Yakuza Dead Souls: bring on the zombies

It has always taken a special kind of person to truly appreciate the Yakuza series, which re-engineers flaws into points of endearment as few (if any) other series can.

 

Yakuza: Dead Souls

For: PS3

From: Sega

Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, sexual themes, strong language, use of alcohol)

5 Stars (out of 5)

 

Yakuza: Dead Souls takes that bizarre two-way affection into a whole new arena, but it never loses itself in doing so. An existing confluence of brawling and storytelling goes slightly nuts with the addition of zombies, firearms and more sustained action than has typically been present in these games, but everything those earlier games comprised - including the weirdly wonderful tug-o-war between archaic and charming - remains intact.

Souls takes Yakuza 4's setting and premise - once again dropping you into the shoes of four deeply unusual main characters - and tells a what-if story in which the undead clog the streets.

Along with the setting and characters, almost everything else with which Yakuza is synonymous returns in Souls.

In safe zones walled off (for now) from monsters, you'll find a new assortment of strange people to meet and assist in side stories.

Hilariously weird minigames and diversions abound. The random trouble-makers who pick fights in the street have disappeared but when you're battling zombies, the full brunt of Yazuka's brawling controls lie at your disposal. As always, it's a fast and exciting 3-D answer to the great 2-D brawlers that thrived in the 1990s.

But while hitting a zombie in the face with a coffee table is effective in a pinch, you'll need some real firepower when Souls drops you into an area crawling with several dozen undead.

Enter guns and grenades - and what a strange entrance it is.

Souls crams three types of shooting controls into its existing gameplay with reckless disregard for elegance.

Ultimately, the best way to mow down zombies is to run through a room hammering on the shoot button. Your character shoots whichever zombie is nearest in his field of view. The shooting is fast, exciting, effortless and silly in exactly the right way - in other words, a perfect complement to everything else Yakuza has done so wonderfully for so long.