Reviews
‘Ground Zero’ Infuses Throwback Survival Horror Game with Style and Seoul [Review]
Genre fans have been absolutely spoiled these past few years when it comes to retro survival horror experiences. From the combat-heavy modernization of Silent Hill F to the classic thrills of the Tormented Souls games, there are so many quality horror titles going around that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with all the new releases.
Of course, I’d argue that this is an excellent problem to have, especially when these releases are passion projects like Malformation Games’ Resident Evil-inspired Ground Zero.
A survival horror throwback that looks and feels like a long-lost Dreamcast title in the vein of Carrier or RE: Code Veronica, the Swedish-developed Ground Zero is the latest attempt at scratching that familiar genre itch that AAA gaming has long since forgotten.
In the game, you initially take control of South Korean special operative Seo-Yeon as she and her Canadian partner Evan investigate the aftermath of a mysterious meteor impact that devastated Seoul and the surrounding area. The agents soon discover that the impact site isn’t as dead as it seems, with the apocalyptic environment now being home to mutant creatures and a cancerous growth that may soon threaten the entire world.
Classic Survival Horror Gameplay with Modern Twists
In gameplay terms, this setup translates to players exploring a charmingly lo-fi (yet still visually stunning) rendition of South Korea as they fight monsters, solve puzzles, and deal with limited inventory space in an attempt to progress through the area and find out exactly what’s going on. This process is enhanced by modern additions such as upgradeable stats that you improve through a series of color-coded vials, an intensely satisfying critical hit system, and “genome points” that you can trade in for items at certain automated vendors.
The main gameplay loop is still pretty much identical to the survival horror hits of yesteryear, with progression involving plenty of backtracking to item boxes and consulting a detailed map (which automatically updates with icons indicating door functionality and missed items). However, you’ll soon find that the constant running around between previously explored areas means that it’s almost always better to deal with enemies as soon as possible, a situation that removes much of the tactical thinking that makes these games so thrilling in the first place.
In fact, the overall Ground Zero experience is a little on the easy side if you have any prior history with this sort of game – especially if you can master melee combat and keep an eye out for upgrades. That being said, I’d much rather deal with a title that occasionally holds my hand a little too hard than an obtuse nightmare that removes all the fun from the experience. Plus, there are separate difficulty sliders for both combat and puzzle solving, so this shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Pre-Rendered Backgrounds and Immersive Sound Design Contribute to Haunting Atmosphere
Besides, the atmosphere is the real highlight of the game, with Seoul and the surrounding area appropriately feeling more real than Raccoon City or even Silent Hill. The pre-rendered graphics and colorful art style make the devastated area look hauntingly beautiful, and the hand-crafted visuals are enhanced by a highly effective soundtrack that keeps things interesting even after you realize that the plot isn’t going to win any writing awards.
Ground Zero is also a surprisingly lengthy experience, with some of its mechanics being spread a little thin over so much game. While the title never truly wears out its welcome, things get a bit repetitive once you’ve upgraded your character to superhuman levels and understand more or less where the story is going. That being said, not only do the level and monster designs continue to be excellent throughout the entire campaign, but you also get a lot of bang for your buck here.
The title offers multiple playable characters, branching paths, and a plethora of cosmetic upgrades, and there are also alternate game modes containing a plethora of unlockable secrets that will likely have you playing and replaying for much longer than the promised 15-20 hour story mode.
Unfortunately, this embarrassment of genre riches is somewhat marred by a handful of technical issues endemic to ambitious indie projects. While I didn’t encounter any game-breaking bugs, it’s clear that the title could have gone through another round of testing in order to deal with clunky item hitboxes and unpredictable enemy collision detection (especially where the critical hits are concerned). I also had to reload to an older save file after encountering a glitch where Seo-Yeon became invincible after upgrading her stats.
Final Verdict: Is Ground Zero Worth Playing?
None of these issues kept me from enjoying the title, but it’s a shame that the developers came so close to delivering a masterpiece but ended up fumbling the details. This also applies to the game’s narrative, as the characters are all quite likable (I particularly enjoyed Evan’s charming sense of humor and Seo-Yeon’s badass demeanor), but the story itself is a retread of established survival horror tropes covered up with a South Korean-flavored coat of fresh paint.
The minute-to-minute experience of actually playing through Ground Zero is so entertaining that most of these issues simply melt away. It’s hard to worry about the occasional missed critical hit when you’re thinking about how gnarly the monster designs are and how the pre-rendered backgrounds make Seoul look beautiful in spite of the ongoing apocalypse.
That’s why I’d recommend Ground Zero to both new and veteran fans of classic survival horror, as the game’s unique blend of South Korean style with fleshy homages to the genre titans like Dino Crisis and Alone in the Dark makes it one of the best Resident Evil Clones in years.
Just be sure to play on a higher difficulty if this isn’t your first survival horror rodeo.
Ground Zero is available now on all major consoles and PC.
Reviews
‘Cape Fear’ Redefines A Cutthroat Classic & Turns The American Dream Into A Psychological Nightmare [Review]
Hollywood has been stuck in a trend where a recognizable property — any recognizable property — holds more value than an original idea. This has led to a trend where a slew of acclaimed films have transitioned over to television and become limited series, because why not?
Which has led to a very mixed bag of results that’s usually viewed as a hollow exercise in IP renewal that’s become a growing cliche that’s something to mock. Dead Ringers, Fatal Attraction, Presumed Innocent, and even The Birds are just some of the most recent titles in the movie-to-limited series pipeline. Admittedly, this formula can still work. It just needs to actually have not only a point of view, but a point, otherwise it’s destined to disappear into the vast streaming abyss.
