Okay, my copy is 2-3 years old, so it's before the d20 support was added.
Most chapters start off with some flavor text, usually a page or two. Several of them illustrate specific campaign examples, others are more vague.
The game uses the Unisystem rules which are similar to d20, but using d10 instead. Roll one dice, apply modifiers, if you hit the Target Number you succeed. It's simple and easy to teach/learn.
Tone is very grim. Of course, dealing with survival in a zombie-infested world is grim by default. The game captures the tone very well. The flavor text is all dark and gritty and the character archtypes provided are realistic personalities rather than heroic caricatures.
There's an emphasis on roleplaying and character concept rather than brain-busting. Since the latter is fairly easy to accomplish, this isn't a bad thing.
The game uses 3 "difficulty" settings, one for normal humans (very deadly), one for tough humans (moderate) and one for heroic characters (kick ass time). The difficulty level determines how many points your character is built from. For a d20 analagy, what level you start at, say level 1, level 3 or level 6.
Combat is deadly. It's easy to hit a zombie, but tough to hit one in the head. And god help you if your character gets shot or shoots a human. The damage levels for the bullets sky rockets. Very, very deadly.
The game is designed to be adaptable. You can literally design a zombie from the corpse up, complete with weakpoints (head, heart, etc.) to special powers (projectile vomiting) and even diseases. Also very good. Some zombies can be killed "normally", some can only be killed by a hit to the head, heart or spine. Some must be completely incinerated.
The game presents 7 or 8 campaign settings in brief. Each details a different cause of the zombie plague, as well as different levels of infestation. Causes of the zombie-ism include aliens, pesticides, a post-nuclear setting, comet radiation and (shudder) an STD. Sample zombies are given for each world.
The game also includes the possibility of adding magic in, meaning occult/religious magic, not fireballs and magic missiles. Again, everything is optional.
In short, everything is provided to run a good, moderately detailed zombie game. It provides stats for weapons, vehicles and such. If you use the d20 version, you have the d20 modern books with their weapon guides and such. Then you can get extremely detailed.
Another note, Eden Studios has a good website for the game, with more character archtypes, adventure seeds and articles. Watch out for the on-line fan-fiction. It's all dark and some of it is VERY disturbing.
I would also recommend the game masters screen, mainly for the adventure with it. It's a good adventure for new characters. I ran it once for a group of players who had never played the Unisystem. The players easily grasped the mechanics and had a lot of fun.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
I'm going to love the fact that you don't absolutely have to play it d20 just because it's different. It also sounds like I'll love the bullet damage; I get so annoyed playing Modern and the players take a gazillion bullets without going down. Thanks for the info.
