Zombie Gaming Discussion

[Ulfengaard]

With State of Decay just around the corner, I’ve got the zed-gaming bug. I’m curious what recommendations people have along with their reasoning. This means no dropping titles without explanation; the rest of us can't make decisions on where to spend our gaming dollars on no info. I have it on good authority that Dead Rising is a must-play, and given that this is the best forum community I've ever been part of, this group's opinion matters a great deal when it comes to gaming recommendations.

This thread may also include discussions on zed-gaming conventions: what works, what doesn’t, etc. After all, this is the off-topic forum. So, have at it.

Thanks in advance for all the recommendations and ideas.


PS. Sorry for the faux pas, man.

EDIT: It has been suggested by outside parties (AKA: my wife) that some people with relevant things to say about this topic may not be as hardcore as I am and may not recognize the meaning of 'Zed' in the original title. Subject has been changed to address the matter.

[FlowerChild]

PS. Sorry for the faux pas, man.

No worries man. As I said in my PM, I'm such a zombie gaming addict, that I love discussing this stuff, I just thought that the community might be better served by discussing it in public.

I'll copy my PM here to get the convo started:

Dead Rising man. Those (both 1 & 2 are largely the same game, although I think I preferred 1 a bit more), are classic zombie. Tongue in cheek to be sure though, but that's pretty classic zombie in itself.

Yeah, the first is definitely my all time favorite zombie game. I played waaaaay too much of it. I don't think any other game captures the feeling of confronting a zombie hoard better than that one.

I enjoyed Dead Island quite a bit too, although that one isn't as clear a winner. I'd *really* like to recommend Project Zomboid also, as it is a very cool little indy game, but their builds as of late have been so unstable that I have a hard time doing so right now. I'll likely post something in the forums when they finally release a stable build (which I suspect will be in the near future), as that game has a huge amount of potential.

And while I'm always happy to discuss all things zombie man, there's really no reason not to have started a thread in off-topic about this :)

[Gilberreke]

I've always loved Road to Fiddler's Green. It's one of the very rare B video games, in the B horror movie sense. It's not a good game, but it plays just well enough to serve a need to kill zombies. At a certain point, the bad gameplay becomes part of the fun, as in watching a B horror movie.

It was largely superseded by L4D though, since Road to Fiddler's Green is very similar to it, only L4D is actually good. Which brings me to an important point: L4D2 is a piece of shit, game design wise. You play the L4D developers commentary and are in awe of all the cool stuff they came up with, then comes L4D2, which kills all the innovation they mention in the commentary. What the F?

L4D had cool mini-boss enemies, because they were all very archetypal and most importantly, their silhouettes were very distinct. Like Minecraft, L4D2 then brought in a bunch of new ones, which not only had bad silhouettes and mediocre game-play, but also managed to kill the old ones' brilliance because they could be confused with each other.
L4D had the cool lighting system, where the levels were designed in a way that you couldn't get lost, as the darker it gets, the farther you are removed from the main road that you are designed to take. L4D2 has daylight levels. Sure, after a while you figure out how they work, but the first time I got lost in L4D2 was right in the first level I played, which immediately told me that they'd screwed things up, as I NEVER got lost in the first one.
Last point, the new weapons. Did L4D really need more weapons? Another step away from archetypal weapons, into the realm of marginally different weapons that no one cares about. When you found a weapons stash in L4D, you had very clear options that radically affected the game-play. It was like picking a class. L4D2 had none of that.

I heard the same comments about TF2. First they nag about how brilliant game designers they are for having all classes so archetypal with silhouettes to boot, then they add a bunch of stuff that muddies their own design. I get it in the case of MC, but with TF2, the developers actually blogged about this, so it's not a case of them not realizing what made their own game good.

Sorry for the rant :p

[obl1terat1ion]

I think Project Zombiod has come up before hand but anyway, if you happened to play it about a year ago it worth now a look as the 3.0 test build has out for a bit now and has changed almost everything about it. But yeah even if you new to it now is a good time to take a look at it.

[KittenToaster]

"Amnesia - The Dark Descent" and its predecessor "Penumbra" is certainly worth a mention here - as that was a cracking game, a little too scripted but that can be forgiven.

Do as it tells you in the tutorial;

Turn off the lights.
Don some headphones.
Turn down your monitor gamma.

Never before has a game made me so scared to the point where I didn't actually want to play it. ;)

The demo is still available here - http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main or through Steam.

-----

And for a quick Zed fix http://www.kongregate.com/games/sarahnorthway/rebuild-2 (Rebuild 2 flash game)

[Rugaard]

a friend of mine showed me a rather fun ASCII zombie game called Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index. ... =Main_Page

Despite the fact I usually avoid any primarily zombie games, I'm finding this one to be rather enjoyable

while it does lack in graphics this rogue-like does have quite a bit you can do, from your usual zombie killing to looting laboratories, from crafting spears to building a base or even a mobile base

the friend that showed me this game says that it has a steep spike filled cliff of a learning curve though I just find the game very difficult as I find myself dying in under 10 days

there are two game modes static where there is a fixed number of zombies and dynamic, a near endless horde of zombies

also its open source so its entirely free

[DaveYanakov]

Not sure if it counts as Zed but Last Survivor is fricking terrifying

[FlowerChild]

Not sure if it counts as Zed but Last Survivor is fricking terrifying

Just for clarity, did you really mean Last Survivor, or do you mean Lone Survivor? I did a google search for the former, and it sounds like the latter fits a little better with what you're saying :)

[DaveYanakov]

Yeah, I goofed. Blame it on playing something frightening as soon as I woke up.

