Free-to-play gets a bad rap among a lot of serious mobile gamers, and often for good reason: there are many games which devolve and infantilize their design because it’s more profitable to do so. But not Zombie Highway 2 (Free). This is a free-to-play game that features many of the trappings of the business model, two-tier currencies, and incentivized video ads, but it makes them feel optional, and doesn’t get in the way of being a fun, zombie-splattering good time.
The setup is that it’s the post-apocalypse, and zombies are just littering the roadways, and you, dear driver, are trying to drive as far as possible without those jerks jumping on and tilting you over. Thankfully, your co-pilot can shoot out the windows, but ammo is limited. The real key is to scrape them off of obstacles nearby, also using the new nitro functionality to help get an extra damage boost, because those pesky undead get ever-tougher as the run goes longer.
Really, Zombie Highway 2 is about resource management. You have limited amounts of ammo and nitro to use, so you have to be smart about scrapes, and just running zombies over in order to be prepared for when there’s fat, red, regenerating zombies on all sides. Good luck with that. And of course, not crashing is important too, so it’s a game about fast precision while also being strategic, and it manages to feel completely natural as you play.
Zombie Highway 2 features a sparse desert environment, but the city environment is detailed enough, and it presents new challenges, along with the darkened tunnels. No matter what, it looks a lot better than the original Zombie Highway (Free) does now.
There are plenty of weapons and vehicles to unlock, with plenty of upgrades therein. But the thing that makes Zombie Highway 2 so unlike many other free-to-play games is that it actually manages to have a fair progression system to it, albeit one that can be skipped by the impatient moneyed class. Items are available at fair prices once they’re unlocked by reaching a certain class, which is obtained by completing objectives. Of course, you can spend gold, the hard currency, to buy any vehicle or weapon you want before you unlock it. But if you want to play through the game at its fair progression, you can do that! The game doesn’t leave behind non-paying players. And even then, while buying better weapons and cars will make it easier to go greater distances and to kill powerful zombies, I honestly believe there’s still a huge skill component, and a resource management aspect as well that just having the best toys won’t mean the highest score.
The revive system strikes a great balance towards fairness as well. It’s a system that’s not pay-to-win – it just rewinds you back a few seconds to before you died, with the situation the exact same, just now presenting you with an opportunity to correct it. These can be earned with gold, which the game does hand out often enough through objectives, zombie discovery, and daily challenges to give players a decent supply to work with. But there’s also the incentivized video ads – and there seems to be a good supply of them, so that you really don’t have to spend much or any gold if you don’t want.
Oh, and if you think that the rewinds are cheating, there’s a leaderboard for longest run without rewinds.
This is a free-to-play game for people who hate free-to-play games. There’s no wait timers, an honest progression system, and plenty to do. The game rewards you for playing on Expert mode, and for turning off various assistances. It feels like a free-to-play game that respects the player, tries to make it about skill, but also accepts the modern economy: people want free games. But people should also be able to play free games for free, and Zombie Highway 2 does a wonderful job at that.
But no matter what, Zombie Highway 2 is just a lot of fun. The game takes this concept that could be highly repetitive, and adds in a compelling progression that actually feels like it’s possible to get better, and that success is as much skill-based as having strong weapons. The normal and expert modes both have their reasons to play: the latter is a shorter challenge, the earlier is a great endurance test and way to earn lots of money at once. And of course, it’s about running over and shooting zombies at high speed. Everything comes together to make Zombie Highway 2 the kind of game that I just can’t put down when I start playing it. That it can be played without spending money and just watching ads helps too. Free-to-play should mean free to enjoy, and Zombie Highway 2 takes that to heart.
