Samurai vs. Zombies Defense for Windows 8, slicing and dicing the undead

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a action packed tower defense styled game for your Windows 8 computer or tablet. You play the role of the heroic Samurai that must defend his village against brain hungry hordes of zombies.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense has power-ups, upgrades, and a mini-game to keep things from getting stale. Add attractive graphics and challenging game play and Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a welcome addition to our Windows 8 Xbox gaming library.

Traditionally, Samurai warriors were charged with protecting their villages from threats. While the more common threats came from rival clans, invading armie with Samurai vs. Zombies Defense you must defend your village from the undead.

Game play is rather simple. On the computer, you use the keyboard directional arrows to move your Samurai. On a table or touch screen you tap the screen in the direction you want the Samurai to move. Samurai vs. Zombies Defense also supports Xbox game pads.

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense's game screen has your level progress, health meter, coins/gem counts and sushi supply running across the top of the screen. Along the bottom of the screen is your available allies and bonus attack controls. As your Samurai approaches the zombies, he'll start his attack with a bow and arrow and when he gets within striking distance, he'll use his sword. Attacks are automatic so you can concentrate on moving to attack the zombies or retreat to avoid getting your brains eaten.

As you take hits from the enemy, your health meter will begin to deplete. You can eat sushi to gain some health back or simply back away from the action to regain your strength.

The objective is to take the fight to the zombies and protect your village's gate. To help you in your defense, you have a collection of allies that can be summoned. Along the bottom of the screen you have icons for the various allies available.

The allies include farmers, swordsmen, bowmen, soldiers armed with spears and more. They span a wide range of strengths and abilities and are progressively unlocked as you progress through the game. You have an energy meter at the bottom corner of the screen that will slowly replenish. If you're energy levels build high enough, you can upgrade the meter where more energy is produced. Just keep in mind the troops are generated at your village gate so it may take a few seconds for them to catch up to the action.

Your bonus attacks rest at the bottom right of the gaming screen and will give your Samurai a boost of power that helps take out the zombies. As you take out the zombies you earn coins and gems that can be used prior to each level to upgrade your Samurai, your allies, a few stationary defensive units or purchase health related items that will keep you in the game. You have revival tokens that will bring you back from the dead and sushi that will replenish your health.

If you need more coins or gems you can get a jump on things through in-game purchases or play Pachinko to earn coins, gems and other bonus items. The balls you earn while playing the game will open up this mini-game and is accessed through the Shop Screen that appears before each level.

You also have bonus levels where you guide your army of allies as a spirit warrior and eventually you can unlock the Zombies Rising mode where you can play the role of the Zombie Samurai. Game play is just like the Classic mode but you play the zombie, defending the Gates of Hell (their version of a Village Gate) from the Samurai and his allies.  Where the Samurai has allies in the Classic mode, the Zombie Samurai also has allies to draw upon.  They're just more of the undead variety (i.e. legless corpse, etc.).

Graphics are rather nice, animations are entertaining, there is a ton of gaming involved and overall, Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a challenging, fun game for your Windows 8 devices. If you install it on multiple devices, your progress is saved, allowing you to pick things up where you left off. The gaming experience was equally enjoyable from a computer or tablet.  Maybe one day we'll see Samurai vs. Zombies Defense ported to our Windows Phones to add a mobile gaming aspect to things. 

Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a free Xbox Game for Windows 8 and you can find it here in the Windows Store.  

C'mon now

Microsoft's Surface Duo is not 'failing up'

Microsoft announced this week that it was expanding Surface Duo availability to nine new commercial markets. While Surface Duo is undoubtedly a work in progress, this is not a sign of a disaster. It's also doesn't mean that Surface Duo is selling a ton either. Instead, the reason for the expansion is a lot more straightforward.

Get it working again.

Here's what you can do if Windows 10 update KB5001330 is causing issues

In this guide, we'll show you the steps to get rid of the update KB5001330 to fix profile, gaming, and BSoD problems with the Windows 10 October 2020 Update and May 2020 Update.

N7

Review: NZXT made its first AMD motherboard and it's brilliant

NZXT made its first motherboard with an AMD chipset. The N7 B550 supports the latest AMD Ryzen processors and there's plenty to love about this platform. To differentiate the N7 B550, NZXT made notable changes to the layout of the motherboard to make it easy to create a clean PC build.

Next-gen boards

These are the best keyboards to use with Xbox Series X and S

Xbox Series X and S continue Xbox's support of mouse and keyboard control, so we rounded up the best keyboards to use with your next-gen console.