Impressions: Undead Knights (PSP)

by Andrew Yoon { Jun 8th 2009 at 1:00PM }

A game filled with zombies made by Tecmo -- sounds like a recipe for success, right? Unfortunately, the demo we saw at E3 didn't inspire much confidence in the upcoming PSP exclusive. Conceptually, Undead Knights seems ripe for fun: imagine creating a zombie horde to tear apart your enemies and do your bidding. Instead, what we saw at E3 was an unpolished, uninspired brawler that doesn't take advantage of its unique premise or the PSP hardware.

After an impressive CG intro, we see a world that's ... brown. Most games nowadays have broken away from a monochromatic color scheme, but looks like Undead Knights didn't get the memo. The drab look just doesn't look very good on the PSP screen. A hulking figure takes the screen, and starts pummeling enemies with a sword. How does this invovle zombies? Well, you can go up for a finishing move, transforming your victim into a mindless zombie.

Gallery: Undead Knights

By mindless, we mean just that. The demonstrater was unable to showcase the effectiveness of these zombies. They can move around, lunging at enemies. However, this doesn't seem to add any tactical advantage to your warrior. After a little bit of time, zombies will expire, self-destructing. Certainly, this is an underwhelming realization of what the trailer presents as an epic power.

Undead Knights' shortcomings may come from its early state, its uninformed presenter, and/or a terribly flawed execution. We'd love to see dozens of enemies and zombies on screen clashing against each other in a tactical action game that gives importance to the zombies. It's cool to be a dude carrying a giant sword, but we'd love to see Tecmo transform this game from what currently stands as a generic brawler to something unique. While the E3 presentation didn't leave us impressed, we're confident that there's still a lot of potential to be mined from such an interesting premise.

Tags: e3-2009, tecmo, undead-knights

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

InFaMoUs1- @ Jun 8th 2009 1:29PM

Hey Andrew are you doing a Hand-Ons or Impressions with Invizimals?

I'm just curious to know if the PSP Camera will finally hit North America and if it will be bundled with the game.

kappa @ Jun 8th 2009 1:29PM

Damn, and I was really looking forward to this game. Too bad it's just a hack and slash, I was hoping it would have been more of an action/adventure type game with some depth.

Nook @ Jun 8th 2009 1:59PM

me too, it seems that's the way it was being sold earlier on. this sounds a bit shallow....demo pls! otherwise I may have to pass, unless I see some good user reviews.

cafecito @ Jun 8th 2009 2:53PM

The intro looked impressive indeed... so what a bummer the game isn't delivering. But, there's still hope right? The game is in its early development state.

anarkhy @ Jun 8th 2009 3:03PM

The graphics looks a ps1 game, hopefully the gameplay will be good and they polished things before launching.

The cg intro was great.

Hashbrown Hunter @ Jun 8th 2009 3:23PM

"...an unpolished, uninspired brawler that doesn't take advantage of its unique premise or the PSP hardware."

Oh, so it's a Tecmo game then?

Okay I know that was a little bit of a low blow but honestly, after reselling the same Dynasty Warriors game 20 times they DO deserve it.