The First International Zombie Games!

It's the last weekend of November, and the Thanksgiving gravy is still sticky on our chins. It's only natural then that thoughts should turn back to food...in this case, the food would happen to be brains. I am, of course, talking about zombies, an unnatural phenomena that has often struck as odd. 

Odd, that is, in the case of its popularity. I have never pretended like I've understood what has made "zombie" such a household name since the...shoot, I don't even know when exactly. I don't THINK that the viewing public went too overboard immediately following the George Romero pictures (Romero, of course, being the man who changed all the rules in the zombie handbook). And yet, somewhere, somehow, the zombie menace snuck up on us, and to this day, films, games and even costumed parades are gallivanting around the respective towns of Christendom. Personally, I blame the Resident Evil games...

What mystique is there about the zombie that is so capable of inspiring this horror counter culture? I have nothing against it, you understand...but why zombies when there are other, just as deserving creatures out there, like hobgoblins, gremlins or Lithuanians? It really is a subculture; there are entire chapters of otherwise normal people, who just happen to be locked within zombie-fandom, scattered across the country.

If zombies were sexy, perhaps I'd understand it. But the zombie does not hold the sex appeal, literal or figurative, of another undead creature that has caught the public attention recently for an undeserved amount of time (I've still got my fingers crossed that the vampire fetish will be resting in peace sometime soon). True enough, the original zombie wasn't quite the tumbling bag of flesh that it is now, but zombies were never the prettiest reanimated corpses on the block. 

Zombies...the original sex symbol.

I bet that in the end it will turn out to have something to do with the fact that "zombie" starts with the letter "z," a mysterious letter that has always caught the attention of mysterious minded humans. After all, there's no monster out there that starts with an "x," so you make due with what you got. That's the best I can come up with right now at least.

But then again, maybe I am missing out on something...

Oh well. There's a paper in there somewhere, but it's not what I'm writing today. You see, as I said, I have nothing against the zombie in its function in media per se. I just feel that the zombie, itself twisted out of its original packaging and turned into a mindless gore monkey, has become something of a generic stand in for "canon fodder bad guy." This is particularly prevalent in the video game industry, where zombies, along with Nazis, ninjas and turtles, are THE BAD GUY SUPREME when it comes to lower level, disposable, enemies.

The zombie must break out of its humble shell! And Halloween is, if nothing else, a time for miracles...and Halloween is also over. But nevertheless, over the past couple of months, I've hand selected a couple of zombie themed games that break the mold. Kind of.

None of the games I discovered (via my highly untrained network of "based on nothing") presented any kind of evolution of "zombie" itself. In each game, the zombies were, as I said, nameless, faceless, characterless goons begging for destruction. No, the innovation (as it were) was in placing said faceless goons in situations that were ever so slightly beyond the standard "you have a gun, there are some zombies" scenario that is ever so common in video games (once again, I blame Resident Evil). Case in point:

1) Rolling Fall

Not about a waterfall.

Rolling Fall is a physics game. In this case, it's fancy talk for you click a couple of things (in this case, mostly chains) and you sit back and watch the Rube Goldberg-esque chain reaction as something (in this case, mostly wrecking balls) destroys something else (in this case, mostly zombies). 

I think you get the idea. 

I've seen this kind of thing before. Sometimes it's fun. In this case...not so much. The reactions that I set into motion were never much more exciting than the image above suggests, and the graphics were fairly restrained. The zombies resembled inanimate dolls, and they just kind of tipped over when struck. They could have been replaced with sandbags, and the game would not have changed (they wouldn't even have had to change the name). 

I mean, I know I'm just pointing and clicking, but if it doesn't feel like what I'm doing is worth watching, then there's really no point. Not to mention the fact that you cut chains with nothing more than a butcher knife (I mean, c'mon...I'm willing to believe that stationary zombies have infested a construction site, but even I can ONLY TAKE SO MUCH!). 

2) All We Need Is Brain

Daww...lookit the lil' fella!

