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We haven't heard anything from Catweazle since his 2015 game Descending Dungeons and it's great to see him back developing games for the Spectrum again. I don't know where he's been but there is a good chance that he travelled back in time in the style of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and returned a couple of years later with an entirely different skill set which in reality should have taken many more years to acquire. Descending Dungeons was not bad... but this blows its head off with a double barrelled shotgun!

ZXombies: Dead Flesh is a survival horror type of game you don't usually find on the spectrum. The events in the story are inspired by The Walking Dead, and the game is all the better for it. Outnumbered with little hope and facing a relentless enemy hellbent on eating your brains for breakfast. You are a lone soldier abandoned in a city which has a severe zombie problem. None of your team managed to avoid becoming zombie takeaway and it is now up to you to save the twelve remaining human survivors within the city from a fate worse than death (moving really slowly and groaning a lot!). The game opens to a simple loading screen and a synopsis of the events leading up to our hero (Major Denning) being trapped within a hive of the living dead.

The music is excellent and draws you further into the atmosphere of the game. From the gameplay and graphics this seems to be a 48k game with the remainder of the 128k being used for the music alone. This allows for music throughout the game to accompany the sound effects. The graphics are excellent with colourful explosions, a wonderful game-over animation and zombies that actually emerge from the Earth in a creepy and entertaining fashion. Major Denning is about 3 times faster than the zombies so can outrun them when needed and they are more often than not more of a slight nuisance than a formidable enemy. This lulls you into a false sense of security however as you quickly discover when you happen across the survivor's stronghold. Pressing the action button here will tell one of the survivors to follow you and you have to guide them to safety. Now this would be simple enough but the problem is that these survivors seem as if their brains have already been eaten. They will follow you but not walk directly behind or for that matter remain in the same place behind and will infuriatingly walk straight into any obstacles in their way. This leads to some hair tearing frustration but adds to the challenge of the game. Where are the hostages from Metal Slug when you need them? A simple “Thank you" and the gift of a rocket launcher would really have helped out in this situation!

There are various power-ups spread throughout the screens which range from health to ammo to new and ever more elaborate weapons. The rocket launcher is particularly fun as each shot creates a pixelated explosion wiping out any zombies in the surrounding area. The same effect can be created by shooting the various barrels that are left around the city and again leads to some strategic decision making. Levers can be pulled with the action button but each one takes a certain number of seconds which again leads to some strategic decision making as you can't be pulling a lever for five seconds while the guy you're meant to be rescuing is eaten alive. This adds a further dynamic to the game and turns that simple formula of kicking ass and chewing bubblegum into thinking about strategy, safe paths and conserving ammo. The gameplay is fast and frantic. Like all good survival horror games your ammo is limited and you have to use it sparingly. That's the idea but when faced with losing a survivor just before you get them to safety this approach can quickly descend into all out Armageddon as you take your revenge in a blaze of glory. The game is not overly long and once you know the layout and are used to having the prisoners following you can be finished in a matter of minutes which means the replay value suffers somewhat.

The graphics are colourful and there's plenty going on, especially when shooting some types of zombies who would explode in a burst of colour adding further to the entertainment of the action. There is a good selection of weapons to kill those pesky zombies with. The game is indeed huge with varied environments.

Not knowing where to take the people you are rescuing and when operating levers having to hold action button whilst zombies are attacking you. The A.I of the survivors who follow you is beyond terrible.

Although it looked promising at first, I got bored rather quickly, wandering around the maps without a clue what to do quickly became wondering what other games I could play instead.