Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys!

Platform: Nintendo DS
Verdict: A lively afterlife.
Rating: 7/10
Zombies eh? Can't live with em, can't live without em. One minute they're lurching from beyond the grave to munch through our cranium for tasty think-jelly, the next they're mankind's last hope against big brained invaders from planet Mars.
At least, that's the simple premise for the b-movie loving, comic strip aping Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! Instead of the typically popular zombie infatuated slaughterfests that pitch your shotgun against their vacuous head, this time around you play as the undead.
Teenage Zombies is like a Cartoon Network animation adaptation, even if it hasn't yet or ever will grace the idiot box. With three zombie kids to hot-swap between at the press of the touchscreen, Ignition Entertainment's side scrolling platformer attempts to inject afterlife into the under nourished genre.
Looking ever so slightly like Earthworm Jim's mutant offspring, Teenage Zombies has a lovely hand drawn style with the three brain hungry teenagers each exhibiting wildly varying characteristics and undead abilities.
With earth invaded by technologically superior floating brains, the Teenage Zombies are in culinary heaven, just so long as they can get through the seemingly intraversable levels.
Thankfully these young rotting pals can work together to get on. Lefty can extend her arms to reach higher platforms, Halfpipe can jump off ramps and crawl through narrow gaps while Fins has a tentacled appendage that allows him to walk up walls and monkey-bar across certain terrain.
Each level thus presents itself as a light-weight puzzle, asking you to pick the right zombie for the right task. And in this it gets things pretty right.
Unfortunately such potential is often left wanting with picky collision detection requiring some pixel perfect platforming where others would forgive and some rather rote and stilted one button combat sitting alongside overly slow character movement.
Still, it's a fun new IP that sticks its dismembered tongue out at all the bland brand games on the DS, and for that I salute it with one hand raised and the other on some disinfectant spray.