Zombies! You've got to love them. Now a completely integral part of western popular culture, the shambling living dead have unsurprisingly become a frequent aggressor in the gaming canon. Hell, we've even been able to play as them on a few occasions. There are various advantages to them in gaming terms – not least the fact that their inherent stupidity and single-minded desire for human brains makes their AI unchallenging to program... but we wouldn't be crass enough to suggest that as the reason zoms are the crucial game element in this indie action game, Night of A Million Billion Zombies!

Mercifully, even developers PowerUp commonly refer to their game as NOMBZ, which is amusing enough an acronym even if it does lose the spoof B-movie appeal of the full title. In keeping with that title, NOMBZ is not a serious game – instead, it's a tongue-in-cheek homage to classic ’70s zombie flicks like Dawn of the Dead played out as a simplistic, third-person action game.

Mot is the game's only essential character – if he kicks the bucket, you must start the level again. There are four other characters (a stun-stick-armed cop, a nurse with healing capabilities, a homicidal postman, and a chainsaw-wielding lumberjack) who aren't so integral... but if you lose them, you will want to get them back. The characters vary hugely in their abilities, but unfortunately their AI is very simple and so switching rapidly between the misfits under your command is often key to their survival. When left to their own devices, each of them will follow whichever character you're playing as, firing their primary weapon at whichever sack of militant rotting flesh is nearest.

The objective of every level is simple – get to the exit point. Once you've reached that exit point, you have to survive standing about there for a little while before you can actually escape and move on to pastures new. Along the way the zombie hordes will try to stop you – the trouble is, there really are huge numbers of them and some of them move very quickly – on top of that, they don't permanently stay dead. This means that you're punished very severely for making a wrong turn in the labyrinthine levels. If you turn back, you'll face huge waves of reanimated brain-slurpers – and when you finally reach the exit, massive mobs will have followed, often striking you down just when you thought you'd done enough to leave the level...

Although it's enjoyable enough, especially in the context of an indie game, NOMBZ is nevertheless a potentially very frustrating experience. It's also very repetitive, despite the best efforts of the developers to bring in a variety of different characters and zombie types. There is only so much entertainment such a simple, recurring formula can provide.

Having said that, NOMBZ is a competently made action game and is definitely worth a look if you're into small games like this – oh, and a zombie fascination will help too.