Stubbs the Zombie: A Unique Undead Experience

Zombies aren't exactly a rarity in videogames.  These days you can hardly find a RPG or FPS that doesn't include zombie enemies at some point.  But how often do you actually get to play as a zombie as opposed to shooting one?  Not very often.  The Left 4 Dead games let you play as the super-powered Special Infected, but only for brief periods, and they technically aren't really zombies. 

There's one game that stands out, an action adventure game where you play as a zombie all the way through: Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse.

In this game you play as Stubbs, a traveling salesman-turned zombie who's out to get revenge for being murdered.  What's interesting about playing as Stubbs is that all his attacks are based on his zombified body.

Sure you have your basic Resident Evil/Left 4 Dead/(Insert your favorite zombie game here) melee attacks, but you also have some abilities unique in the world of zombie videogames.  For example, Stubbs can rip out pieces of his rotting guts and use them as hand grenades.  His guts will regenerate after feasting on brains, so you rarely have to worry about running low on firepower.

Also, Stubbs can tear off his own head and use it as a bowling ball to knock down enemies.  As an added bonus you can detonate his head for some blast damage.

One of the highlights of Stubbs' abilities is his detachable left hand.  Once it's pulled off you can assume control of it, using the hand to scout ahead.  The hand can also clamp onto enemies' heads, allowing Stubbs to possess them (brings back memories of the Oddworld games doesn't it?).

Hey it's Thing from the Addams Family!

Also of note is the fact that Stubbs can convert regular people into zombies by eating their brains.  The resulting zombie army will follow Stubbs as well as attacking and converting any innocent civilians they come across, which is a pretty awesome feature.

In closing, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse was a refreshing take on zombie games, letting us play as a zombie with his own unique set of abilities.  It was nice to take a break from shooting zombies and see the world from a zombie's point of view.

Have you guys ever played Stubbs?  If so, did you enjoy the zombie attacks/abilities?  Or did you still think it was generic zombie rehash?

The Freaks of Twisted Metal Black: No-Face

When you think of vehicular combat, chances are the Twisted Metal series immediately comes to mind.  This brutal series of games has kept us entertained with its carnage since 1995, when it debuted on the Playstation 1.  Twisted Metal has always been extremely violent, but on the Playstation 1 these games were somewhat over-the-top thanks to its cast of characters.  Examples include Mr. Grimm, a motorcycle-riding Grimm Reaper, and the characters Dave and Mike, two lowlifes with 1980's metal-head personalities who steal a monster truck and enter it into the Twisted Metal competition.

As if this image wasn't funny enough, you should see the live-action cut-scenes in Twisted Metal 1.

When the series made the jump to the Playstation 2, in the form of Twisted Metal: Black, it received a total reboot, trading its colorful and wacky aspects for something much darker and grittier.  The drivers of the vehicles were no exception either; the game starts off with all the characters locked away in an asylum for various reasons.  Here you won't find any carefree dudes out for a joyride in a monster truck, all these characters are complete psychos with their own unique sets of problems.  So, instead of trying to cover all these characters in one article, I figured it would be a better idea to split this up into an ongoing series called The Freaks of Twisted Metal: Black.  Today we're going to look at one of the more disturbing and disfigured characters in the game: No-Face.

When we are first introduced to No-Face, we don't really know what's wrong with him until he looks into the camera and reveals his hideous face:

Yes, No-Face does in fact have a face, sort of...

We later find out that No-Face is a former boxer who encountered a severely bad run of luck.  No-Face, or Frank as he was known back in the day, once faced a superior opponent in the boxing ring, losing the fight and ending up with severe injuries.  He was recommended to a surgeon to repair his damaged face, but it turned out that this same exact surgeon had lost $20,000 by betting on Frank in his disastrous fight.

To exact revenge, during the surgery the evil doctor completely mutilated Frank's face, cutting out his eyeballs and tongue, sewing his eyelids and mouth shut, among other atrocities.  Upon waking up after the surgery, Frank went insane from pain and rage, completing his transition to the No-Face persona.

No-Face's back-story is definitely one of the most disturbing in the game.  It's also somewhat funny to imagine how this guy could possibly enter a vehicular combat tournament, let alone drive a car, with no eyes (although the manual does try to explain this by saying his other senses have become more refined).

Did you guys ever play Twisted Metal: Black?  If so, were you a little disturbed by No-Face?

