Tag: Dead

Dead Set

Reviews

Dead SetSometimes when you buy stuff on Amazon, they give you some free money to use on their Video on Demand service.  Normally, I might not use it, but I managed to sock away enough of these at one time (the free money always has an expiration date) and used it to watch 2008’s Dead Set in the only way legal in the US.

Dead Set is a zombie horror mini-series that was produced for the BBC in England.  Beginning on eviction night of the popular Big Brother TV show, the outbreak happens and quickly spreads, leaving only scattered people and those safely locked inside the Big Brother house as survivors.  It is two and a half hours of fast paced zombie action that is a perfect juxtaposition to The Walking Dead currently airing on AMC.

I simply cannot recommend this series enough.  It was fantastic, although Romero purists might hate the faster moving zombies.  Absolutely worth seeing for any zombie fan.  Check it out if you haven’t seen it already.

Dead Rising 2

Gaming, Reviews

Dead Rising 2This can’t possibly be a full review of the game, because at this point I’ve only played it through once, and if you are familiar with the original, you know that means that I failed.  I messed up a case, let survivors die and then eventually got stupidly overwhelmed by zombies.  However, death isn’t the end in a Dead Rising game.  Death just means I get to start over, while keeping my levels and skills and whatnot.  Oh, and clothes.  One of the silliest bits in the DR games is that when you start over your character will have on the clothes he was wearing when he died.  In the original, that meant that if you died after the abduction, you could wind up watching the opening cinematics in your skivvies.  In my case, I’m wearing footy pajamas, a fedora and a Groucho Marx disguise.

I digress…  The simple fact is that DR2 is the kind of sequel you love to get.  It understands what was great about the original and makes it better, and also understands what was tedious and fixes that too.  My biggest issue with the original was that the survivors all sucked.  No matter what weapons you gave them, they didn’t seem to be able to fight.  In DR2, I actually plan my routes so that I’ll have 2 or 3 or more survivors, armed with guns, when I get to a psycho or run certain parts of the game.  The survivors actually, you know, help!  But don’t just take my word for it, read this review as well.

Anyway.  I’m totally loving this game, and think that everyone should play it (and the original too, and Case 0 if they are on the 360, and Case West on the 360 when it comes out, and Dead Rising 3 when they inevitably make it).  I still haven’t played around with the co-op or multiplayer, but I’ll be doing that this weekend.

Red Undead Redemption

Random Thoughts

Red Dead Redemption: Undead NightmareToday’s Zombie Wednesdays post was going to be about my initial impressions of Dead Rising 2, however due to a slew of free movie screenings this week I might not actually get to play it until Friday.  Instead, I bring you the artwork for Red Dead Redemption’s upcoming Undead Nightmare DLC.

Now, some people are upset at this because they feel that it detracts from the realistic feel of the original game.  That the supernatural has no place in the world crafted by RDR.  Then again, no one is forcing them to buy and play this expansion.  I can see why they might be upset since Rockstar is “wasting their time making crap like this” or whatever, just like people get pissed when Harmonix releases another batch of DLC songs they don’t care about.  Get over it.

Personally, I can’t wait.  Zombies in the Old West?  Yes, please!  And this time the bulk of (or all of) the DLC is single player, so I don’t have to rely on finding random people to play with when I want to play.  I look forward to the new missions and retouched world with an undead flavor.  Squeee!

There is supposed to be a trailer available on Thursday, so look for it.  The only question is… will I have to go up against zombie John Marston?

Dead Rising 2 – Case: 0

Gaming

Dead Rising 2 drops next week and I’m really looking forward to it.  Three weeks or so ago, the Xbox 360 got a nice little exclusive prequel called Case 0.  If you are familiar with the original Dead Rising, you’ll remember that the story unfolds as a series of cases, unlocking each successive chapter as you complete the one you are in.  This tightly made bonus for the 360 seems to fit in nicely, giving the new hero, Chuck Greene, a path to Las Vegas, the setting of the upcoming DR2.

