Zombie Killer Squad is a hybrid of endless running and zombie shooting. By that description alone (and its super generic name), you might expect it to be a completely clichéd experience. The thing is, the game hit just yesterday and already it has skyrocketed to the #2 position on the Top Charts for free apps. There must be something more to it, right? As it turns out, the game was created in part by two major gaming YouTubers, Seananners and Syndicate. That gives Zombie Killer Squad a huge audience to market to and a fanbase that’s eager to support it.

The basic premise is the same as every lane-based, behind-the-back, endless runner. You swipe sideways to change lanes, up to jump, and down to slide under obstacles. The twist is in the title — there are zombies, and you’ve got to kill them. Your runner is equipped with a shotgun that can be fired with a simple tap of the screen, killing the nearest zombie in your lane. The game is hectic and fast-paced. It only takes a single shot to annihilate a zombie, but there are often tons of them on-screen at any given time. Zombie Killer Squad certainly isn’t without its problems, but the responsive controls and fast-paced onslaught of zombies and obstacles add up to a fun core experience.

There are, of course, coins all over the place that are yours to collect. You only have a limited amount of ammo to kill zombies. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a pinch where you need to take some zombies out, but most of the time you can swerve around them or jump over them without a problem. Even when you don’t need to, there’s value in blowing zombies to bits because they can drop goodies like extra ammo, coins, power-ups, and medpacks that you can spend to continue a run after dying. You don’t have to be super conservative with your bullets, but you can’t go guns blazing either — if you try to wipe out every zombie in your path, you’ll fire more shells than you’ll find. You can spend coins in the store to buy extra supplies (i.e., ammo, mount tokens, and medpacks).

The power-ups are a coin magnet, ravens, bulls, and a token that lets you summon a character-specific mount. Each can be upgraded five times by spending coins in the shop. The magnet, ravens, and bulls each trigger immediately, but you get to choose when to spend a mount token by pressing a little virtual button on the right side of the screen. When you’re riding a mount, it’s acts like a shield that lets you get hit once without dying. You’ll start with Luke, who — as far as I can tell — is some guy without gamer celebrity status that helped make the game. Luke’s mount is a donkey. Seananners and Syndicate are unlockable for 100,000 coins each. Their mounts are a giant cat and a motorcycle, respectively.

As far as I can tell, the character differences are aesthetic only, but there is a separate leaderboard for each one, so I could be wrong. Each one has his own collection of one-liners to be dropped on the zombies, but the variety is low so the lines get repetitive pretty fast. The gameplay itself gets pretty repetitive too. That’s definitely to be expected in an endless runner, but it seems worse here than usual. There are a few different environments to run through, but they feel like different color palettes of the same thing. The obstacles get repetitive too, most of which are trucks. The game remains fast-paced throughout, so it will keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s just that the repetition makes it hard to distinguish one play from the next.

The game is built around free-to-play and it’s very obvious that they’re intending to include in-app purchases, even though they’re not there yet. The in-game menus indicate you can buy each of the locked characters with $0.99 instead of 100,000 coins. The in-game store shows prices for each item in coins and in bones. Clicking on one of the bones buttons takes you to an empty “Tombstore” where you will presumably be able to drop real money on bundles of bones. Beyond the very obvious hints at IAP-to-come, the game is just very grindy. Upgrading your power-ups is going to be a long process and unlocking a character is even worse. The 100,000 coins you’ll need to unlock just one of them easily represents over six hours of gameplay.

It’s easy to recommend Zombie Killer Squad because it’s fun, it’s free, and it’s hot. The shooting mechanic, though simple, is a great addition to the behind-the-back runner formula. There’s an extra intensity when you’re running straight toward a zombie and then manage to blow it up right before colliding with it. Managing your mounts is a big part of the game too, if you’re one to chase high scores. Mounts only last for a limited time or until you get hit, but starting a run with a big pile of mount tokens (and probably a few medpacks) is the real secret to posting huge scores. Of course, once you can buy those with real money, the leaderboard has the potential to represent only hackers and the biggest spenders.

The new shooting and mount mechanics in Zombie Killer Squad make it worth checking out, but if you’re only looking for one behind-the-back runner in your life, Zombie Killer Squad has some stiff competition. Temple Run 2, Agent Dash, Sonic Dash, and Subway Surfers are all better games and they’re all free, too. Zombie Killer Squad just can’t hold a candle to the depth of the others, which collectively offer better graphics, more variety with the environment and obstacles, boss fights, leveling systems, more power-ups, daily challenges, and more. When it comes down to it, Zombie Killer Squad is a lot of fun to play, but right now I don’t think there’s any reason you should be playing it instead of some of the more established games in its genre.

View on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id716114943

Amazon Store for Android: http://www.amazon.com/Section-Studios-Inc-Zombie-Killer/dp/B00GRIP71G

Google Play link for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sectiongames.zks_google