Typing of the Dead Demo

Zombie shooters have come a long way over the past few years, especially when you consider titles like Left 4 Dead and Dead Island. TV shows have also taken an interest in the phenomena, not to mention the countless movies that are released on a regular basis. However, humor can be a big and important part of a zombie flick, especially if it is done properly.

Typing of the Dead is a spoof of the famous House of the Dead series, only with a lot less horror and a lot more humor, given the fact that you do not get to aim and shoot at the zombies, but rather make use of your typing skills in order to dispose with them. In essence, every creature that appears on the screen bears a certain word that you need to type in order to kill it, which, despite what you may think, can be a very entertaining gameplay gimmick.

As far as the story is concerned, the plot is about as classic as it can get: the zombie apocalypse breaks out and you must explore the city in order to find someone. Enemies try to stop you and you type random words to shoot them, while various other characters make their appearance in order to nudge the storyline a few inches toward its conclusion. You cannot move or do anything else than type the words, which is about as relaxing as a video game can get, despite the disfigured faces decorating the screen.

The game uses a few tricks to maintain the mechanics fresh all throughout the story, the most important of which are the words themselves. Hence, they truly are random and they vary from different types of fruits, to slightly dirtier words involving grown-up concepts. There are also a variety of mini-games that keep the action from getting repetitive, such as boss battles, time trials and many other events that come out of nowhere as you advance through the scenarios.

Much to no one's surprise, the game looks almost exactly like House of the Dead, although the zombies and the monsters have been redesigned a bit. The graphics engine is largely the same and some of the environments even look very close to what you may have seen in the original release. That doesn't mean the game is an eye sore, on the other hand, since there are plenty of interesting locations and the animations are quite well-done.

In the end, Typing of the Dead is very witty, funny and lightweight, in the sense that it doesn't try to alienate anyone as it makes you laugh. Thus, the game is definitely worth a shot, if only to practice your typing skills and finally prove that words can really hurt as well.