Don't think that just because survivors don't have to deal with alien horrors, psycho robots and otherworldly beings that things will be any less scary in Palladium's new Zombie Apocalypse RPG. Unlike the fantastic sci-fi universe of Rifts, the world of Dead Reign is one of a constant struggle to survive against overwhelming odds while trying to avoid becoming prey to dozens of different types of ravenous zombies and human predators... and there are no M.D.C. weapons, superpowers or cybernetic suits of armor to save you here....
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- The artwork really stands out in this title, particularly the work of artist Nick Bradshaw who drew most of the zombies in the first book. You really have to hand it to the guy, each and every type of walking corpse that appears has a gruesome and disgusting design. You can actually see the maggots and shredded muscle tendons on the twisted half ripped off faces of each walking cadaver and every single wound and sign of damage on their body is rendered in exquisite detail... and that's all before getting into the super zombie types that have all manner of disfiguring Body Horror that will make players wonder how they even got to that state. Zombies with broken jaws, zombies with crushed bodies, zombies covered in bugs, zombies with bits of scrap metal jammed into their flesh to serve as makeshift armor... this game has no shortage of grim content for even the most diehard Zombie Apocalypse fans. Sweet dreams...
- The Undead Child trope is in full swing here with plenty of nightmarish artwork to go with it. Highlights include a picture of a little zombie girl in a blood splattered dress walking down an abandoned street at night carrying a balloon and an illustration of a person vainly attempting to feed an obviously undead baby in a crib.
- As if all the zombies weren't bad enough the game goes to great lengths to show that Humans Are the Real Monsters in many scenarios and provides plenty of cruel NPC villains for the players to encounter. From insane death-worshipping Terror Cults to crooked backwoods Retro-Savages the base game already has plenty of nasty baddies to offer, but later sourcebooks add even more to make the lives of the remaining survivors complete hell on earth. You've got depraved serial killers, raiders, slavers, zombie tamers, torturers, kidnappers, psychopathic freaks and much much worse. It really goes to show that the worst scum humanity has to offer didn't entirely perish when the apocalypse came and has in fact found many ways to thrive in this grim new world of death and devastation.
- The Walking Grave... where to even begin with this thing? It's a massive undead abomination made up of dozens or perhaps even hundreds of corpses that ended up fused together into a shapeless inhumanoid blob of decayed flesh and scattered limbs and heads. Even weaker Walking Graves have SDC in the hundreds while the biggest of them can easily reach the lower thousands, essentially giving them the same amount of health as a minor Mega-Damage creature. Oh, and to fully kill one all of its many heads has to be destroyed completely. Miss even one and it'll keep coming and regenerate with each new survivor it kills and adds to its mass. Brad Ashley's advice for dealing with one? Run. Get the hell out of dodge or be prepared to go down swinging. Of the five times his group encountered one of these horrid things they only managed to put down two and suffered heavy losses accomplishing it. The other three times they flat out ran away and didn't even try to put up a fight... and they don't feel a bit of shame for having done so. If the survivors are ever given a choice between going into battle with a Walking Grave or a full sized zombie horde... go with the horde. At least that way it will all be over comparatively quick.
- Bug Boys and Worm Meat will have anyone with a fear of insects, germs or Body Horror scratching their own skin in revulsion. Definitely not something the GM will want to bring into a game with squeamish players... unless they're "that" kind of GM.
