Zombie Corps(e) is the first expansion pack for the Zombies! Boardgame, by Twilight Creations (formerly Journeyman Press, which went out of business; the authors managed to keep the rights to their own game and have re-released it as Twilight Creations, along with this expansion set).
Phew, that blurb out of the way, I'm not reviewing Zombies! here, just the expansion set, Zombie Corps(e).
Zombie Corps(e) comes in a small box, about half the size of the original box. The cover art features a large muscled scary-looking zombie glaring "down" at you. The box contains 30 new cards (two sets of 15), 15 new map tiles (more on them later) and 6 new glow-in-the-dark zombies, which are the same "pose" as the zombies in the original pack, but, well, glow in the dark. They're used in the game as super-zombies (more on that later as well). Additionally, the box contains a new set of punch-out life tokens. One of the main complaints of the original game was that the life and bullet tokens looked too similar (both black and white) and that there were not enough life and too many bullet tokens. This set features a LOT of red and white life tokens, so it's now easy to tell the two types of tokens apart at a glance, and there's no danger of running out. An excellent addition to the game, thanks guys!
So, what does is actually add to the game of zombies?
The new tiles are part of a military base (thus Zombie Corps(e), geddit?), conveniently attached to the nameless town the game is set in. One of the tiles is a front gate, which is randomly shuffled into the top half of the Zombies! tile set. When the front gate makes an appearance, the player who pulled it places it, and from that time on, players may choose to take a Zombies! tile and add it to the town, or take a Zombie Corps(e) tile and add to the military base, giving two choices as to where to search for bullets, life and a way out.
Why would players want to enter the base? Well, first off there's a helicopter pad inside the base, and it's shuffled to anywhere in the base tileset, so it may well come out earlier than the helicopter pad in the main tile set. However, there's a risk when entering the military base - there's a secret lab somewhere in there that contains Super Zombies (the glow-in-the-dark ones). These six zombies are tougher than normal zombies, moving two squares for every zombie movement point allocated to them, and requiring a 5-6 to kill rather than the usual 4-6. Other than the lab, there's a motor pool where players can pick up a jeep, and an armory, plus a few miscellaneous buildings such as barracks etc.
The new cards are a mixed lot. They range from very powerful weapons (what you would expect to find in a military base), such as the rocket launcher (found in the armory) which destroys an entire tile and adds all zombies on it to the players pool, mine field which kills d6 zombies from any one tile (not necessarily one the player has visited, oddly enough), Government enhanced Zombies (all zombies become super zombies for one round) and so on. There are also some new "piss off" cards, such as making an opponent discard all cards in his hand, or stealing one of his weapons and taking it for yourself.
Is it worth it? Well, yes and no.
It's only fifteen dollars (thus ~$40 if you live in New Zealand), and it does add a new dimension to the game. The base is a lot of fun, especially having to fight through the super zombies that some thoughtful opponent has littered your path with. The new cards are all very good as well, and a lot of fun to play with.
But there are a couple of downsides too - firstly, the new event cards are slightly larger than the cards in the original Zombies! set. Not by much - about a milimeter top and side, but it's enough to make them clump when you shuffle them. The easy solution is to put all the cards in CCG sleeves, but it's annoying anyway. The only other "problem" is really only a problem depending on your point of view of the original game. What Zombie Corps(e) DOESN'T add is much MORE in terms of what you actually do. Like the original set there is a poor "interesting building" to "boring street" ratio, and like the original set you can spend a lot of time running along streets wishing there was something to do other than just kill zombies and play event cards. If you loved Zombies! then you'll love Zombie Corps(e), but if you thought it was boring then you'll find nothing here to change your mind - although there are new tiles and new cards, it's really just "more of the same".
My final beef is that even with all of the new weapons (most of them the "use once and throw away" variety) the best weapon in the game is STILL the fireaxe from the base set ( 1 on all attack rolls, keep permanently), it just seems counter intuitive that guns are less useful than an axe. Yes, I understand - they're zombies, only brain hits can kill them etc, but still, a shotgun to the head...? Yes, there is a shotgun card, but it only lasts for three uses and there's no way to reload it. I also think that another interesting addition to the game would be a ranged weapon, perhaps a rifle that costs 1 bullet to use, then has the usual 4-6 chance of putting down a zombie in sight of the character, and if you miss you don't lose a life. Now THAT would be a good addition to the game.
So in summary, if Zombies! wasn't your bag, then there's nothing in Zombie Corps(e) to turn your head. But if picking out Zombies! for a fun afternoon of maggoty-ridden corpse smashing appeals to you, then you should seriously consider adding Zombie Corps(e) to your collection.
Style 4, Substance 5
Bonus Review!
Just a quickie on the only other (currently anyway) expansion to Zombies! - Bag o' Zombies. This really doersn't warrant it's own review, so I've tacked it on here. What is it? well.. it's literally a bag o' zombies. A hundred of them, to be exact.
Ten bucks (US, of course) for another hundred zombies? Yes please. Excellent value. The only problem with Bag o' Zombies is that the 100 zombies you get are glow-in-the-dark ones, not the same ones as in the original set. This makes it difficult to integrate them into the regular zombies game since the glow-in-the-darks are supposed to be super zombies. For this reason, I have dropped substance to a 3. Very cool though, and a damn good price for what you get, so Style 5.
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