The one thing I enjoy most about the Dead Rising series is the stark contrast it has with the Left 4 Dead series.  L4D is clearly a high octane shooter.  Sure, you occasionally try to silently tiptoe past a witch, but most of the zombies in that world are charging at you at full speed.  Running is rarely an option, you have to fight to live.  The DR games, on the other hand, are populated with shamblers, zombies that shuffle their feet, walk, and sometimes even *gasp* walk fast!  Running is almost always an option.  This leads to Dead Rising playing more like an RPG, especially given its levels and character development.

Back to Case 0… I bought it last week and I’ve been fooling around in the little road block town of the game and it has me really excited to play the full blown DR2 when it releases, and at the same time it also doesn’t just feel like a teaser.  It feels like a complete game on its own, probably the best $5 I’ve ever spent in the marketplace.  And with the announcement of Case West coming to the 360 sometime after DR2’s launch, I imagine that’ll be a well spent $5 too.  If only all games in the Xbox Live Arcade could be this good.  Hell, if Capcom decided to just release a new mini game as good as Case 0 set in the Dead Rising universe every month, I’d be thrilled.

Anyway… if you liked the original Dead Rising and you still have a 360, I highly recommend Case 0.

Friends Through The End

Gaming

This month’s Gamer Banter topic didn’t inspire me.  It was “Which game character do you identify yourself with most/least and why?” and I spent time thinking about it and the simple fact is that I don’t really even identify with video game characters at all.  Sure, I like to follow along the story, and I might be immersed for the duration, but it rarely lingers.  The characters that stick are the ones I create in MMOs.  Even now, years after cancelling my EQ account, I still think about Ishiro Takagi, my human agnostic monk from Qeynos.

But after firing off an email to the Gamer Banter coordinator about how I wasn’t inspired to participate, I thought of a new angle on the topic.

The closest I even came to identifying with a character was Gordon Freeman in the Half-Life series.  The reason was because Gordon is a shell in which I sit while I play.  Gordon never speaks, and the game never has a 3rd person view cut scene.  I am Gordon at all times.  This makes Gordon more like my MMO characters than your traditional video game character because he has no personality unless I give it to him.

Thinking along this line, I drifted to a couple other games by Valve: Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.  Here, we don’t have Gordon-like shells.  The four survivors in each game quip and banter, they call for help.  Even when I play one, I’m not them, I’m just controlling them.  However, because the game is light on cut scenes and outside the quips and banter the characters are player or AI controlled and not just standing around, these games have given me a group of friends to survive the zombie apocalypse with.  And through them and their banter, I care about them.  Ellis has told me so many stories about his buddy Keith that I want to know if Keith is out there surviving the onslaught of the undead too.  (I secretly pray that Keith is one of the survivors in the inevitable Left 4 Dead 3.)  In fact, since most of the time I play with my friends, the survivors are my friends.

These eight characters have come to define my view of zombie Armageddon.  When the day comes, I want these people, or at least people like them, by my side.  Even when I’m playing solo, I find myself rushing to their aid, not just to keep them alive but because I don’t want them to die.  A subtle distinction, but an important one.  Even when playing solo, I find myself talking to the other survivors, asking them what the hell they are doing, telling them to hurry up, even reminding them to cover me.  It’s almost a little unnerving to realize that I do that, but there it is.

So yeah, the truth is that most of the time I don’t identify with characters, but in Valve’s Left 4 Dead series, they’ve added just enough to the shell I (and my friends, and the AI) inhabit to evoke a response.

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part, please email him for details.

Other Gamer Banter participants:
Pioneer Project: The importance of character creation
Silvercublogger: Will Sing Opera For Italian Food
Game Couch: Gabriel Knight
Extra Guy: Who I Identify With
Next Jen: I’d Rather Be Me
carocat.co.uk: A rushed love letter

AMC greenlights The Walking Dead

Random Thoughts

I love zombies.  Not like in a romantic way, but like in a “they make a great setting for human drama” way.  I have enjoyed reading every page of The Walking Dead comic book, as it is probably one of the best zombie stories ever done.  I was thrilled to hear that a TV project was in the works, and now I’m simply over the moon after hearing that AMC has given the project a greenlight.

