Viveport Review: Drunk or Dead

Forget about finding the cure. In Drunk or Dead, your primary objective is to save the bar!

By Desmond Madison, Greenlit Content

The premise of the off-kilter undead arcade wave shooter, Drunk or Dead, from the developers at 4 I Lab is simple. You wake at the bar after a long day of drowning your sorrows only to be informed by the bartender that the world has been overrun by zombies.

To make matters interesting, this isn’t a world where being bitten turns you over to the undead side, it’s being sober that makes this airborne infestation seep into your veins. Luckily, your bartender has your back with an arsenal of weapons and a shelf of her finest liquor to drink away the infection as you blast through your blurry, alcohol induced vision in order to fend off the horde of oncoming zombie fiends.

The pressure soon heats up as the zeds wander into your watering hole, and since you need to be drunk in order to survive, you’ll constantly juggle headshots with shots of whiskey from the bartender as you struggle to stand dizzily on your own two feet. You’ll have to be careful, though, as there’s such a thing called “alcohol poisoning,” and if you go over your limit shown on the drunk-o-meter... you die.

This keeps the gameplay interesting and is the core feature that sets Drunk or Dead apart from the sea of other zombie wave shooters available in virtual reality. The game also wears its decidedly lowbrow sense of humor on its alcohol soaked sleeve, but as long as players know that going in, they should have no trouble adjusting to the atmosphere. Also, let’s face it, with a name like Drunk or Dead, most players should already be expecting a certain level of bar stool irreverence.

The setup is simple, silly, and simulates taking on the undead by getting completely sauced.  There are three main areas to blast away zombies as well as undead reindeer, and they’re all rendered with impressive detail and lighting. You won’t be moving around with any locomotion or teleportation, but that’s probably for the best considering you’ll need to stay as close to the bar as possible at all times.

If you can manage to say alive (and drunk) through all of the main locations, you’ll be able to see your scores posted to an online leaderboard. With all there is to juggle between slamming beers and blowing up TNT barrel carrying walkers, the game makes for a fun variation on the highly saturated zombie wave shooter genre, even if it’s not entirely appropriate for all ages.

In all, Drunk or Dead manages to live up to its namesake. It adds a great twist to the genre and gets you ready for the apocalyptic dream scenario of beer connoisseurs everywhere. It may not be something you’ll want to showcase to everyone in your family, but if you ever manage to have your drinking pals over for night of VR gaming, this one is an absolute dead ringer. Now hold my beer!

 Drunk or Dead is available in Viveport, and in Viveport Subscription.