Purple Dinosaur Massacre: The Death of Barney

The other day when I was writing about Chex Quest, I started reminiscing about other strange games I used to play as a kid.  One that came to mind was Purple Dinosaur Massacre, which is essentially a Barney the Dinosaur killing simulator.  While this is by no means a triple-A development game (it was part of a 1000 PC game compilation CD and appears to have been developed on a piggy bank-sized budget), Purple Dinosaur Massacre is still very satisfying if you're one of the many people who hate Barney with a passion.

Blast 'em indeed.

The game is very straightforward, you are given a machine gun which is mounted at the center of the screen, and you merely move the barrel left and right while firing at the various Barneys on the screen.  And various Barneys there are.  You have your basic walking Barney, a Barney who floats in the air using balloons, and another Barney who gleefully floats on a cloud (until you gleefully knock him out of the sky).

Purple dinosaurs aren't the only objects that face your wrath however.  Bunnies, flowers, clouds, even the sun can be shot at and killed.  Needless to say this game is not meant for children, despite looking like its textures were created using Microsoft Paint.  Want to experience the carnage for yourself?  Here you go:


Pretty brutal, right?  Did you guys ever buy those game compilation disks containing thousands of games, and happen to come across a hidden gem like this?  Until next time, happy hunting!

Mister Mosquito: The Evil Tormentor of Families

Today we're going to take a look at a game that involves a violent blood-sucker.  No, this article isn't about BloodRayne, we're talking about Mister Mosquito!

As you can guess from the title, Mister Mosquito follows the journey of a mosquito whose goal is to suck the blood out of an innocent family, and to give them malaria (ok maybe not the malaria part).  You are given control of a mosquito and tasked with completing his quest without being spotted and swatted.


The mosquito can only suck blood from predetermined locations on the victim's body, dashing your hopes and dreams of giving someone a mosquito bite on the inside of their mouth or on their eyeball (admit you're a little curious to see how that would have played out).  However, there are some more scandalous areas that you are allowed to draw blood from:

Yes, he's sitting right where you think he is.

While sucking blood, you must be careful not to alert the victim to your presence, or it's instant death by means of swatting.  Also, if you fly around too obviously before landing on the victim, he/she will spot you and will attempt to knock you out of the sky.  To calm the victim down, the game introduces a strange mosquito version of acupuncture therapy, where the mosquito can jab the victim at various locations on their body. 

I'm not making this up, that pressure point is actually in the crotch area.

Afterwards they will fall asleep and you can draw blood in peace.  I never knew mosquitoes had this kind of power over human beings, besides the whole malaria thing that is.

In addition to giving the family a nasty case of mosquito bites, the mosquito is one evil bastard who likes to torment them in other ways.  He can perform actions such as turning on stereos and switching off lights in the house, baffling the family members, who no doubt fear their house is possessed by demons.

That pretty much sums up the entire game, leave it to Japan to spit out an odd game like this.  According to Mister Mosquito, these little insects are pretty damn malicious, resorting to knocking you unconscious if they want your blood bad enough.  Have you guys ever played Mister Mosquito?  If so, did you find it to be a pretty weird concept?

Chex Quest: Doom Meets Cereal

We're all familiar with the toy-in-the-cereal-box promotions that have occurred since the dawn of time.  Usually cereal companies will stick a cheap plastic toy inside a limited amount of cereal boxes to drive sales, mainly due to children nagging their parents to death until they have that toy in their hands.  Back in 1996 a similar promotion was run in order to get kids excited about Chex cereal, only instead of offering a toy as part of the promotion, they offered a PC game (I still find it awesome to this day, and yes I was one of the nagging kids who had to have this game).

The game was called Chex Quest,and it was a first-person shooter designed to run on MS-DOS.
At first glance, something seems very familiar about Chex Quest:

Now where have we seen this before?  Ah yes, of course!

No your eyes do not deceive you, Chex Quest is actually a kid-friendly mod of Ultimate Doom.  The levels of this game are the first five levels of Ultimate Doom, with multiple texture changes. Instead of fighting demons from hell, you encounter "Flemoids," which are slimy creatures who threaten to devour every last bit of Chex (this includes the protagonist, the Chex Warrior, who is actually a living piece of Chex).

In an effort to avoid a M rating, Ultimate Doom's weapons are replaced with "Zorchers," which teleport the Flemoids back to their home planet instead of gunning them down.  To avoid gore in the game, the Chex Warrior's face gets covered with slime as he takes damage, as opposed to the Doom Guy's face becoming more bloody and disfigured as he approaches his death.

Another cool thing about Chex Quest is that by using certain command line arguments when launching the game, you can actually load up various levels of Ultimate Doom (sadly with Chex Quest textures though).  Unfortunately the sprites for the original demons have been removed, but said demons still exist in these levels as invisible menaces which can still shoot at you.

