Matt’s Somewhat Serious Bit
In this world of video gaming, a number of enemy types have become quite prolific across a number of games. While the common Nazi is the one that springs to most people’s minds, I feel that it is the zombie that is the best common enemy in video gaming today, and since the release of Dead Rising, easily the video game enemy with the highest death toll. Most video games have adopted the zombie type seen in George A. Romero’s Dead series of films. Typically reanimated shortly after death as a result of a ne’er explained apocalyptic event, the Romero zombie has limited neural capacity, mostly retaining the instinct to feed relentlessly on the flesh of living organisms. In some cases, the zombie has been shown to use blunt weapons and firearms, but never really effectively. Seldom are zombies seen in roaming solo – their strength is always in numbers.
There's no justice like angry mob justice
Zombies can easily be disposed of with sharp blows to the head, though the frequent ineptitude of characters in zombie films usually forces the rediscovery of this fact time and time again. If you are bitten by a zombie, you will become a zombie, particularly if the main character was attached to you at any point. The Romero zombie is slow and lumbering, largely due to the onset of rigor mortis, though they are capable of lunging when tempted with fresh meat. This is in contrast to the Fast zombie, seen in 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake, who is seen to be both lightning quick and rather strong. The Resident Evil remake has presented both types of zombies in the one game – the regular zombie will turn into a much more threatening Crimson Head if the zombie is not decapitated, or corpse is not torched, almost discouraging the killing of our undead friends.
Now it’d take far too long to go into detail about the specific types of zombies featured in each game, so I thought I’d just take a moment instead to detail a few of my favourite video game zombies.
The future for the video game zombie is bright indeed with games such as Left 4 Dead and They Hunger: Source on the way. I’d like to see a couple of new types of zombie games – a little flash game called The Last Stand has quite a good premise, in that you are alone at the start of the game and must protect your little bunker from hordes of zombie attacks at night, whilst searching for survivors and new weapons by day. It’d be cool if we could see a more fully realised version of the game, perhaps taking a few notes from Bullfrog’s much loved Dungeon Keeper series – ultimately, aren’t most zombie films about a group of people trapped in the middle of an outbreak? Ah well, we’ll have to wait and see if someone brings a new element to games featuring our brain eating friends any time soon.
Quote of the Month
The following is an excerpt from an interview between Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime and MercuryNews.
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“Q: There's been a lot of buzz about Microsoft's Halo 3. How do you expect it to affect the console battle this holiday season?
A: Will they sell a lot of software? Certainly. Will it sell hardware? I think it's an open question. Why? Because I think that the Halo 3 consumer already has the hardware, because they're playing BioShock and Crackdown and a variety of games that are, in the end, quite similar: first-person shooter experience, multiplayer capable online. Tell me what's new?
Q: So do you feel like you need to counter Halo 3 in some way?
A: No.
I am fortunate to have a series of (games) that are all going to drive substantial sales for me and are all targeted to different parts of the consumer mix.”
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Reggie Fils-Aime
Historically, he’s right – Halo 2 did not lead to an meteoric rise in sales of the Xbox for the month it was released – but there was a marked increase in Xbox purchases in the months leading up to the system’s release, due largely to a constant flow of releases that appealed to that demographic. Crackdown, while a good game, was pretty much a vessel for the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta – it would be interesting to go back and see what sort of effect it had on sales of the console. With great games, price drops, pack-in deals and superior hardware having been released, how many of you would have waited until September 25 to get your machine? You cannot deny that the game will have some effect on the sale of the console for the week of release, but will the Halo effect carry on into October and beyond? And what about the one-two punch of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (at least for non-PAL gamers - when will you buggers listen to me and import your Nintendo goods?) - both are generating a lot of buzz, and are actually popular worldwide with a much wider audience than that of Halo.
It Came From Japan
This month’s Japanese-only gem is somewhat of an anomaly. It’s based on a popular western property, but the game was only released in Japan, and secondly, it was released some four years after the release of said property. Yes, it’s Super Back to the Future Part II, developed by Toshiba for the Super Famicom.
Eight years to go and still no flying DeLoreans or cybernetic implants
Based on the second (and in my opinion, best) movie of the three, Super Back to the Future Part II is almost a Sonic the Hedgehog-style game with Marty and co. shoehorned in. The game follows the basic plot line of the film, with stages in 2015, the alternate 1985 and 1955. The presentation itself is quite good, with a awesome SNES rendition of the Back to the Future overture, well animated sprites who are anime-style super deformed versions of the characters – Doc Brown and Biff look rather hilarious, too. A rather fun diversion, and miles better than the other Back to the Future games, which belong in my “Once You’ve Played It, You Can’t Unplay It” bit.
Cross Media Mania
It’s not often that one associates the terms “video game movie” and “good” but it happens from time to time with the original Mortal Kombat film. The film itself is an anomaly in the fact that a) it’s a video game movie that doesn’t totally suck and b) it’s a Paul W.S. Anderson movie that doesn’t totally suck.
Things quickly turned back to normal with the release of Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Whereas Mortal Kombat was a reasonably classy, Enter the Dragon-style martial arts romp, Annihilation is more of a “how many Mortal Kombat characters can we cram into 90 minutes” type of deal. It’s a mish-mash of the plots of Mortal Kombat II and 3, with Shao Kahn wishing to take over earth realm, and Rayden (now played by James Remar of The Warriors fame). Many characters from the games show up, only to be disposed of quickly – Johnny Cage is killed mere moments into the film. Hilarious costumes and low quality special effects follow – including the bizarre animalities in the film’s climax.
The five on the right last for about a grand total of 10 minutes
While the film is watchable purely for its cheese value (and its awesome soundtrack), it started a chain of events from which the Mortal Kombat franchise has never truly recovered. Mortal Kombat 4 was released shortly after the film, and was significantly less popular than its three predecessors, while Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces are some of the worst titles Midway has ever released. It was only after Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance that the series once again gained some traction with audiences.
Thoughts and opinions expressed in Easy Mode remain those of the author, and do not reflect the opinions of PALGN, its affiliates, advertisers, partners or its ever-growing army of the undead
As an 8 year old fanboy that movie kicked so much ass! Even though even I cringed when I saw some of those 3D effects (a hydra and dragon spring to mind).
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