We Hate Zombies

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:

Scenario:
Ah, the weekend. You and a friend decide to enjoy the weekend at the bar, but for some reason you forsake shooting tequila to spend time chatting it up with this very nice girl. One thing leads to another, and next thing you know your pure charm and good looks have landed you an invitation back to her place.

You’re high fiving your friend as you tell em to give you a call later. Then you head out with the girl on your arm and end up in her bedroom. That’s when things get kinky. She takes her top off, chains you to a bed, a slowly takes your shirt off. This is exactly when you hear a thud on the bedroom door, which slowly opens to a naked zombie, broken fingers and all, sizing you up like a hunk of man meat. The girl runs into her bathroom and locks the door, screaming, leaving you locked to a bed. What do you do?

What you should do:
First thing you have to learn is how to use the environment to your advantage. Second thing you have to learn is to evaluate the environment in the wink of an eye, or preferably as soon as you walk into a room, so it doesn’t take five minutes just to figure out what’s going on.

So the first thing you realize is that there’s a zombie at the door, you’re handcuffed to a solid oak wood headboard, and there’s a bedside table nearby with kinky stuff all over it. This lady was going to really give you a good time, but there’s no time to think about that now. You’ll need to buy yourself some time, so grab the comforter on the bed with your toes. When the zombie lunges for you, toss the comforter over its head so there’s a thick barrier between you and it. With any luck and ab strength, you might even be able to land the zombie underneath you.

Once the zombie is momentarily subdued, call out to the lady and beg her to unlock you. Don’t worry about hoping for her to do anything, she’s probably crazy already. Then, quick as you can, grab the KY Jelly from the table; she’s a kinky girl and that practically spells lube. I hope you aren’t missing any toes, because you’re going to need to squirt that stuff all over your wrist. Then pray to god she’s not a sadist and made the cuffs tight, cause you’re probably going through a world of hurt to pull hands out. If you succeed, might as well leave, but kill the zombie if you need to.

What I would do:
Oh sweet tiger paws, this is like a dream come true! Not only do I get to save the chick and be the hero, but I even get to avoid that whole awkward period afterward where it’s not clear if she just likes me for saving her life or if she’s really going to give me some. It’s almost like Christmas, except one where the world is ending.

When the zombie lunges at me, I’ll be ready with whatever long, pointed thing I can find lying on the table, likely a lamp. With a swift leg lift, I’d smash the lamp into the wall above my head, gloriously shattering glass and metal down my face while also making some sort of jagged weapon of sorts. Then, wielding my make-shift sword, I’d sweep my feet across the bed and slash the zombie across the throat. Of course, this wouldn’t sever it’s head, because it’s only a lamp, but there wouldn’t be much left but a flap o’ skin holding that bitch together. Then all it would take is a final throw to knock the croaks head right off. Bam, decapitated zombie.

After that I’d take a nap and wait for the woman to come back to bed with a peanut butter sandwich and make good on her innuendo.

Thanks to Brandon for submitting this scenario!

Scenario:

You’re walking down the street in a busy part of town munching on some Krispy Kreme donuts at 2 in the morning on a Wednesday night when suddenly the floor drops out from under you and you tumble down with a comical face and a sound kind of like “lurp!”  As you’d been walking down the street, the sewer grating underneath had collapsed from wear, tear, and negligence, leaving you 10 feet below the sidewalk, alone, with only coffee soaked pants and half a donut to your name.  Fortunately for you, there’s a faint light coming down a branching tunnel, so you stand up, curse the day you were born, and walk quietly towards the light hoping to find an exit.  Instead, you stumble across a circle of hooded figures chanting, and there in the middle you see two things: a dead body and an unconscious woman.  The dead body starts to wake up; they’re bringing it back, and that woman is the first snack!  What do you do?

What you should do:

Whenever confronted with a strange cult situation, always check yourself before running in to battle.  The problem with cults is that they are sometimes headed by a very charismatic back-stabbing whores, like cheesecake and eclairs, so enticing and mind-blowing.  Like snakes in the grass, the leader might surprise you and render you into a pile of shit and steal your power and  turn you into zombie food.  That’s not what we want, so check yourself, clog your ears, then go in swinging.

Also, don’t make the mistake of trying to rescue the female snack.  More likely than not, she’s part of this whole debacle and would just slit your throat as soon as you turned your back.

So the first thing you do is wait for the zombie to come to life.  This will hopefully work to your advantage while also giving you a moment to relish the kill.  As soon as the zombie stirs but before it’s gained a target, throw the rest of the donut-yes, I said, the rest of the god damned donut-at the farther side of the ring.  Unless you suck at throwing things (in which case you should begin practicing now), you should hit your target or at least get close enough to cause a disturbance.

This will be like hitting the jackpot, because then they will probably not freak their shit out, but they might, and if they do you should run up and pull the hoods over their eyes like hockey players fighting on the ice.  Then knock them down toward the zombie and run into the darkness.  Dart in and out like this a few times and I’m sure you’ll have turned them all into dumb zombies.  That’s when you’re trapped in the sewers with the undead.  While typically a bad idea, I think it might work out for you just so long as you find a weapon.

Good luck.

What I would do:

Sometimes people are born legendary, uniquely American, with a sense of suave built into the hair and some sort of alluring man-essence that smells like something everyone is familiar with but no one can place.  Sometimes a man like that is born, and sometimes grows up being popular and eventually becomes president or something like that.  Other times they stumble across zombies early on in their teens and their life changes forever so that they spend all their persuasive powers convincing the public to prepare against a threat most are too dumb to even rationalize.  What a real fucking waste. Still, some listen, some know, some prepare, and it’s those few that make something out of nothing.