Chex Quest is an awesome game that I spent many hours with as a kid, and to this day I still fire it up every once in a while to play through a couple levels (thank you DOSBox!).  Did you guys ever get a chance to play this game?  Were you amused that it was a mod of Ultimate Doom, or did it infuriate you that they took an awesome game and gave it the kiddie treatment?

GIRP: Brain-Twisting Rock-Climbing

A little while back, I wrote about the insanely difficult running simulator called QWOP.  It turns out that the creator of QWOP, Bennett Froddy, wasn't satisfied with making just one frustrating Flash game.  As a result, the nightmare continues with Froddy's next creation: GIRP.

Whereas QWOP was all about running, GIRP (don't you just love saying these game names?) is a rock-climbing "simulation."  Here you are given a cliff face which has multiple handholds attached to it.  Each handhold is assigned a letter, and pressing the corresponding letter on your keyboard will cause the rock-climber to reach for that handhold using whichever free hand is nearest to it.  You are also given the ability to flex the rock-climber's arm muscles, hoisting him up so he may reach handholds further up the cliff face.

Just like in QWOP, prepare to bend your character in awkward poses.

At first it seems like this game isn't too difficult, definitely easier than QWOP.  After climbing a little ways up the cliff however, you'll find your fingers getting tangled up with each other as you try to hang onto one hand-grip while simultaneously reaching for another.  I found myself feeling like a novice typist as I kept forgetting which letters my fingers were on, usually resulting in the rock-climber taking a plunge into the water at the base of the cliff.  As an added bonus, the water level slowly rises, threatening to drown the rock-climber if he doesn't move fast enough.  Don't believe my claims of its difficulty?  Try it for yourself.  Have fun and try not to destroy your keyboard in rage!

The Phantom: A Console Worthy of its Name

Remember the Phantom gaming console?  Not many do.  The Phantom was an unreleased console that was way ahead of its time, likely dying in development due to how ambitious its concept was.  The Phantom was announced back in 2003, with the claim that it could play PC games, and would offer players new games through a digital distribution service. 

Despite making an appearance at E3 in 2004, not too much is known about this doomed console.  After being demoed at E3, the Phantom lived up to its ghostly namesake, disappearing from the public eye only to reappear through rumored release dates.  After experiencing delay after delay, the plug was finally pulled on its development, ending the hopes and dreams of all five people who actually cared if it would be released.

Despite never really seeing the light of day, bits and pieces of the Phantom's proposed gaming experience live on in other forms.  Take OnLive for example, the gaming service that streams video games directly to your PC, from dedicated servers where the games are actually installed.  Also there is Valve's "Steam Box" console which is currently in development.  This console currently aims to run all its games through the Steam application, meaning that said games will be obtained through Valve's digital distribution service.

So, were any of you guys faithful followers of the Phantom and its troubled development cycle?  Or did you write it off immediately, knowing that such an ambitious console wouldn't see the light of day.

Bizarre Evolutions of Game Characters

Every so often, we see established game characters get an overhaul for the sake of keeping things fresh and new.  Most times these characters receive only minor changes, such as the Master Chief's armor in each Halo game, which seems to get more detailed over time yet retains the same overall look.  Other times the changes to characters can be extreme and will cause fan outcries of rage, such as when Nintendo unveiled the cel-shaded styling of Link in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.  After all, as gamers we tend to collectively call for change, and collectively complain about it when change does occur.

In this article, let's take a look at how some game characters have evolved over the years, with changes that are not always for the best.

Raphael - Soulcalibur Series

Raphael made his first appearance in Soulcalibur II, where he was a mortal French noble with no personality and fighting moves ranging from decent to poor.  That's all there really is to say about this character in Soulcalibur II; I'm not one to slog through the implied story-lines in fighting games, especially the mess of the Soulcalibur series story, which basically boils down to "Character X wants the Soul Edge."

In Soulcalibur III and IV, the game developers for some reason decided to transform Raphael from a boring French guy into a somewhat less-boring French vampire.  Where the logic is found here, I'll never know.  Upon making the jump from Soulcalibur II to Soulcalibur IV, I was fairly surprised when discovering that the least-interesting character in the series had been given a Castlevania makeover.

Now we just need a Belmont to star in Soulcalibur VI.

I never even knew that vampires existed in the Soulcalibur universe, but I guess we shouldn't be too surprised, considering there are much weirder things in these games.

