Despite their nefarious intentions, zombies have been getting a lot of good press over the past few years. Plenty of AAA games now include either zombie references or dedicated zombie modes, one of the stranger of which was Dirt 3's Infection mode. Of course, the undead are still playing leading roles, and while they aren't always the hero, as is the case in Zombie Apocalypse, they're the filling in the end-of-the-world sandwich.

　　Two years ago Konami released Zombie Apocalypse, a twin-stick downloadable game for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network that had you shooting and slicing up hordes of the living impaired. Two years and a new developer later, we're staring down the barrel of a sequel that promises to make good on the flaws and shortcomings of the original, as well as bring with it new ideas. We got hands-on with the game at the Konami booth during E3 2011 and took the airport level for a spin.

　　Where Zombie Apocalypse focused on the events of what developer Backbone entertainment (Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3) calls "Incident One," this game advances the storyline and moves to a new location, dealing with the dead who are beginning to take over a Canadian island.

　　Criticisms such as cramped level layouts and all characters feeling samey should be things of the past, with bigger play areas, longer round matches, and more onscreen shambling bodies all in the cards. Characters should also feel a bit fresher, because each now receives its own unique class type: engineer, soldier, melee specialist, or one other. Three will be fictitious characters, and we had a chance to see a snippet of story for one, a broody female character with a penchant for military gadgetry development. The fourth and final addition to the roster is Jeremy from the Canadian television show Pure Pwnage. Backbone cites programs like Trailer Park Boys as one of its inspirations, with each of the four in-game characters in ZA2 believing the end of days is real, and giving you the chance to, like, you know, pwn n00bs.

　　You'll also be able to switch characters on the fly for the first time, tapping the right shoulder button to switch classes and take on their unique weapon loadout. Pistols make your character nimble, but they pack less punch. Shotguns deal damage in a front-facing cone of destruction but fire more slowly, while heavy machine guns make your movements heavy and cumbersome.

　　Our airport level consisted of strewn luggage, crates, and barrels littering the map, while a giant running plane engine sat off to one side, waiting to be fed corpses. Power-ups were easy to spot and collect, and zombies spawned in at the edges of the screen and kept us moving while we avoided being swamped. We also spotted much larger boss characters entering the field of play from time to time, and these required coordinated efforts and concentrated gunfire to kill. Team AI didn't need any hand-holding, and the top-down perspective makes this feel like an early incarnation of Left 4 Dead before it became a first-person shooter.

　　Our hands-on time was fun, and while we haven't seen an awful lot of the game in action, we're hoping that the promises being made around more gameplay variety and longer level length will be kept. Like its predecessor, it will be seeking out brains on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Keep an eye out for it later this year.