Tag: zombie

Left 4 Dead

Gaming

I am a little late to the party.  Left 4 Dead released back on November 17th, 2008, and I remember, months before, vowing that I would buy it on that day.  Considering that that day marked one full month of being unemployed, I didn’t buy it.  Most people I know who own Xbox 360’s did, and I got to listen to a lot of talk about how cool the game was.

The Tuesday before Christmas, a friend of mine gifted me with Left 4 Dead.

Quite simply, this is probably the most fun game I own for the 360.  Playing alone is often tense and thrilling.  Playing with others is frantic and heart pounding.

I think one of the most innovative parts of this game is the scenario design.  Rather than try to build one whole coherent story encompassing the entire disc, each scenario, of which there are 4 included with the game, is a separate story of its own.  In the first scenario, your group of survivors start on a roof top and you can see the hospital in the distance… so your plan is to cross the city to the hospital, which has a helipad, and call for help.  The second scenario you start out on a road heading to one town you think might be safe, and since it sits on the water you might be able to find a boat and escape.  Scenario three, your band of intrepid zombie fighters are making for the airport, looking for a plane ride out of here.  And in scenario four, you are just trying to get the hell out, but wind up at a farm house with a radio that allows you to call in the Army to your location for a rescue.  Every level of every scenario has multiple paths to the end, and playing through is an organic experience.  While in many games repeating a level gets easier unless you force up the difficulty level, with random spawns and some randomization on supplies and the dynamic AI (The Director), even playing through the same level on the easiest level of difficulty is fun time and time again.

The reason I think this scenario design is so innovative is that is sets a precedent, it manages expectations, so that in the future Valve can release new scenarios, and it doesn’t need to be a continuation of the story, or just a pack of multi-player maps, but they can drop a new mini story of a handful of levels, creating another separate game experience, without changing any of the existing game but also not feeling it is outside of the existing game.

I look forward to the downloaded content for this game.

100 Push-ups

Random Thoughts

As another year draws to a close, I again find myself still not in as good a shape as I’d like to be.  I mean, I’m not morbidly obese or facing serious health issues… and if the zombie apocalypse comes, I am confident that I could fight off the hordes of the undead and be able to outrun them when needed.  However, while sheer will and adrenaline can get you through many ordeals, it would be nice to be in better overall shape.

So, to that end I have (once again) decided to try to get more healthy.  Since many of my previous attempts has failed, I am going to use an approach that has worked in other areas of my life.  See… the problem is that my lack of good health can actually be chalked up to a large number of bad habits, and rather than to simply try to cram a new lifestyle on top of or around my current one, I need to identify my bad habits and break them one by one, and to instill new habits one by one.

About a year ago I broke my habit of drinking sodas.  I was literally drinking a half dozen cans of soda a day.  The first step was to cut out caffeine, so I switched from Coke to Sprite.  After I got used to that, I switched to water, and sometimes lemonade (Crystal Light to be exact).  Overall, dropping soda for water caused me to drop about ten pounds, maybe fifteen.

My next step is to add in a new habit.  My goal is to do 100 push-ups a day.  That is in a 24 hour period.  Right now, it takes nearly twelve hours for me to do my 100 push-ups.  I can do 10 at a time easily, and I can do 20 at a time alright, but beyond 20 in a row my arms get tired.  So I do 20 when I can, and 10 when I can’t, and take long rests in between.  My goal is to be able to do the 100 push-ups in a couple or three minutes.

That’s where I am… I’ll post updates as I feel inspired to.

Vampire Zero

Reviews

Rounding out David Wellington’s vampire trilogy is Vampire Zero.  Unlike his zombie books which were uneven (the three of them were, in order, great, alright and good), the vampire series has been far more consistent.

This time around, our intrepid trooper Laura Caxton is on her own… sort of.  With the events of 99 Coffins behind her, she is now living in the aftermath.  She’s been given her own department within the State Troopers to continue the hunting of the remaining vampires.  She has learned well and knows how to hunt vampires, but these vampires know her as well and they’ll try to outthink her, something vampires aren’t supposed to do.

The body counts here aren’t small, but they are nothing like the last book.  While Caxton tries to tie up her loose ends, Arkeley is trying to tie up loose ends of his own, and its a race to see who gets there first.

I really enjoyed the book, just as much as the previous two, and who knows… there might be a fourth given the way things end.  I know I wouldn’t mind.

The Living Dead

Reviews

In time for the Halloween season, I picked up a collection of zombie short stories called The Living Dead.

One thing I have learned over the years running into zombie fans on the internet and out in the world is that everyone has their favorites.  Some like the slow Romero zombies (my personal favorite), others like the fast running Dawn of the Dead remake style, while still others prefer the hoodoo voodoo zombies, and there are many more flavors.  This collection of short stories pretty much covers them all.  From the cursed living who return from the dead to the mindless drones and even to actors playing extras in Romero’s original Dawn of the Dead at the mall.