All We Need Is Brain is basically Rolling Rock with a cuter outlook on life. This time though, instead of cutting chains with kitchenware, we've stepped up to luring these sorrily adorable undead with their one true weakness: a thirst for knowledge, er, brains. Usually into acid pits.

I'd give him a 4.0.

The rules were changed up a little bit; brain placement (a limited number at that) was the key to victory, and you had the added option of occasionally shooting the lil' bastards in the head instead of just convincing them to crawl very unmenacingly over mines and into acidic pools. Add to that the style (which I did appreciate) and a Mortal Kombat-esque announcer telling you "WELL DONE" (seriously, I kept expecting him to say "EXCELLENT," or at least "FINISH HIM!") now and then. 

Strange then, despite the seemingly pumped up options for zombie dispatch, that the puzzles themselves ran the gauntlet from "unimaginative" to "industry standard" in design. The wide variety of tools at your disposal led to a fairly unvaried experience. And in any game, when game experience fails...so must eventually the game itself, no matter how cute it looks. This leaves All We Need a pleasant distraction at best.

3) The Outbreak

Jon Carpenter's The Fog called; it wants its poster back.

Leaving physics platformers behind, The Outbreak presents us with an interesting...bit of experimentation. I don't feel quite comfortable calling it a video game, as it's not, at least not by modern comprehension. Although lately, games have been becoming less and less user interaction necessary... 

The Outbreak is an interactive film. It has a certain charm all of its own, thanks largely due to the over the top, butcher store special effects, bare bones script, and community theater style acting (the girl was particularly irritating) In a way, it reminded me an awful lot of the student productions I used to partake in at the cable access studio in my TV 46 class. In other words, this is probably the ideal game to play slightly drunk, with like some friends who have a grisly sense of humor, in a Mystery Science Theater kinda way. Just to see what'll happen. 

Cra-a-ap! It's like my TV Production class all over again...

Basically, you are presented with a series of one or two minute clips, showcasing some kind of zombie attack, and must make a choice for "hapless white guy number one" to guide him through his evening (actually, I found the character quite relatable). There are multiple endings. Most of them are bad. This is what happens when the Sci Fi channel has a one night stand with those Choose Your Own Adventure books. The results are...surprisingly amusing (once again, I have a skewed sense of humor), and worth a look, although I doubt it'll top anyone's list. 

4) Road Of The Dead 

Subtitled: A Pretty Normal Traffic Day in Los Angeles

I have never been a fan of driving games. Okay, that's not exactly true...I have never been a fan of driving games the way one is supposed to be a fan of driving games. It has never been my goal, when playing a driving game, to win a race. It has always been my goal to cause as much random destruction as possible, be it to my own vehicle, or whatever decides to get in my way. Road of the Dead doesn't reward wanton destruction, but it DOES reward running over stray zombies and turning them into loose piles of guts. 

Plus, the hero's pretty bad ass.

Basically, there's a road, a car, a bunch of zombies (and invariably, the military), and you. In theory, all you're meant to do is escape a quarantined city, but hey, if you happen to flatten some of the hordes of undead along the way, who's gonna miss 'em? 

Oh, there are also some fleeing survivors, but you're not supposed to hit those. Naturally, that makes flattening them much more fun. 

There's an element of upgrading your car to better enhance your escape, but the game is mainly about driving away from, or into, your enemies; but believe it or not, there IS actually a script floating behind the game. Not the greatest script in the world perhaps, but it gets the job done, and seems to have a lot of fun at doing it. The graphics are cartoony, but surprisingly un-tame. You literally splatter your way through some of your foes (bonus points!). It's not going to terrify you, but it might just make you gasp at how stupidly awesome (awesomely stupid?) this game is underneath. 

And I realize that, in the long run, this is basically the same game I was lamenting at the beginning of this article: a lone hero fending off hordes of rampaging zombies in a plot half explained and fully stolen from at least twelve different movies. But hey, you're in a car this time around! If you're going to do the same thing as everyone else, at least do it differently.