Of course, the drawback is that you need to get close, which puts you in danger of being grabbed by a zombie. Whereas many zombies require multiple shots to drop, pressing the chainsaw into a zombie's chest usually kills it with a single hit. There are two ways to use the chainsaw: carving and execution. Each hero is also equipped with a chainsaw.
In multiplayer matches, the rush for that bear is about as frantic as rush hour on the 405. As they fly to safety, they drop a teddy bear. Touch the innocent, drop a flare and then hold off the horde until a chopper swoops low and picks them up. To get a new teddy, you must save the innocents that wander into each scene. The resulting bang sends zombie limbs everywhere. When tossed into the crowd, most zombies crush around it. Each hero also has some zombie bait, which is a talking teddy bear stuffed with C4 explosives. You will not pocket a rocket launcher right away. Weapons appear throughout each stage with a slow rollout of new boom-boom as the game progresses. Survivors begin each round with a basic assault rifle. In fact, none of your weapons injure your friends, which is a huge relief because when the ground is thick with zombie vomit and tracer bullets streak across the night sky, you have very little time to keep track of your allies. Exploding barrels also help thin the herd and fortunately do not damage you or your allies. Each scene has environmental hazards you can push the zombies into for bonus points at the end of the round. The action unfolds across seven landscapes, from a junkyard to a carnival midway. Just another several minutes of unloading shotguns into soft zombie flesh. After surviving one day on hellish zombie mayhem, your hero moves on to the next. Instead, it's a lonely slog against the horde of zombies, all named for their various attacks and physical attributes like the Queen that births evil bats, the Big Boy that is slow but requires extra bullets to bring down, and the Kamikaze that explodes when shot.
The game can indeed be played solo, but the extra three hero slots are not filled by computer-controlled characters. Up to four players must fend off wave after wave of menacing zombies with increasingly powerful fireworks. Zombie Apocalypse is an arcade riff on Left 4 Dead and proudly does little to hide it.