Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel without a Pulse.
Imagine a world, clean, no crime to speak of, people living in harmony, hovercars, robots that cater to your whim, and the songs from the 50's. Sound like paradise? To some yes that would be, but to most it would be annoying, this is where our story takes place, in the futuristic town of Punchbowl USA. There's some background as to how the place became what it is, but lets face facts, you want to know about the protagonist. You play as Stubbs, recently resurrected from a very shallow grave by some fertalizer, yes, you read that right. Since you've been "asleep" for so long you have a terrible hunger, but no ordinary food will do, you must feed on BRAINS! And thus the story, or lack there of begins!
Ok, so that's not true, there is a story here, and you'll uncover it as you progress through the game. It can be obscure though, as you only get little hints in the first few levels but the further you get the more is revealed. The story is pretty good, while there's a little bit of a twist towards the end, it does tend to lack in direction when you're actually playing the game. At certain points in the game you'll be asking yourself why you're doing what you're doing, but the game quickly smacks your hand and tells you to focus on the task of making new minions. How do you do said thing you ask? Why eating the brains of the living of course!
Yep, that's right you get to go on a brain munching spree, and the more you munch the bigger your undead army becomes. There's some limited squad based gameplay to be had here. You can call your zombie horde to you, and you can push them towards danger, or people in hopes that they will take the bullets for you and take the human that's doing it down. Don't expect much more than that. They'll usually just run from one person to another, taking bullets along the way, or stepping on landmines. I didn't say zombies were smart, but the humans are pretty dumb as well. You can usually send a few zombies to distract said human, and walk up from behind and eat their brains.
Gameplay is pretty solid. Camera is well done and does a great job at keeping everything in frame, though there's some problems with the animation when you go to eat brains. It doesn't look like Stubbs' mouth ever touches the head of his victims, one minute he bends down, the next there's a gaping hole where the back of the head use to be. This isn't a major complaint, but it is noticable from the right angle. There's portions of the game where you'll get to use tanks and hovercars as well, but these are few and far between. Only two portions of the game require you to use a car to finish a mission, and the tank only shows up once or twice towards the end of the game. If you're observant, and haven't looked at the packaging of the game, you'll find that these sequences play pretty similar to Halo.
The game as a very well done soundtrack as well. Some of the popular songs from the 50's have been redone by popular bands....when the game was made I mean. This is great part of the game. Hearing period songs redone by some newer bands is pretty cool, and each took a different spin on the songs they did, while keeping them true to what the original sounded like. Here's the biggest let down of the game. You only get to hear these songs in certain places of the game, and once during a particularly funny dance sequence. Most of the game you'll be treated to nothing, just the sound of you hobbling around the city and the moans of your undead companions.
My last point is this game is hillarious, albeit dark hillarious. There's some inuendos thrown around, and to hear what the NPCs are saying when you're either eating their brains, or when they see the brains of others being eaten, will cause you to chuckle a few times. One of the driving sequences you'll drive the sod-o-mobile, and it just so happens to have a sod spitting turret mounted to it's back. While this may not sound particularly funny, you can use the turret to send people, and other sod-o-mobiles a good 20 feet into the air. If you've got a twisted sense of humor like I do, then you'll find this to be sadisfying, and really funny. Also one of the boss fights, if you wanted to call it that, has you squaring off against a little person in a dance competition....don't believe me, watch this.
With that, I shall end this review. The game is great, and it should be pretty cheap by now. I know you can pick it up over XBL for around $15 or so. It's a great game and if you've got a wierd sense of humor, like I do. You'll enjoy this game.
Next week will be the game i've been trying to do.
Till then,
~V
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