So this was kinda stupid but it was also pretty fun? The short of it is that this is an on-rail zombie shooter kinda like House of the Dead but done entirely in FMV. You're in a jeep, travelling horizontally across a landscape, shooting zombies that are layered very poorly over the background. You basically keep going on the same route towards a fortress four separate times in an attempt to defeat Dr. HELLMAN, broken up by optional sidequests and cutscenes where this rasta guy and this Generic Girl talk to you about how cool you are. It's... not exactly a great gameplay loop by any means — the first 90% of the game is literally just doing the same levels over and over again — but I won't lie, it was kinda fun to shoot zombies and the cutscenes are exactly the right kind of 90s cheese — the actor who plays Winston deserves props for being so consistently entertaining the whole way. I don't exactly feel like there's much reason to play it again, but... it was a nice distraction for 80 minutes and that's all it really needed to be. 6/10.

Using the power of FMV technology, Corpse Killer makes you the star of your very own B-movie. Actors appear in the flesh during cutscenes and interact with you through a first-person perspective allowing you to feel like you're on the screen with them. The story is a cheesy affair involving zombies, voodoo, and mad scientists. It's dumb and silly, but a whole lot of fun. The same can be said about the gameplay.

This is a fairly standard on-rails shooter, but seeing real people that have been superimposed on equally as real backgrounds via blue screens while dressed as sometimes hilariously out-of-place looking zombies fly at you is a visual effect that never gets old. As hard as it is to make shooting the undead not fun, the unique presentation makes the simplistic action far more entertaining and exciting than it otherwise would have been. A lot of the enjoyment you'll get from this is owed to its distinctive style.

There isn't much content here. A single playthrough can be completed in about an hour or two, and despite enjoying the game I wasn't keen on going through it again as I felt I had seen everything it had to offer. Especially since after one go I had enough points to unlock the majority of the bonus behind-the-scenes content. Also, the entire middle section is a loop of the same 3-5 levels, depending on whether or not you choose to tackle the optional side-missions.

Because of all this, Corpse Killer is little more than a cheap novelty. Good to pick up every once in a while for a few minutes of goofy carnage and to chip away at the aforementioned unlockables. Sometimes that's all a game really needs to be though. Developer Screaming Villains have added modern updates that make it more playable and forgiving than it was back on the Sega CD, and what it lacks in depth it (almost) makes up for in originality. So if you're at all curious I say give it a shot.

7.3/10