Because of this wide range of coverage, I can’t say I loved every story.  In fact, I’d probably say I only loved maybe a third of them, possibly less.  Some of them I could barely trudge my way through, so alien were the concepts of zombies envisioned by their authors (hence the reason why it took me well over a month to read the whole thing).  But, it did make me realize how wide the idea of “zombies” can run, and that perhaps the ideas I’ve been nurturing are not as common as I thought they were.

When I closed the cover of this tome, I was relieved to finally be done what, in part at least, had been a chore to get through.  But I was also satisfied, and really, what more can you ask of a book than that?

The Awesomest Story Ever Told

Writing

That is the title of my NaNoWriMo project this year.  Originally I was going to work on something called Necromancer, but I stalled out on it really early on and after a few days being totally stuck I decided to bail on it in favor of something that will be far easier to write.

So, what is The Awesomest Story Ever Told?  It is the tale of a clan of ninjas who protect the world from threats of the undead who encounter a spaceship from the future crewed by two astronauts, a monkey and a robot who have traveled back in time to prevent a zombie apocalypse.  Right away they discover that the apocalypse of the future was the product of a group of mad scientists who unleashed the zombie hordes in their bid to overthrow all the governments of the world.  As the scientists activate their own time machine and slip away, our heroes reconfigure the spaceship from the future to follow them.  It is a journey through history fighting for the future and encountering everything awesome that has ever existed.

As you can see, my basic story already contains much awesome.  Ninjas, zombies, astronauts, a monkey, a robot, mad scientists, spaceships and time travel.  There are already plot points to include dinosaurs, cavement, pirates, wild west gunfighters, sharks, vampires, werewolves, a medieval castle and knights, but this story needs to include all of the awesome.  All of it.

So, I implore you, every reader, suggest something (or many things) that is awesome.  Feel free to explain why it is awesome, or don’t.  Just suggest awesome and I will try to work it in to the story, and I’ll give credit to the first person to suggest an item of awesome should this work ever see publication of any form.

Choose Your Own Zombie Adventure

Random Thoughts

The Outbreak is an interesting bit of work.  Essentially, its a short film about people during a zombie uprising.  But rather than write just one story and film it, they wrote “all” the stories and filmed them.  From their website:

The Outbreak is an interactive movie. At certain points of the movie, you will be prompted to make a choice — These choices will determine your survival.

As an example, the very first choice you must make is whether or not to interfere when one of the people in your group is going to shoot the injured member of your group for fear he might be infected.

Very cool.

Special thanks go to my older brother for sending me the link.

Zombie Day at the Mall

Random Thoughts

It has been a while since I posted something for Zombie Wednesdays, and I hope with this post I am beginning a trend of doing so.

I am, by all accounts, a t-shirt and jeans sort of guy.  T-shirt and shorts in the summer.  I really don’t like dressing up nice because I find most “nice” clothes to be uncomfortable, especially anything with a tie.  Wearing a tie is like voluntarily placing a noose around your neck… but I digress…

Knowing my love for zombies, and probably suspecting my love for t-shirts, a friend of mine sent me a link to this:

Zombie Day at the Mall t-shirt @ SplitReason.com
Zombie Day at the Mall t-shirt design @ © SplitReason.com

And that is just all kinds of awesome.  As soon as I find a spare twenty bucks, that beauty will be on its way to my door.

Dragon*Con 2008: Day Three

Dragon*Con

I recommend, if you come to Con, plan at least one morning to eat breakfast at Sear, one of the restaurants in the Marriott. Yes, its expensive at $22 for the breakfast buffet, but it is the best buffet ever. Worth every penny, in my opinion.

And what does one do after a hearty breakfast? Why, you watch a post-apocalyptic movie, that’s what! 20 Years After is about people living in a world after nuclear war. Its not a big action film and it doesn’t have mutants or zombies or anything. Just people, some who are crazy, trying to get by. It wasn’t a great film, but for a low budget indie film, it was pretty good. The Q&A with the guys who made it was decent too.

The best thing in the world about Star Wars trivia… is the heckling and sarcasm.

The best thing in the world about the Masquerade, the Con’s big costume contest… is the heckling and sarcasm.

And again, one of the things that makes the Con, are the parties. A few years back, a friend, Wade, couldn’t make the Con, so a hand and rod puppet of him was made to attend in his place. Puppet Wade was very popular with the ladies. This year, Puppet Wade made a comeback. He donned a pirate hat and a condom patch, and he was again popular with the ladies. The Pirate Party was great, as was the wandering around and meeting strangers.

Puppets rule.