We Hate Zombies

Scenario:
Holy shit! You fell off the grid for over a month because you moved to Mon-fucking-tana (as your friend Daniel so delicately put it) and everything is unfamiliar. It is a true zombie survivalists nightmare because there is no escape plan. There is no safe fortress. Hell, there isn’t even a goddamn Steak-N-Shake in sight. In fact, you’ve just realized that there are mountains in every direction, making a quick escape unlikely. Then you hear it. The scrape of a bloody stump, flesh and bone, scraping across the sidewalk. Zombies. What do you do now?

What you should do:
Well, you’re boned. You’ve unknowingly moved into a giant bowl with side too steep to climb out of without the use of the interstate, which is closed by the way because of the 100 mile long line of cars going nowhere. It’s a buffet for zombies. The only chance you have comes from a movie widely regarded as the survival oasis of the new century.

The International features a scene where a world class assassin needs advice from some boy he is playing Go with. I believe the quote goes like this: “If there is no way out, find a way deeper in.” Because this makes more sense than the alphabet, I made it my mantra and so should you. Head into the heart of town, into the zombie jungle. There you will find safety.

This is what I like to call the Montana Paradox. You would think that getting out of town would be the best way to save your ass, but in this case it isn’t for you. You can find safety in the heart of zombie land. But how? Easy, head that way in your car because that side of the road will be empty of cars. Once you get to the heart of town, find a safe place to hide and pray that you don’t shit your pants. Zombies love the smell of soiled pants.

What I would do:
I would actually just drive on the wrong side of the road. I would drive to safety and then start a forest fire that would hopefully burn the entire place to the ground. Then I would rent a redbox at a Wal-Mart, grab a six pack of cold beer, pick up a forty oz for the road and have myself a good time in Wyoming. NOTE: Must stop at a Wal-Mart before Wyoming. There isn’t shit in Wyoming.

Scenario:
Like a badass, you have a game room in your basement oddly situated next to a bunch of tools across the room, including a crowbar, hacksaw, and some battery powered shit. Maybe you have a garage in your basement, maybe your wife just hates your things and wants it trapped in the downstairs, whatever. Also, you have a computer down there too, which you only ever use just for watching pr0n while you play a game of pool. Which is what you’re doing.

But then something in the back of your mind triggers a heightened sense of awareness, and you begin to hear the sounds of distant screaming. Oh baby, this is what you’ve always dreamt of, time for some action! Except you can hear they’re already in your house. And they’re already infecting your wife. Holy shit! They’re already coming down into your man cave and are between you and all your possible weapons! What do you do?

What you should do:
Pull your pants up and fasten your safety belt, cause it’s time to rock! As a reminder to everyone who doesn’t remember every word that I’ve ever preached, there’s no such thing as being separated from all possible weapons. As soon as you stand up, you should immediately become aware that all your junk no longer has meaning beyond what damage it can inflict on an infected rotten turd muncher.

At your desk, you understand the world is over and that the computer will soon lose power forever. First weapon: the computer. Without a computer, the desk is nothing. Second weapon: the desk. Then you realize you don’t have time to sit down anymore. Third weapon: the chair. And you never really played pool anyway cause you suck really bad at it. Fourth weapon: pool sticks, the cue ball, America.

Without knowing the meaning of fear, you should smash that sticky keyboard into the teeth of the first blood-thirsty zombie, knocking him backward onto his ass. Then throw the chair across the room and trip up the three zombies still coming down the stairs. The pool balls are worthless to you, but grab two pool sticks and overturn the table onto the toothless downed dead bastard still struggling to get up.

Two wooden spears in hand, all that’s left is to dance a dance of everlasting death, spearing the lifeless eyes of those cursed fuckers until you reach your wall o’ tools. I won’t even list the different weapons you’ve suddenly found for yourself, but I think you won’t have any trouble cleaning up this mess and getting the hell out of Dodge.

What I would do:
No ex-Major League pitcher turned nine ball pro would be able to resist spinning onto the pool table and beaming zombies straight in the face with a rack of balls…which is exactly what I would do. For a little bit anyway, because it would be fun, like Shaun of the Dead throwing records at zombies kind of fun. I guess what I’m trying to say is Family Fun. Unlike what was on the computer.

After having my bit of fun, the rage would inevitably settle back in, and there would be nothing left to hold back my wrath. Any zombie still standing would immediately get a face full of CRT monitor, followed by a desk full-body-slamming. Keep in mind that none of these things are likely to put a zombie down for the count, at least not like poking them through the eye with a wooden stake, but it helps me control my penchant for burning fury — by adding gas to the flames.

Immediately I would begin dismantling my stairs one board at a time, taking each one and beating the moving corpses until it splintered into fragments and the sons of dead, motherless goats really stopped moving for good. The blood and gore would be epic and fascinating, the kind of phenomenon mathematicians might someday study for fractal splatter analysis.

I would probably need to take a shower, then run to the nearest Taco Bell and see if they had been overrun yet. Booyah! Say hello to my Burrito baby.

Thanks to Tyler for submitting this scenario.

Title: ZombieSim (click to open in iTunes)
Style: Top-Down Zombie Simulation
Source: JCLMSoftware

I recently had this little gem shared with me. In the spirit of a good zombie simulator, equipped with all the usual death and pissing of pants, ZombieSim brings the classic simulation to the iPhone. In ZombieSim, much like the zombie simulator we all know and love, the basic game is a ninja awesome zombie simulation. People run around like dumb bastards without a clue, some still get guns and go on killing rampages, and most still turn into dirty stinking zombies. Pretty standard stuff, but it’s awesome now that it’s mobile.

