After The End

Editors' ReviewDownload.com staffNovember 3, 2010A few minor quibbles aside, this shoot-'em-up game makes an addictive and challenging diversion. In After The End, you control a soldier stranded alone in a postapocalyptic world inhabited by aggressive and evil monsters. As you might guess, your job is to blast them all into oblivion to stay alive. To make your task easier, you must locate more powerful weapons such as shotguns and mines. Although this game might sound easy, your foes are fast and tenacious, so you must take care not to get cornered. Killing a monster results in an explosion of blood, but you can disable this option to make the game more suitable for youngsters. It takes a while to figure out how to adroitly switch among your weapons, but After The End lets you reconfigure all control keys to ease the learning curve. We also like that the application lets you play in both campaign and survival modes, though you also can hone your shooting skills at the firing range. The small yet detailed third-person graphics accurately render the game's cold, horrific ambience, and the sound effects are just as appropriate. Also, although the game doesn't hog much memory when running and won't slow most computers, it does take up a significant amount of hard-drive space. Fans of action-adventure games most likely will find After The End satisfies.