The show is less of a serious survival game show and more of a comedy reality show that heavily follows a storyline.
Just imagine a group of celebrities and entertainers fumbling their way through a cheesy real life video game.
Once I adjusted my expectations during the first episode, I was able to stick with it for the ride and have fun with it for the most part.
They should've advertised it from a comedy angle.
I liked the on-screen captions/commentary that poked fun at the situations, and questioned some of the cast choices and dialog. Highly recommend paying attention to the subtitles for those.
Some of the rules or constraints during the challenges sometimes felt inconsistent and arbitrarily handled.
Many of the scenes dragged on too long, like the funeral dinner, or the ferris wheel, or parts of the safe house training, etc.
I tried the English dub for a few minutes during the gas station level but couldn't get into it and switched back.
Even though I enjoyed it, I can't decide whether I would recommend it or not. Probably both because I get where the complaints are coming from.
A lot of the reaction on Reddit is very polarized. People either liked it for what it was, or thought it was the worst show ever. Many complaints seem to stem from certain expectations on how reality shows work.
Many complaints about the show being "scripted" but I think they actually mean "staged".
It's like D&D. Everyone goes in knowing it's fake, but they try to play their roles within the setting and world and rules, and react to the situations they're presented with. This one happens to have a lot more planning and setup by the producers in service of the overall storyline.
Adding to that, some people didn't like it when the players had to try to be serious, and some didn't like when the players would break while trying to be serious. But as a comedy, some of the funniest bits to me on shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway or Saturday Night Live are when cast members are visibly breaking and trying their hardest to keep it together for the scene.
Some threads and comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/koreanvariety/comments/15lad5z/zombieverse_e0108/https://www.reddit.com/r/netflix/comments/15lhaoy/zombieverse_is_incredibly_disappointing/https://www.reddit.com/r/koreanvariety/comments/15vjxij/finished_watching_zombieverse/www.reddit.com/r/Zombieverse/comments/15taag7/comment/jwpziut/That said, I'd love to see something that leans more toward being a game show, like Run For The Money but with more levels and missions and a general theme (zombie apocalypse) to tie it all together.
