John Carpenter is generally recognised as the master of horror, action and Sci-Fi movies in the 1970’s and 1980’s, so when “John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando” for Xbox came across the desk, I knew I was in for an old-fashioned treat. From developer Saber Interactive, this first-person zombie horde shooter can be played single player or online with three of your friends.

Published by Focus Entertainment, the title is described on their page as “Pick a character and team up with three of your friends because it’s time to save the world”, so let’s see if the name lives up to the man on the Xbox.

Tech company Obsidian, guided by CEO Leon Dorsey, began a project to harness the power of the Earth’s core. People were drawn to the drill site, drawn by a strange feeling. When they closed their eyes, they could see a demonic shape. The drill stopped, and people say that’s when the demonic shape escaped, and the sludge started coming to the surface.

You and your team are a bunch of mercenaries hired to clean up the mess, a ‘Toxic Commando’. You have been paid $250k each from an unknown employer, but little did you know, this isn’t your normal job.

You have four Toxic Commandos to choose from, all based on real-world actors: Walter Irons ( Clive Standen), Ruby Pelicano ( Lucy Martin), Cato Arman ( Omari Hardwick) or Astrid Xu ( Charlet Chung). Basing the character on real actors from the 80s and 90s is a great touch, and also the main title track is produced by John Carpenter and his son Cody Carpenter, so it’s all coming together on why his name is used in the title.

Once you have chosen your character, time to choose which operator class you are going to run: Strike, Medic, Operator or Defender, each with its own special abilities. Then it’s time to face the hordes. When you are playing solo, the AI controls the other operators.

They aren’t superstars, but they also aren’t completely useless, helping in combat, mounting weapons on vehicles and reviving you if you succumb to the hordes. You need them; the swarms seem endless in some scenes. Sabre Interactive uses a swarm technology that can produce 100’s of enemies at a time, and surprisingly, the swarms were well optimised as they had little impact on the framerate.

Not all zombies are the same; some have explosive abilities, some have backpacks of fire that explode when you kill them. You really have to scan as you are battling them to see where the next threat is coming from. Saber Interactive have also seemed to nail the AI of the zombies as well, as they won’t just run straight for you, they attack your teammates alike.

As you battle through, you find various weapons to help you in your battles, in all 16 weapon types from SMG, Snipers, Assault rifles, and the list goes on. You can even go old school with a crowbar or baseball bat if you want to run head-on into the horde and hope for the best.

As you progress, Leon’s base is essentially your headquarters. From here, you choose and accept missions, change or upgrade your gear and perform a few other functions. It is essentially a safe zone where you complete all the mundane tasks before jumping back into the chaos.

Depending on your missions, you can plot your path on the semi-open world map, giving you just enough freedom to have a look around for any side quests or hidden loot spots on your way.​

A differing factor from a lot of zombie games out there is the ability to use vehicles around the map, from a Horde Annihilation Truck to even an old Ambulance to heal the team as you drive along.

The vehicles I tried all had a different feel when driving, with different handling and characteristics. There are various vehicle types, each with its own pros and cons, that you can find around the map. You can easily swap between them as you find them.

My favourite is still the armoured up HMV Maverick, a souped-up Humvee with an EMP and Flamethrower on it. There is also toxic sludge and mud around the maps; you can tell the development team worked on the ‘Snow Runner’ game. You wear deep grooves into the mud and have to battle to ensure you don’t get stuck.

You have winch systems on some of the vehicles to get you out of these spots or pull open doors and windows to find hidden loot spots. Just don’t get bogged down and overwhelmed by the hoard. There is something satisfying about running over the horde as your teammates are pouring through their ammo out the window.

There are some nice upgrades for weaponry and even spare parts to fix up electric fences or gun emplacements to help you with your battles as you progress through the story. Trying to repair these, you have to complete a mini game as well, which can be a challenge in the middle of a fight, which is well done by the developers; it gets your blood pumping.

The graphics are top-notch; they have really leaned into the storyline with the devastation and the toxic sludge all around the map. Zombie bloody parts flying through the air as you shoot them, blood splattering onto your rifle and gloves as you kill them.

The environment is beautiful, yet zombie ugly, even down to the water textures you walk through; it is very well put together and hard to fault. After a lot of shooting, you will see the gun barrels glow red; there are some really nice reloading animations, and the guns are well put together.

When playing online with your friends, you have a quick interaction system that includes voice lines and marks objectives. During testing with a friend, we were kicked off halfway through for service maintenance, unfortunately, so you have to have a constant internet connection even when playing solo. Audio and story sound complement the graphics, all very well done.

There is a lot of banter between the operators to break up the combat scenes as well. The environment, the zombies, and vehicle sounds are all put together nicely. The weapons have that nice thump you want to hear when shooting.

Overall, John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a very solid game in a genre that is flooded. Except for the vehicle aspect, it doesn’t do anything different that sets it apart from other zombie horde games, but it is still a quality product and scores very highly in my opinion. By yourself or with a few mates, you will have hours of fun. The different zombies, the optimised hordes, the storyline and beautiful environment really make this title the complete package.

Written by: Mike Bridge