Originally released on the PlayStation 3 back in 2010, Dead Nation was a call back to a type of those old arcade shooters were you look down on your avatar as he shoots and blows up everything within range. Re-released now on the PlayStation 4 with improved graphics and additional gameplay aspects, Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition is pretty much just a hi-def version of the original. So if you liked / disliked that version, then you're still going to like / dislike now, except everything looks a little bit better.

You play as Jack or Scarlett or both if you're playing co-op mode, two of just a few survivors in the world left after a zombie virus outbreak. (Note to game makers: Zombie Virus Outbreak plots are spreading in games like some kind of Zombie Virus Outbreak. Try to come up with something new?) You're looking for food / shelter / more powerful weapons, and there are thousands of zombies standing between you and your goal.

Awarding multiplier points for the more zombies you kill, there is a certain amount of glee from purposefully missing a zombie as you fire your machine gun at a nearby abandoned car, then that car's alarm going off, causing all the nearby zombies to rush over to it, only for the car to explode and take out about twenty of the walking dead in one go. Unfortunately, moments like this are few and far between, as more often than not you'll just be slogging through one horde after another with shotguns and grenades. And while that does sound like fun – and it is, for a while – the repetitiveness does overwhelm after a point.

The graphics are pretty enough, but the constant darkness and ran, as well as the relatively small size of the characters on the screen, mean that you'll need to be playing this on a large enough TV, or sitting quite close to a small one, in order to make out what exactly is going on most of the time.

The ten levels can probably be completed in just a few hours, but the difficult does spike up quite a bit, and quite suddenly, with a certain aspect of addictiveness meaning you'll find yourself in a loop of "Just one more try..." for a couple of hours or so. More of a time-filler than anything else, there is some fun to be found here, but it's both short lived and quite unoriginal.

Format: Playstation 4
Rating: 18+
Score: 3/5