everywhere.