[JakeZKAM]

Atom Zombie Smasher is a nice pick for zombie lovers who want some strategy. The campaign is played on a large map of Colombia, slowly being taken over turn by turn by Zed. You have to hire, and control various merc teams while you try and evacuate/purge the sectors of the city to try and win against the zombies. Which I've found pretty damn difficult at times.

[FlowerChild]

Atom Zombie Smasher is a nice pick for zombie lovers who want some strategy. The campaign is played on a large map of Colombia, slowly being taken over turn by turn by Zed. You have to hire, and control various merc teams while you try and evacuate/purge the sectors of the city to try and win against the zombies. Which I've found pretty damn difficult at times.

Eh. I'll admit that I enjoyed it for a few hours, but after that time really felt I had seen everything it had to offer. I'd also argue that it doesn't actually feel very zombie, and for me would be more akin to what I'd expect from a flash game than something I purchased.

Oh, which reminds me:

http://www.rebuildgame.com/games/rebuild/

Rebuild is definitely a fun little free zombie game that I burned several hours with. You may as well just skip straight to Rebuild 2, as it's basically just an expanded version of the original, not a true sequel. Kind of like a small zombie infested city-manager :)

Oh, and of course, Last Stand is another free zombie game worth a few hours of your time:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439275

It's a small action/defense game that has you trying to survive in the zombie apocalypse.

Looking that up, I just realized that there's a new game in that series, which tells me what I'll be doing this evening :)

Newgrounds has a neat zombie game section that those looking for something to play might find interesting, which you can find here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/zombiegames

Let me know if you find any gems in there ;)

[Sarelth]

I have a Alpha for a game called The Dead Linger, so far it is building up to be a decent looking Multi-player zombie game.

I started playing The War Z not long ago, while I have heard bad things about hackers, it seems okay so far. Seems better aimed at a group of people though. It seems safer that way.

[jorgebonafe]

Escopeta. A fun little twist on the flash zombie genre.

This game might be considered a bit gross and offensive, so be warned.

http://games.lynms.edu.hk/games/20050207/escopeta.swf

[Vexalor]

Escopeta. A fun little twist on the flash zombie genre.
This game might be considered a bit gross and offensive, so be warned.

You sure those are zombies? They look more like naked swamp-dwelling rednecks out to rape you... it's just like that one movie...

[jorgebonafe]

You sure those are zombies? They look more like naked swamp-dwelling rednecks out to rape you... it's just like that one movie...

Well, I did say its a "twist" in the genre :P But for all intents and purposes, they are pretty much like zombies... Only they don't eat you in the literal way...

[Taleric]

Project Zomboid just put out a new beta. A good bit of polish and features plus they have steam greenlight. Just starting some play on the update so I will let you know if it has not improved.

[BinoAl]

I had a fun time with this neat little flash game:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/togepro ... ctonator-2
It's sort of like a RTS where you try to destroy entire towns with zombies

[FlowerChild]

I think Project Zombiod has come up before hand but anyway, if you happened to play it about a year ago it worth now a look as the 3.0 test build has out for a bit now and has changed almost everything about it. But yeah even if you new to it now is a good time to take a look at it.

I dunno man. It's been a long time since I sat down and played zomboid (6 months to a year at least), but I decided to play it a bit over the past couple of days and I stand by what I said in my first post above. It's still too buggy and underdeveloped for me to really recommend it.

I encountered numerous bugs, the UI is still fairly atrocious (performing simple actions like open or climbing through windows is a massive pain), and honestly, I don't find it's come very far at all. I found I'm actually having less fun with this build than I did whenever I played it last, which is kindof a sad state of affairs.

I'm going to give it another try on the next release as supposedly they're fixing a lot of bugs for it, but yeah, I definitely wouldn't recommend it to new players right now. I've been following the news on its development consistently since playing it last, and what I saw left me hesitant. Playing it just confirmed my suspicions that it's far from ready for prime time.

I really do want to love this game, as it's right up my alley. I'm just admittedly disappointed with the rate of development.

[Gilberreke]

So State of Decay is out for Xbox and it looks pretty awesome. Does anyone know of a release date for PC?

[Ozziie]

So State of Decay is out for Xbox and it looks pretty awesome. Does anyone know of a release date for PC?

Best I can do is from their tweet on 3rd June which tells us absolutely nothing:

FAQ: PC version in progress, no date yet. 1600 points. New server for the overloaded forum on Wed. And you're all AWESOME. Thank you all. :D

[Gilberreke]

Sounds like it might take a while :/

[Ulfengaard]

My understanding was that Undead Labs hadn't intended to do a PC release. It was only when Microsoft suggested that it would be a relatively easy port that they said, "Well, ok."

I don't question their dedication, but I would expect them to take a while with it since it isn't their priority. Even so, I can't wait to play it. >:)

[Gilberreke]

Even so, I can't wait to play it. >:)

I watched an LP video because I didn't know about it yet, and now I want to play it. Then I find out this is Xbox only for now :/

[DaveYanakov]

Does the Last Of Us count for this? What I'm seeing of it looks incredible.

[Gilberreke]

Does the Last Of Us count for this? What I'm seeing of it looks incredible.

Can you recommend a video or similar to get acquainted?