There have been additions to this whole simulation thing, like the ability to have fine-grained control over how the city is generated and how many people there are. I particularly liked some of the pre-sets on the Options screen. There was also the ability to tweet results, which I would have, if I had a twitter account.

Arguably the most important change is the ability to drop bombs on the nightmarish ant farm. Yes. Bombs. There are two kinds of bombs, with big ones and little ones, and the one you drop depends on how you caress your electronic desire. You can carpet bomb, you can blow up the armory, you can try to go in and cut out the infection like a doctor with a laser gun, you can just blow crap up. It’s pretty cool.

Problems? Well, I’m used to playing games with objectives. Aside from killing all the humans or zombies or whatever, this game doesn’t really have a way to “win”, but that’s just the same as any zombie simulation. It’s not about you, it’s about them, those poor meat-bags trapped in a city of walking dead.

I’m also used to a ton more weapons. Sure, there’s a limit to how many ways you can sex up the touchscreen, but come on. A little bomb love can go a long way to lubing up a good night of drinking. I’d like to see more death and destruction in future versions of the game.

Nonetheless, the game is an awesome addition to my mobile game collection. Now, wherever I go, I can study the ways of zombie infection while having the power to kill large numbers of crappy zombies. Which I’ll do every time I start to think about how much I hate zombies. God damn zombies anyway.

Game Score:

Graphics:		2.0
Sound:		?
Fun Factor:		4.5
Satisfaction:		4.0
Total:

Title: Boxhead the Rooms (click to play)
Style: Top-Down Shooter
Source: Crazy-Monkey Games

You might have thought we would have covered this classic zombie game sooner than now, but it’s because it’s a classic that we didn’t. Really, why review a game that everyone has already played and knows about anyway? Well, we figured the time was right for just such a thing, because it’s about this time that everyone has forgotten this game and what started a spree of some of the best original zombie games. And stuff.

So, Boxhead the Rooms, in case you didn’t know, is a hopeless struggle to destroy the endless multitudes of walking death-sticks. Hopeless not only because you are guarenteed to die, but because you can only move in the four cardinal directions. Up. Down. Left. Right. That’s it. One of the unfortunate things about going back to study the masterpieces of old is that you can’t help but compare them to the industry standards of the modern time, to the contemporary undead-murdering slaughter-games of today.

I like moving diagonally. It’s hard to shoot things only at right angles.

Good thing you get to blow them up. What makes this game addictive is that there’s a quick progression of weaponry that regularly gives you upgrades or new weapons to add to your arsenal. Undoubtedly one of the finer points is learning to use barrels and grenades and land mines together to form a cohesive strategy of multiple explosions. Smells like fireworks and anal sex.

All in all, I can’t say it’s my favorite game, but I can appreciate it for what it is. I can enjoy killing the zombies in a dozen different ways, though you don’t get the gore or destruction a lot of games these days have. There’s not quite the same level of satisfaction in it; on the other hand, it’s fun to see what a good idea and a proper execution can turn into.

Game Score:

Graphics:		2.0
Sound:		?
Fun Factor:		2.5
Satisfaction:		2.0
Total:

Scenario:
It is late summer. The air is stagnate and boiling hot. Your field hasn’t seen a drop of rain in about a month. The corn is underdeveloped but completely dried out and ready to harvest. You are out in the field taking samples to make sure it isn’t too soon, or too late. You are about to take a break and smoke your tobacco pipe when you hear a faint rustling in the corn a few rows over. What could it be? Your wife died last year from the cancer and Ruddy, your brown lab, died ten years ago when he got kicked by the horse. The kids have all moved out and you don’t have any friends. It can be only one thing. Zombies! What do you do?

What you should do:
You’ve been farming this land your whole life so you know where you are and where you can run, but the zombies have the advantage. They just have to follow you and you don’t know where they could be hiding. You can’t see far in the corn across the rows, so you need to run down the row that you are in. You can see all the way up and down the row so you only have to worry about a zombie flanking you on your way out.

But which way do you go? Do you head back to the house where the zombies could find other people to attack or do you head farther out into the fields? Heading home would give you more tools to dispatch the zombies, so you should head that way, despite the danger to other people. Remember, you don’t have any friends, so if they get bite, just finish them off with your chainsaw.

Once you make it out of the corn, grab your rifle and pick them off as they saunter out of the fields. Hopefully you get them all, but you’ll never know.

What I would do:
Above all else, I am a zombie hunter. I am not a farmer, a brother, or a human. Keeping that in mind, I want to make sure that I get every last one of those bastards. Making the assumption that the zombies are all in the corn field, I only have one option. Light a match and watch the mother fucker burn.

But how do I make sure that I get them all and that they don’t escape the flames by going the opposite way? Well, it is simple. I have to start the flames toward one of the corners of the field that I am in. Since the zombies are likely to blindly follow me around until they catch me or they die, I will stay in the field and continue to light the corn in various places. The eventual goal is to spiral toward the center of the field so that they corn is burning in all directions and the zombies are trapped. Since the corn is dry as week old dog shit, it should burn pretty damn fast. Then all I have to do is sit and wait.

Why kill yourself brave zombie hunter? Considering that I am an old man with nobody to spend my life with and I just burned my entire years work (and paycheck), it really does seem like the easy way out. And, if I get all of the zombies in one shot, what better way to go down? I could live out the rest of my life and eventually die of liver failure, on account of the drinking, or I could sit in the middle of a burning cornfield, all zenlike and shit, while a horde of zombies closes in on me just as the fire closes in on them. It is like choosing between a bratwurst and cow penis: the choice is clear.