Dead Block is a 4 player cooperative zombie defense title from Candygun Games and Digital Reality. The game captures your interest right from the start with it's intriguing over exaggerated 50's style, mixed with a bit of Team Fortress 2 and a sprinkle of Rock'n'Roll. But that's sadly about as far as it goes. The game begins with a tutorial explaining each of the gameplay concepts - destroying objects to gain wood, searching through items to to uncover bolts, setting traps and boarding up windows.
Dead Block features 3 different characters each with their own strengths and weaknesses - a builder who's good at boarding up windows and destroying objects, a chubby boy scout with a quick runspeed and fast item searching, and finally a gun wielding cop with high melee damage and an uncanny resemblance to 'Foxy Brown'. To destroy objects players simply bash on the B button. Regardless of what the object is, it'll always grant you wood - be it a bed, chair, shelf or even a toilet. Searching through items is done through a small minigame where the player must simply mash on the left and right triggers as fast as possible to gain bolts (more on these later). RB is used to melee zombies when up close. X initiates a special ability depending on your character, such as firing a gun at any zombies in sight, or an explosive zombie-attracting burger. Finally by tapping on LB you'll switch between characters, or hold it and you'll whistle your AI partners to come to the room you're currently in.
With wood you can board up windows and doorways, however with bolts you can create traps. These vary between character, and slowly unlock as you progress through the game's 10 levels. Candygun Games have done a fairly good job of creating some smart traps here - you'll have a boarded up window with a huge bomb strapped and primed to explode, or be able to rig a doorway with a damage-over-time toilet remains drop, and also plop worker hats on zombies as they climb through windows forcing them to become object-smashing slaves. There's 9 traps in total, each with their specific uses and interesting effects.
But that's about where the intriguing aspects end. Dead Block is riddled with repetition through and through. In short bursts it's bearable, but when playing a few levels back to back you'll quickly become mind-numbingly bored at the monotonous gameplay. Every single level sees you running from room to room mashing the B button to break apart a myriad of objects; this stays mildly enjoyable for about 10 minutes until you realise that you'll probably be pressing the B button more in the duration of Dead Block than you ever have in total throughout your 360's life. It seems the developers have tried to spice things up with small minigames, however these are never expanded upon and as a result fall victim to the same tedious nature as the above. You'll mash your left and right triggers repeatedly to search for bolts, over...and over again. Sometimes when searching, rather than the usual minigame, you'll have to pick out a specific object (be it a key, coin or piece of meat) - but this simply ends up being either pressing the left or right trigger respectively to move the cursor to the given object; there's simply no challenge here. Rather than expand upon the minigames they stay the same from start to finish. It's disappointing.
Sadly the dissapointments don't end there. Dead Block only features 4 player local multiplayer, that's right - there's no online multiplayer here. Although the game is certainly alot more enjoyable when other humans are thrown into the mix, there's only so much it can redeem. When playing alone the AI is often frustratingly dumb; if any zombie comes near they rarely seem to put up a fight and instead run around often getting hit and potentially dieing (which by the way the game gives you a points penalty at the end of each level for every character death). The AI also fails to move around the areas outside of the room they're currently in - instead you have to run to a separate room and then hold LB to call them there. Not only that but there's no way to point a single partner to a specific location, instead both come running along to the same place. To reiterate these issues only stand for singleplayer, having to babysit your brain-dead partners is downright irritating.
One thing the game does do very well however is it's presentation. Dead Block looks great - the characters and zombies are all over exaggerated, the music is fitting although sometimes a little repetitive, and the environments often succeed in giving off a 50's vibe with their rock'n'roll posters, jukeboxes and diner furniture. The game also takes an episodic style to each of it's levels, giving an over the top TV style introduction to each stage with the help of a melodramatic narrator.
Dead Block isn't particularly a bad game, it's just not a great one. When played in short bursts and with friends there's certainly fun to be had. The game will only take you roughly 3-4 hours to beat, however there's room for replayability for those that want it with multiple difficulty levels and specific stage goals. Candygun Games did a brilliant job of nailing the overall style and presentation of the game, but sadly fell down when it came to the actual gameplay which ends up being an extremely repetitive and predictable set of tasks. Online coop could have gone a long way in making the game more enjoyable, but that still wouldn't have managed to excuse the tedious game mechanics.
Dead Block Gets An Official Game-Pad: 6.5/10