No More Room in Hell 1.09

Zombie games are, at this point, a dime a dozen - almost literally, if you pick up one of the many discount bundles that are out there. Even with that said, developers are still experimenting with the formula. While some are happy to make lazy slaughter-fests, there are still developers who want to do something fun with the genre. Some of the best developers work on making games that are a little closer to zombie movies, usually using films like Dawn of the Dead as inspiration. One of these games is No More Room in Hell.

As you might expect, No More Room in Hell is a homage to the movies of George Romero. It puts players on a cooperative team and forces them to survive the onslaught of a zombie hoard. While this is a mod, it's one that really stretches the Source engine to its limits. It's the kind of game that you've probably dreamed of, a kind of cross between Left 4 Dead and any of the dozens of survival games that are currently on the Steam marketplace. The game skews more towards zombie killing than survival mechanics, but it's still a fantastic combination.

Most zombie survival games are heavy on the combat and low on the actual survival. This is one game that actually feels like you're in a zombie movie. Yes, there's combat - and plenty of it. Everything's paced to let the dread build up, though, which is a fantastic change for this genre. While there's a lot that goes wrong in the game, one thing that is always good is the atmosphere. When you have the right team, you'll feel like you are playing in a Romero movie. There's something to be said for a good atmosphere in a game.

There are a number of issues that keep this game from living up to its potential. Perhaps the first is that the game just feels slow. It's built on the aging Source engine, which probably would have been a selling point a few years ago. Today, though, everything just feels a bit off. You can tell that the game wants to be less sluggish, but it just doesn't work as it should. Add in the usual assortment of mod bugs, difficulties playing with partners as intended as some issues with things like ads in the lobbies and you'll see that this game really isn't as polished as one might hope.

No More Room in Hell is one of those games that's better in concept than in reality. It's nice to see a more tactical zombie survival game, but this isn't exactly what most players are looking for. It's free so it's worth a download, but it's probably not going to keep you engaged for long. There's the core of a very good game here, though, and a great deal of respect needs to be given to the mod developers. Hopefully, they'll put together something that's a little more polished on their own in the future.