These days, if you want to create instant fun, it seems as if the solution is to "just add zombies." Undead Knights for the PSP, from publisher Tecmo, takes this philosophy and runs with it by injecting a healthy dose of reanimated rotting corpses into mundane, screen-filling hack-and-slash action. The idea of transforming hordes of enemies into your own personal army of shambling doom is an intriguing one, but in the case of Undead Knights, the end result is little more than a Dynasty Warriors-style game sauteed in extra zombies.
You play as one of three pallid, undead warriors hell-bent on revenge. They were once loyal knights serving under King Gradis in the kingdom of Cavalier, but because the knights suspected the king's beautiful (and overly buxom) new queen of foul play and witchery, they are murdered at the behest of the king. After their deaths, a mysterious being known as "The Beast" offers to revive them as undead and grant them the power to turn their enemies into zombies under their control. Though there's a twist or two thrown in for good measure, the plot mostly serves as a straightforward excuse to make a soldier-slaying and zombie-making mess.
Yes, you can turn this big lug into your very own pet zombie.
Undead Knights attempts to play up the drama with cutscenes, but a few strange elements make it difficult to take the presentation seriously. The major enemy characters in the game are voiced-over with dramatic acting that is appropriate for the game's fantasy medieval setting, but your characters sound like rejects from heavy metal and punk rock bands. The dialogue is scripted to match the voices; thus, your enemies speak lines that are--again--appropriate for the setting, but your own characters will throw in vulgarities for no other purpose than to titillate the player (or perhaps the writers), and no one's mouth moves at all during spoken lines. The only explanation for this odd mixture is perhaps that the game is going for unintentional humor.
Thankfully, none of these odd decisions get in the way of the gameplay. On the field, your characters can slash, jump, evade, and grab. Grabbing an enemy turns him into a zombie; grabbing a zombie allows you to either throw it or smash it into the ground for an explosive attack. There's a delay--determined by how strong he is--from when you grab an enemy to when he's fully converted into a zombie. This encourages you to weaken said enemy enough to the point where you can instantly convert him. With each successful conversion, you fill up a meter under your health bar that, when full, allows you to unleash a devastating combo attack that renders all victims zombies. Beyond this, though, there's little technique you'll actually need to employ. Because you're likely to be crowded by a mass of soldiers at most points during combat, you'll be just fine if you mash on the weak attack button for a few swings and then repeatedly hit the grab button.
Having the zombies on your side is advantageous because they'll keep lesser enemies distracted, but their most notable use comes when you have to overcome obstacles. You can command your zombies to destroy archery towers, as well as siege machines and barricades. Comically, you can also throw them onto spiked wrecking balls so that they roll into enemy forces, and you can command them to form a bridge across chasms. If you've ever craved a game in which you can walk across the backs of undead minions, then this is it. Once the initial glee of controlling an undead army dies down, however, the game's tedious pattern becomes painfully clear. Most of the level design boils down to fenced-off kill rooms, so more often than not, you'll simply enter an arena-style environment, slash at soldiers, convert as many zombies as you can, and then hold down the R button to command them to wreck something. Occasionally, larger and more powerful enemies will visit to make things interesting (at which point you'd best employ your special attack), but it's not until the last one-third or so of your playing time that things get really challenging and the whole repertoire of enemies comes at you supplemented by multiple traps, such as land mines, cannons, and spike traps.