Dante - Devil May Cry Series

 

I probably don't even have to explain this one, if you are a fan of the DMC series then you know where this is going and you are likely outraged.  But for the uninitiated, Dante is the main protagonist in this series, a demon hunter who just so happens to be part-demon himself.  In the early Devil May Cry games Dante was a likeable badass, facing off against monstrous demons while still managing to crack a few jokes at their expense.  All was well with this character until Capcom's game designers all simultaneously received brain hemorrhages and decided to reboot the DMC series, including a reboot of Dante himself:

Really Capcom?  Really?  You take an awesome character like Dante and turn him into a whiny, emo, Anakin Skywalker-ish teenage brat?  Understandably there has been a huge outrage at this character's redesign, and nothing short of a triumphant return of the original Dante will appease this.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Yes, Sonic himself has seen his share of evolution over the years.  While not as truly shocking as the previous two characters we covered, Sonic has changed in a way that somewhat annoys me.  Look at the squat little hedgehog from Sonic the Hedgehog, we all know he's a 'hog with a 'tude, and this representation shows that fairly well:

In later entries in the Sonic series, I feel that Sega might have tried a little bit too hard to push the 'tude element of Sonic's personality:

Because flashing gang signs is cool, right?

What the hell happened to Sonic?  He looks like Sega's kid-friendly representation of a gang member.  Sonic was enough of a badass in the Sega Genesis days, we don't need him striking weird poses with his strangely lengthened and rubberized limbs while he flashes a creepy grin.

And that wraps up this quick look at some bizarre game character evolutions.  Have you guys found any game characters to evolve in such a way that it annoys you death?

RollerCoaster Tycoon: A Surprisingly Violent Series

The RollerCoaster Tycoon series is a great way for aspiring theme park designers to create their own parks, modify them, and possibly run them into the ground (seems to happen with my parks anyway).  It is loads of fun to be able to design and test your own roller coaster, as well as seeing how the park's guests (or "peeps" as they are called in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3) react to your masterpiece.

However, as innocent as this game may seem, it has a violent side, involving the mistreatment or death of the guests.  Bet you weren't expecting that twist were you?  And we're not even talking about a first-person shooter.  Let's take a look at some of the evil and hilarious ways you can ruin your guests' day as they visit your digital recreation of Action Park.

RCT 2 Guest Drowning

In RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, visiting guests to your theme park were completely at the mercy of your park's safety standards.  If you weren't careful they could die, leaving remaining guests to ponder if they should trust any of your rides.  Of course, if slaughtering your guests was your main goal, you could always speed up the process by picking up guests one-by-one and dropping them into a body of water, or by using the terrain tools to collapse a walk path into a man-made lake.  Eventually they'll get tired of treading water and sink down to Davy Jones' Locker.  I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I employed this tactic in one of my parks, if only to see how good my guests were at swimming.

Peep Bowling

In what I'm assuming was an attempt at making the series less morbid, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 did not let you kill peeps.  However, this did not stop sadistic gamers from trying to cause as much harm as possible to unknowing park guests.  Here is where Peep Bowling comes in.  Peep Bowling describes the act of aiming an unfinished ride's dead-end track directly at a walk path, causing the ride's trains to go flying into a crowd, scattering peeps this way and that.  One can only imagine what ESRB rating RCT 3 would have earned had it displayed graphic injuries to the peeps as a result of this sadistic pastime.

Roller Coaster Crashes

As you already know, park guests in RCT 3 put Superman to shame with their durability, meaning that coaster crashes in this game merely resulted in peeps being launched to all corners of your park.  However, in RCT 2 crashes were usually fatal, resulting in the ride's closure, and a lack of guest confidence in that ride until you made major modifications to it.  You could really get creative with these crashes in RCT 2, building coasters with no brakes that would allow trains to fly into the station and collide with trains that were being loaded.  You could even design coasters in such a way that the trains would collide midway through the ride, the sky's the limit!  Whichever way you planned it out, you were rewarded with spectacular explosions and high body-counts.

Death Coaster 1 has crashed!

Well, that about sums up the evil ways you can harm park guests in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series, who knew this game was so dark?  Have you guys ever attempted to destroy your guests/peeps in these games?

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2: The Glitchfest We All Love

Remember when the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series was the king?  It seemed like we were getting a new game in the series about every 5 minutes, and people were still eating it up like candy.  Well I'm not here to talk about the Hawk, let's take a look at one of Tony's competitors: Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2.  This game is Tony Hawk on bikes, only with glitches galore.  These glitches, while ruining some aspects of the game, can make other aspects much more entertaining.

