It's a vision of the future we've all considered at one time or another: zombies have taken over the world, and the only way we can get to safety is to drive beat-up old vehicles across the barren landscape, splatting undead walkers as we floor it until we're out of gas. Earn to Die from Toffee Games lets us play out that inevitable reality in the safety of our own mobile devices, dropping you in a desert and giving you a hefty garage of upgrades and the ability to earn cash by running into the wilderness and stunt driving as far as you can over and over again. Despite being a teensy bit repetitive, Earn to Die has that lovely ability to keep us hooked, probably because we get to crush zombies with sawblades attached to our bumper.
The set-up is pretty simple: drive your vehicle as far as you can before running out of gas. Crush zombies to earn cash, which you use in the garage between runs to upgrade parts of your car. You can boost things like your engine, fuel capacity, and wheel size, but you can also add weapons and bumper improvements to help you squish zombies without losing too much speed. It's a careful balance between performance and raw carnage, but it's a line you'll quickly learn to walk as you buy new vehicles and drive farther and farther each time.
The only real downfall of Earn to Die is its eventual lack of depth. Sure, it's wild amounts of fun, but after some serious quality time with the game, you'll realize the purchasing strategies aren't that complex, and it's fairly easy to upgrade to a zombie-bashing beast with very little effort. That's not necessarily a true drawback, though, as nobody said a game about stunt driving cars with mounted shotguns is required to challenge your brain. Earn to Die is several solid hours of mindless fun, with all the heavy hits and epic moments you could hope to experience!
NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.
Just in case it takes anyone else as long as it took me to notice: the title is a total parody of "Learn to Fly".
Darn, I was hoping they added armor upgrades and such, but I'm guessing that's just for the version for devices I will never own.
At least that other tire upgrade for the semi got put in, though.
Update