If you hadn’t guessed by now, I am just such a man, a man of raw power and intellect and cunning, a man who’s only fault is that he can’t think highly enough of himself.  Like Gandalf the White I would throw off my dirty, coffee soaked rags and show the true brilliance of my being.  (Someone cue the p-uhrrm-elevator music.)  Then, while everyone is stunned, in the time it takes their pupils to adjust, I would have splashed words of solid liquid gold upon their ears, and they would realize nothing but agree with me anyway, and they would pull out their hidden daggers and cut out the brain of that zombie, and then they would turn the daggers on themselves and pass out of existence.

After that, the rest is kind of a boring let-down.  Wandering the sewers for a few hours, getting arrested as a vagrant, being beaten by an insomniac officer suffering from paranoia who believes everyone is sleeping with his wife, and finally being released by the city’s up and coming police chief with coupons for free tacos.  Pretty much just the standard stuff.

Title: CQC (click to play)
Style: RPG / Shooter
Source: www.arcadebomb.com

I’m not going to lie to you here. I thought this game was pretty bad ass, but I only played it for a few minutes. Probably, like, less than 20. Still, I got a taste for the game and I didn’t blink the entire time. When I died, deliberatley, my eyelids were glued to the whites of my eye. That’s the making of a good game.

Unlike some of the previous games we’ve reviewed, this game actually looks pretty damn good. That’s a plus. Good animation, nice levels, some flair and a touch of love. I liked it, except the blood wasn’t very interesting and the zombie destruction left a little to be desired. Also unlike other games, this game doesn’t make zombie killing the main goal. There’s some sort of purpose I couldn’t figure out, and like Mario rocking Bowser’s face off, you can actually jump over almost all of the zombies. Except the bats. Wtf? Bats? Not even zombie bats, just apparently angry bats. Whatever.

Didn’t hear the sound. It was muted, like always. There wasn’t a whole lot of satisfaction because the experience isn’t based on zombie destruction. Kind of like eating to get full instead of eating to enjoy. Still, some people like that kind of game, or at least that’s what I’ve heard on the street, so maybe you’ll like it even more than I did if you like that kind of game. If nothing else, the grenade launcher attached to your gun is a lot of fun, and fun I had with it. I give this an emphatic pretty good. Well done, sir, well done.

Game Score:

Graphics:		4.5
Sound:		?
Fun Factor:		3.5
Satisfaction:		2
Total:

Scenario:
Do you know what happens every four years in this country? Certainly not the World Cup! No, it’s the Presidential elections! This is a serious time for zombie-survivalists because the elected President will be in charge of preparing the nation against the threat of zombie invasions world-wide. The President’s policies could make the difference between eternal apocalypse and everlasting glory, and it’s up to you as a good citizen to make sure you know which candidate is the best for the job.

Unfortunately, no candidate likes to talk about their zombie contingency plans, so you decide to go to a campaign rally and ask in person. You get up real close to the front, so they can hear you, and just as you’re about to ask, you see what you figured you would see and realize that it’s too late and the country isn’t prepared because the current President didn’t do a very good job of many things. Zombies, of course, eating away at the edges of the crowd you’re in the middle of. What do you do?

What you should do:
Well, you should have brought some damn weapons, but either they checked for those at the door or you forgot or who knows what the hell. If you have weapons, you still have your work cut out for you because there will soon be zombies all around you. Depending on your weapon, I would suggest frightening those nearby so they give you space, then try and cut a path away from the nearest zombies. Keep in mind that certain candidates have certain kinds of protection that might shoot you in the head if they see you with a weapon before they know what’s going on, so keep that in mind less you want to die young.

Now, if you don’t have weapons, you still have a couple options. For instance, you could attempt to hide under the podium/stage, gambling that the zombies will chase people fleeing for their lives and leave you enough room to make a quiet exit. You should not, however, get up on the stage unless you are following the candidate through a secure back exit, acting like everyone showed up just to hear you speak, or sniping zombies from above the crowd. Which makes me want to point out that every candidate will always have a secure back exit, and even though you may not immediately be allowed to go down that exit, it will quickly be cleared once the poo hits the house.

Once outside, do whatever you do best, which I hope is killing zombies (as opposed to calling your mom).

What I would do:
Do you know what security guards generally don’t consider weapons? Energy drinks and chairs. Every campaign rally of any size always has some kind of portable chair because the stage is in the middle of the stands and the candidates need to have normal, every-day kinds of people sitting real close so the cameras can get some footage of the politician being down amongst the people. Then it starts to get hot under the lights and all the people breathing hard and some people start to sweat and hallucinate and get a little light headed and then they maybe hear screams and start slamming down cans of highly-caffinated liquid sugar like there’s a run on the bank and then they stand up and reach for their chair and black out and the next thing you know the IZRM¹ wears off and it’s very quiet.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Not many people know this, but I have two dogs. One is a tank covered with a dog chassis and the other is some breed of tangible lightning. I can call on them from anywhere in the world and they will magically appear at my side to assist me. When the zombies start to attack, I send out a subsonic whistle that penetrates the earth and calls the war-hounds to my side (sometimes other dogs too). Then I order the tank-dog to blow through the water main and the nearby water pipes until the whole area is covered in water. This gives lightning dog the opportunity to work some white fire into the mix, electrocuting everyone too stupid to get out of the wetness (which would be all the zombies). After enough electricity, the zombies’ charred remains will eventually degenerate into ash and crisps, completely safe to wash a baby in.

Also, I have a shotgun, and no one has yet taken that away from me.

¹Instinctual Zombie Response Mechanism, basically a self-defense response to zombie or zombie-like threats. Just FYI in case you haven’t heard.