Cape Fear definitely has a point of view and is well aware that it’s the fourth proper adaptation of this story — fifth if The Simpsons’ masterful “Cape Feare” parody is included. It’s an adaptation that’s not only aware of its past’s baggage, but intentionally embraces it and uses it to its advantage. Nick Antosca’s Cape Fear is so exciting because it functions as a remix of every version of this story — the ’60s film, Martin Scorsese’s ’90s remake, and John D. MacDonald’s original novel, The Executioners — to create this glorious amalgamation of the narrative. It’s not unlike what was done with Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series and how it remixed the breadth of Thomas Harris’ works and their cinematic adaptations.
This approach is most effective when certain iconic scenes from the ’90s film are recontextualized and given to different characters in order to make grander thematic statements. It’s a really striking approach that reflects the generational ripples and overlap between these adaptations, yet it’s never distracting or ostentatious to anyone who is experiencing this story for the first time. It helps this series feel different from the deluge of forgettable adaptations that are flooding the market.
On paper, Antosca is the perfect showrunner to tell this story. He has an impressive body of work to pull from that includes horror series like Channel Zero, Hannibal, and Brand New Cherry Flavor, but also lots of true-crime titles like The Act, A Friend of the Family, and Candy. This series falls squarely within these two extremes as it blurs the lines between these genres and styles of horror storytelling. It’s Big Little Lies on bath salts. Cape Fear perhaps doesn’t need to exist, but it’s still a hell of a terrifying experience that has something timely to say.
Horror is full of stories in which one bad day is all it takes to break someone and turn them into a completely different person. Cape Fear isn’t doing exactly this. It’s more of a psychological waterboarding until the target’s sense of self is eroded to rubble. However, it takes the kernel of this idea and expands it onto the pristine ideal of the picturesque American family. It plays with the self-aware realization that the stories we tell are not necessarily what we think they are.
It’s a story about forgiveness, salvation, and revenge that blows up the Bowden family when a violent offender, Max Cady (Javier Bardem), is released from prison and systematically sets his sights on the people he holds accountable. Anna and Tom Bowden (Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson), the married couple who represented his case in court, receive a rude awakening when Cady’s psychological torture tour begins. Cape Fear, as a property, is most famously known for being the ultimate cat-and-mouse psychological thriller. This rendition culminates in such an explosive climax that’s right out of a slasher film.
Antosca was involved with an unproduced Friday the 13th reboot draft back in 2015, and there are certainly moments in which Max Cady moves with the hulking intensity of Jason Voorhees. So much of what makes all this work rests on Bardem’s complex performance. He’s very careful not to just copy Robert Mitchum or Robert De Niro’s versions of Cady, while he also taps into a terrifying intensity that feels completely different from what he brought forward with No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
Apple TV’s new series also introduces a mental injury to Cady that adds psychological fractures that pull him between different versions of events as he struggles to grasp the truth. It’s an element that’s not exactly necessary and often feels like a convenient obstacle that can be activated whenever necessary. However, it allows for some creative visual flourishes and more opportunities for Bardem to get lost in Cady’s complexities.
Opposite Bardem’s Cady, Adams and Wilson do some of their best work as Anna and Tom. Anna is much more front and center than Tom, and Cape Fear is really Adams and Bardem’s time to shine. Wilson still does amazing, understated work, especially whenever the rug gets pulled out from under him regarding someone in his family. The visceral, brutal violence that Cady introduces to the Bowden family hits hard and highlights the anger and intensity that’s fundamental to this story.
What Cape Fear does best is its enlightening deconstruction of the ideal American family, how much work it takes to preserve such a pure thing, and the lengths that people go when they feel like the sanctity of this union is under fire. All it takes is for one of these foundational pillars to weaken before the whole unit becomes compromised. It moves the damage and pressure from one family member to the next as everyone struggles, and it’s unclear what will be left of this family when all is said and done.
This dynamic makes Cape Fear’s story so much more layered and interesting than if the series were just focused on Cady, Anna, and Tom, rather than making their children as much of a priority. Each member of the Bowden family experiences their own obstacles and arcs, although Natalie (Lily Collias) and Zack’s (Joe Anders) storylines are often the most grating. It all boils down to forgiveness, identity, and wanting to be perceived as the person we think we are, versus how we’re viewed by the public, and the dangerous dissonance that can exist between these separate selves.
These ideas are at their most potent when Cape Fear taps into the growing paranoia that bubbles up to the surface and becomes unbearable, so that even the littlest action is triggering. These moments are usually captured through a more erratic filming style that ramps up the tension for both the characters and the audience, unsure of what will strike and when.
Cape Fear never struggles to create uncomfortable setpieces where the anxiety just crescendos and hangs over the scene. On this note, the series’ musical score really captures the perfect aesthetic. It immediately evokes the suspenseful power of the previous Cape Fear films whenever Bernard Herrmann’s virtuosic original theme kicks in. It’s magic every single time.
Antosca delivers an exhilarating update to a classic thriller that pushes its source material to exciting, new places that justify its existence. It’s an exciting story that’s full of terrifying performances and cataclysmic consequences. Admittedly, Cape Fear could have been shortened to eight episodes rather than ten. There are a few plot threads that feel unnecessary and artificially expanded upon, but every episode is still an adrenaline-pumping experience.
If nothing else, it reminds audiences why Cape Fear is such an evergreen story that’s lasted the test of time and will continue to unnerve and get under the skin of whole new generations.
The 10-episode series will make its global debut on June 5 with a two-episode premiere on Apple TV, followed by new episodes every Friday through July 31, 2026.
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