OVERALL: D- (64)
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Digital Pictures and its founder, the outspoken Tom Zito, were one of the pioneers in the use of FMV in videogames and they never shied away from promoting it as the next big thing. They wholeheartedly supported PC and 3DO gaming in the early to mid-1990's because (a) 16-bit consoles couldn't support the FMV requirements of DP's games, and (b) the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn were still quite a ways from reaching America. The catalogue of games that came from Digital Pictures reads like a 'who's who' in the genre, and way too many of them appeared on the Sega CD (quickly earning that ill-conceived add-on a reputation for crap gameplay): "Prize Fighter", "Sewer Shark", "Night Trap", "Supreme Warrior", "Ground Zero Texas" and the beauty that brings us here tonight, a zombie-infested shooter called "Corpse Killer" that plays in the same vein as Taito's "Operation Wolf" and the "Virtua Cop" series.

In a nutshell: you're in an island that has been taken over by a mad vodoo scientist hell-bent on taking over the world, and the fact that he has found a way to revive the dead and use them as his minions against you is bad news. Plausible storyline if you ask me, and the mix of plot elements from "The X-Files" and "The Island of Dr. Moroe" has the potential for some sweet shooting if properly done (like with Sega's own blockbuster "House of the Dead" series). Alas, everything that could have been done well with the Saturn port of "Corpse Killer" (the game had already appeared on Sega CD, PC and 3DO by the time it reached the Sega planet in early '96) ended up being either not programmed or ill-programmed into the game: NO SUPPORT FOR THE SEGA STUNNER means that the control pad is the only way to shoot the undead (lame, because the speed of the on-screen cursor blows), the FMV backgrounds and pop-up zombies (or as I like to call them: no-name actors working for a much-needed paycheck) are an eyesore that comes across as grainy/low-resolution/choppy and don't look at all scary, the repetitive shooting doesn't change with repeated gameplay because zombies pop out of the exact same locations, etc. Add to that the fact that the sound effects and music are low-budget in everything from quality (muffled and not very clear) to quantity (music repeats too often), the compression routines of this first-generation Saturn game makes the FMV on-screen blocky and letterboxed, AND that the acting from the cast during the set-up scenes would make the cast of the recently-cancelled "Melrose Place" look Shakesperean by comparison... voala, one of the worst early games on the Saturn by a mile, especially considering that the superior Sega coin-op "Virtua Cop" made its Saturn appearance around the time this hit.There is still some slight, bottom-of-the-barrel, slightly guilty pleasure everytime you mow down a bunch of badly dressed-up guys pretending to be zombies... and there have been considerably worst shooter games on other platforms like Kemco's "Knife Edge" (N64), Gremlin's "Judge Dredd" (PSX) and every game American Laser Games ever released on 3DO ("Space Pirates", "Mad Dog McRee", etc.). Still, when it comes to fun and gameplay goodness on Saturn shooter games "Corpse Killer" ends up dead-last (get it? Muhahaha!) and it joins the company that created it, the defunct Tom Zito factory of FMV dreams Digital Pictures, in the graveyard of videogame's historic footnotes. RIP!      
- J.M. Vargas