I find that the gameplay has a similar feel to any given first-person shooter or even the survival horror genre games like RESIDENT EVIL or SILENT HILL. A really neat twist to the whole affair is that the zombies are mutually controlled by all players, so in addition to the fun of blasting away the legions of the undead, you also get the gut-munching excitement of converging on your pals with nothing but dinner on the mind.

ZOMBIES is a very simple game and it’s one that you’ll have no problems getting your friends into playing with a quick, five minute discussion of the rules. The premise alone is often enough to interest even the most board game-adverse gamer. And if your friends love the EVIL DEAD films, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, or all things zombie then you’re in for a non-stop cavalcade of movie quotes, bad jokes, and undead-like utterances that will likely last throughout a laugh-filled night, aided and abetted by the references and in-jokes of the game’s cards. If you just can’t get enough, there’s a shambling horde of expansions that you can add on to the base game that feature new locations such as a military base and a shopping mall, new types of zombies, and various other things that will give your games a lot of variety and new surprises. Oh, and it does bear mentioning that the game comes with 100 plastic zombie figures.

So there we have it—a starter kit for the offline gamer. There’s a lot of variety in the games mentioned here and I also think there’s a reasonable spectrum of complexity levels. I also believe all of these games offer a great return on investment in terms of replayability and fun while also presenting very playable and accessible experience that even a complete novice in the boardgaming hobby can apprehend and share with friends.

I think this assortment also demonstrates that board games can offer the same visceral thrill of an action game or the measured, stately pace of a more complex strategy game completely removed from the electronic medium. And this is just the beginning. There’s plenty more where these came from, and in the future we’ll take a look at more games that will pull you and your friends away from the 360, even if only for a short time.

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Questions or comments for Michael? Send them along to gameshark.feedback@yahoo.com .