ZOMBIES. Ghouls. The restless dead. If you're a gamer, you've probably dispatched hundreds of the shambling critters in your time. You probably enjoyed it too, didn't you? But maybe you haven't been looking at the bigger picture...
Stubbs the Zombie is the first release from Wideload Games, a Chicago-based studio lead by Alexander Seropian and other former Bungie designers. Available for home computers and Xbox, it's among the first cross-platform releases from Mac-friendly publisher Asypr. The ultimate source of patches & addons for Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse. Download english,french patch 1.02 for PC (7MB) Download russian patch 1.02 for PC (9MB) List of changes in 1.02. Download english patch 1.01 for Macintosh (2MB).
Because zombies are people too. Or at least they were at one point, anyway. They have wants and needs (mostly to do with devouring the still-warm innards of the living, true, but that's beside the point). Did you ever stop to think about that before you clicked your mouse button and decorated a nearby wall with their pus-ridden guts? However, Stubbs The Zombie might just change all that, because - as the name cunningly suggests - it puts you in the decomposing skin of Edward Stubbs' Stubblefield, anewly risen member of the undead. Stubbs was a travelling salesman in life, struggling through the hard times of America's Great Depression. His amazing streak of bad luck only came to an end when he was brutally murdered and dumped in a Pennsylvanian field.
Fast-forward 26 years. It's 1959, and a super-rich playboy has decided to build an ultra-modern city called Punchbowl ontop of Stubbs' resting place, waking him from his eternal slumber in the process. The zombie doesn't know much - who killed him or why he's back - but he has an unbelievable hankering for human brains and the sort of power he never possessed in his previous existence.
So the game casts you as the fagsmoking, hat-wearing ghoul, rampaging through various parts of Punchbowl -a fusion of small-town Americana and Flash Gordon - in a gore-drenched third-person action stylee. Developer Wideload Games' past experience with Halo (many of the team helped make it) has led it to use the game's engine, and so Stubbs is shaping up very nicely indeed on the visual front.
Zombified And Ancient
Stubbs himself has access to a remarkable range of talents. Like any self-respecting ghoul, he loves to feast on brains. Should Stubbs kill a human this way, he or she is resurrected as a zombie ally who attacks adversaries on sight. While you can't control these directly, you will be able to influence them by either whistling (to attract them to you) or shoving them in whatever direction you want them to go. These septic sidekicks aren't much cop on their own (except as decoys), but like most zombies, they can be deadly in large numbers.
If he's in a tight spot, Stubbs can also call upon his supernatural zombie strength, which allows him to pummel victims to death, sometimes using their own torn-off limbs as improvised cudgels.
Lending A Hand
Our rotting chum also has the ability to hurl his rancid guts at enemies, or loose a burst of unholy flatulence upon them. Finally, he can send his arm toddling off in search of living prey; find a victim, affix the hand to its bonce and hey presto, you can then call on any of his or her abilities (reminiscent of Shiny Entertainment's cherub 'em up Messiah). If you possess an armed redneck, for instance, you can start popping shots off at other humans.
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Wideload's Alex Seropian claims that all these powers - and the inclusion of driveable vehicles - will work towards making Stubbs The Zombie a rewardingly non-linear experience in places. Say there's a posse of cops in pursuit of Stubbs. He can bum-rush them and try to beat them purely through brute strength in melee combat. Either that, or he could hide somewhere and send his hand to possess one of the cops and then use him to shoot the rest. Or he could zombify several less dangerous enemies - a gang of teenage hoodlums, for example - and lead them to where the cops are.
The whole thing is beginning to look extremely promising, not least because of the jet-black humour and the chance to experience the world - albeit a weirdly skewed sci-fi version of the 1950s - from a zombie's point of view. Fans of indie music may also be intrigued by the lineup of strangely-coiffed bands enlisted to provide audio accompaniment. It includes The Flaming Lips, Cake, The Dandy Warhols and Phantom Planet, who've supplied an original track appropriately entitled The Living Dead.Yep, Stubbs The Zombie is rapidly becoming a ZONE favourite and we can't wait for Rebel Without A Pulse. Gory Flash Gordon-influenced undead action from a team that helped bring us Halo? Where do we sign up?