I cannot wait to see this.  It will be epic.

Left 4 Dead 2

Gaming

I loved the original.  Loved it.  I carved its name and mine into a tree in the backyard with a heart around it.  We, however, refused to get married until gays can also be married.  This turned out to be a good decision because if I had gotten married, I’d be an adulterer.

Left 4 Dead 2 is all that and a bag of chips, so to speak.  More weapons, more special infected, more events, and a story that flows through all five campaigns to make one complete story, though each feels perfectly fine playing it alone.  I’m not done with the original though.  As much as I like Ellis, I miss Francis.  The Coach is cool, but Bill had a certain flair.  Plus, you know, I’m still missing some achievements.  But overall, the sequel is a better game in just about every possible way.

Made To Suffer

Reviews

I’m a huge fan of Robert Kirkman’s series The Walking Dead.  Not huge enough to pick up the single issues, but enough to buy the trades.  I’ve been sitting on Book 8 entitled “Made to Suffer” for some time now.  I bought it off Amazon when I was buying a few other items and decided to throw it in the box.  After finishing up The First Law, I found myself between books and decided to go ahead and delve back into the world of zombies.

Two words: Holy Shit!

If you don’t want anything ruined for you, stop reading now.  I mean it.  Stop.

Still here?  Good.  What Kirkman does here takes a serious set of balls.  For seven volumes, he has gotten us to know these people, to care for them, and in part this has been done by inflicting small tragedies on them.  Small, I say, in comparison to the enormous one of the world succumbing to zombies to begin with.  But all that we have read so far is nothing compared to this volume.

I couldn’t put the book down.  Volume seven had ended with an attack beginning on our survivors’ prison home, but eight leaps back a bit and shows us how the attackers arrived.  For the first section of this book, you know where it is going, but getting there is no worse off for it.  Once the attack begins, you find yourself wondering how the hell they will survive this, and bit by bit and piece by piece you see their plan form, you see that they are going to make it.  Then Kirkman punches you in the gut and pulls the rug out.

Book nine is sitting on the shelf next to book eight, but I told myself I’d read another book or two first, to spread out the zombie awesomeness.  But it is taunting me, and I don’t know how long I can hold out.

Print is Dead

Random Thoughts

Personally, I’ve never been a big newspaper reader.  Mostly, though, its because I never wanted to spend the time reading the news, not for any dislike of newspapers themselves.  I wasn’t replacing the newspaper with TV, radio or websites, I just avoid most news outlets since they tend to report primarily bad news.  If I had the inclination and the time, I probably would subscribe to and read the newspaper, because I do like the format.

But like the title says, print is dead, or at least is dying.

The thing I like most about newspapers that is lost as they move to the Internet is that they are a snapshot.  You can go to a library and pull up a newspaper for 40 years ago, or even just a month ago, and see exactly what was considered news on that day, exactly what was fit to print.  Try doing that on CNN, or even the sites of print newspapers.  You might be able to gather a collection of stories that were published on the site a month ago, maybe piece together an idea of what was newsworthy on a particular day, but not really.  With news websites’ penchant for “updating” stories and new information breaks, often rewriting rather than just appending, news reported on a Monday might carry the date and time stamp of Friday when the story stopped developing.

I would absolutely love to see news websites that mimic print news papers.  Big publications of stories once a day, with an archive so you can always pull up a previous issue, and then maintain a “breaking news” blog type feed that puts out mini stories and facts and things happen throughout the day, all of which will be rolled up into full stories for the next day’s issue.  But I suppose, perhaps, I am in the minority about this, seeing as how every news website out there is following the CNN.com style layout of “news now” and anything that doesn’t make the front page that minute is lost to the search field, which even defaults to a web search instead of a site search.

A man can dream though…