Facewound

Unlike The Rest of the world, I'm pissed off Left 4 Dead got released, as now everybody's talking about it and zombies are cool again. This is just like when Shaun of the Dead was released. I don't give a shit that you just saw Night of the Living Dead and you think Simon Pegg was a better hero!

I Luckily, before I could write another word, Facewound managed to impress the hell out of me - and that's being t euphemistic. This is a side-scrolling shooter, with controls much akin to | Shadowgrounds Survivor. You control your crosshair with the mouse, moving it from side to side and shooting the brains out of hordes of cartoony undead. This is all across the grim background of a post-apocalyptic city, with a mix of different horrors to plague you on your quest to find a weird blue flame and end the level.

The first thing you'll notice is how gorgeous it looks. Facepunch Studios have created their own engine that's slick and full of graphical muscle-flexing and colourful bloom. It's surprising that it's apparently four years old - stuck in the quagmires of development until recently - as it looks bang up-to-date, and while Facepunch's website is strewn with caveats about Facewouncfs fragile state, I didn't find a single bug during far too much time playing it.

As you murder your way to freedom, you'll pick up plutonium that can be spent on bigger guns in a Counter-Strike style menu. These range from machine guns to rapid-fire grenades that blow up anything with a mighty screen-wobbling blast - including you.

Facewound is a remarkable freeware game in that it's tighter and crisper than a lot of paid-for products. It even drops in some choice humour, with references to Brass Eye and Something Awful cropping up. It's a fine, addictive and free zombie blaster, and you can't beat the satisfaction of the physics-based bouncing of the undead's heads. They bounce and explode, much like oranges do when you stomp on them - and that's PC favourite pastime.