The biggest issue with the game is that there are severe clipping issues, and that's putting it lightly. Using the wall-ride move, as well as a little skill and a little luck, it's possible to fall through the wall and into a gigantic pit (or "falling through the world" as my brother and I have nicknamed it). To demonstrate, here's a poor-quality video showing how easy it is to plunge to your doom:


This glitch can be performed in countless locations throughout the game, making for some interesting moments.  Having trouble performing a 900 degree spin?  No problem, just fall into the pit and perform a 1260 degree spin or more with ease!  Having issues beating the competition challenges?  Don't sweat it, just dive in and combo away, you'll have 1,000,000+ point high scores in no time.

The clipping issues don't stop there.  It's pretty easy to get stuck inside various objects in the game, such as railings, cars, walls, etc.  This completely breaks the Wipeout challenges, where the goal is to crash as hard as possible, with points awarded based on the severity of the crash.  The game is more than happy to award insanely high scores to players who manage to get their BMX rider caught inside of the various objects I described.  This changes Wipeout mode from a game of "let's see who can crash this one trick" into "let's see who can find the best spot to get stuck."

There are also other issues with the game that can be attributed to sloppy programming.  For example, some challenges may require that you grind a certain distance on a certain rail.  If this is too hard, simply find an easier rail, grind the distance that the challenge requires, then manual your way back to the required rail.  As long as it's in the same combo, it counts.

Dave cheats his way through another challenge.

Also, other challenges where you need to transfer over a bridge using a half-pipe can sometimes be completed by using the much easier method of jumping underneath the bridge.  Hey, whatever works, right?

Despite all it's issues, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 is still a blast to play, and is a game I prefer over anything in the Tony Hawk series (those games infuriate me with their difficulty).  Have any of you guys played Mirra BMX 2?  And if so, have you encountered any of these glitches?

Movie Licensed Games with Moments that Don't Belong

When you hear the phrase "movie-licensed game" your first reaction is probably to cringe in revulsion.  Given the history of quick cash-ins that have been released in the past (and continue to be released to this day), your reaction would be pretty spot-on.  Countless times game developers have tried to expand on movie licenses by including areas, enemies, and boss battles that weren't in the films.  Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't.

With that in mind, today I want to take a look at some of the good and bad movie-licensed games that have been unleashed upon us.


The Good:

EA's Lord of the Rings Series - Multiplatform

Gandalf kicks the crap out of another EA hater.

Say what you will about Electronic Arts, but having them snag the license to the Lord of the Rings trilogy proved to be a great treat for gamers.  They didn't release a game based off of Fellowship of the Ring, but the other games which followed the plots of The Two Towers and Return of the King more than made up for it.  The games followed the movies fairly closely, allowing players to experience the major battles in the films, as well as some battles that weren't present.  The games are very well done and get your adrenaline flowing, so even when you encounter segments that aren't in the films you will be having too much fun dicing up Orcs to notice.

Jurassic Park - Sega Genesis

The T-Rex makes quite a few appearances.

Jurassic Park is a good example of what a game development team can do when they embrace a license and expand on its universe without wrecking it.  Most of the levels in the game aren't even areas that were featured in the movie, but there are some nods to the Jurassic Park novel, such as the river rafting level.   As you venture through a dinosaur-infested sewer system and power station, you really feel that these areas would have fit into the movie just fine, they are definitely plausible features of a prehistoric zoo gone wrong.


The Bad:

Terminator Salvation - Multiplatform

Prepare to be fighting these guys all the time.

I'll be honest here, I haven't seen the Terminator Salvation film; my experience with the Terminator movies begins with The Terminator and ends with Terminator 2.  However, I have played Salvation, and it's so bad that it deserves a mention here.  The game's biggest drawback is repetitiveness; you move from one post-apocalyptic city block to the next identical city block, fighting the same three enemy types over and over again.  In the film does John Connor end up defending a group of survivors in a subway station?  I have no idea, but I can say for sure that doing this in-game is boring as hell.

Rambo - NES

Is this Rambo or Arachnophobia?

I know this one has probably been done to death already, but seriously, did anybody on the development team even see the movie?  This game has Rambo trekking through the jungle fighting mostly wildlife, including implausible wildlife such as man-sized spiders.  Remember that bad-ass scene in the film when Rambo battled the evil birds?  Neither do I.


The Ugly: 

ET - Atari 2600

We all know this game, it's the holy grail of garbage.  The game that has almost nothing at all to do with the film.  The entirety of this game consists of controlling ET as he searches for pieces of telephones which are somehow found in gigantic sinkholes, because this all happened in the film, right?  To make the game even more infuriating, ET is also being pursued by scientists and government agents who threaten to capture him and take away the phone components you just spent half a day collecting.


And that about wraps it up, what movie-licensed games have you played that you found to be pretty good, or downright awful?