STACK #208 Feb 2022

GAMING FEATURE

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of four (in the main campaign) out to eradicate those affected by the “green flu” that’s turning unassuming people into very assuming mutations to enough of an extent to reach the next safe area. This spawned Back 4 Blood , too.

DEAD SPACE (2008) Proving that you can’t escape zombies even if you’re way out in space, the ground zero for a trilogy of games was set on a mining spaceship overrun by necromorphs. That is, of course, basically

a fancy way of saying “zombies”, which the player, as Isaac Clarke, must battle, along with creeping psychosis – and a whole bunch of jump scares! PLANTSVS ZOMBIES (2009) Puzzle geniuses

Popcap made tower defence fun, pitting the player’s plants and the spiffy front lawn on

Zombies. Call ’em what you want – “infected”, “freakers”, “necromorphs” – they’re all essentially the same thing, really undead, and a staple of pop culture. Words Amy Flower F ast ones, slow ones... From George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead movies to TV shows such as The Walking Dead , we love to be entertained by the formerly living. Video games may be a newer medium than movies or TV, but developers certainly haven’t wasted any time in catching up. So, with Dying Light 2: Stay Human hitting home this month, we thought we’d have a quick look back at some of our favourite zombie game franchises – the ones that were usually so good that they came back for more. Hold onto your brainzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

which they reside against marauding

– slowly – zombies who are doing what zombies do, which is seeking the nummy sustenance of brains. It was genius, yet seemingly didn’t have enough shooting for Popcap-buyers EA, who later went all third-person blat-blat on it. THE LAST OF US (2013) Naughty Dog, the

brilliant creators of the Uncharted series, took a post-apocalyptic turn, bringing their action- adventuring to a USA that’s fallen to various mutated creatures ranging from the fairly benign to

RESIDENT EVIL (1996)

approach, and the player utilises a regularly replenishing cache of machine gun bullets to fire at them until knee-deep in zombie gloop. It even spawned a typing tutor variant, The Typing of the Dead . Really! DEAD RISING (2006) Taking a more action- oriented approach this

Capcom had played with zombies since the days of arcade smash Ghosts ‘n Goblins , but with the more capable PlayStation hardware they really got to let loose, riffing on an earlier idea,

the downright terrifying. A sequel was inevitable, and just as good, and we can expect the tale of Ellie and Joel to hit TV screens in an HBO series later this year. THE EVILWITHIN (2014) Not content with causing many

the NES game Sweet Home . Raccoon City was the place, and not dying was the name of the survival horror game that kicked off a multimedia empire. THE HOUSE OFTHE DEAD (1996) Perhaps

time, Capcom continued their crusade against those of the zombie persuasion with this Romero rip, the first of which is set in a shopping centre – erm,

a pair of undies to be soiled with Resident Evil , its director Shinji

“mall”. That could easily be interpreted as “maul”, as players let loose the zombie pummelling with pretty much anything they see, MacGyver style. LEFT 4 DEAD (2008) DOOM had let us shoot the odd undeadite in the first-person, but Left 4 Dead allowed us to really let rip on them. The player is part of a team

ironically, this on-rails SEGA shooter series

Mikami returned to scare us more with this survival horror experience. Making video game “nasty” Splatterhouse look like Play School by comparison, a carefully balanced combo of stealth and combat is required in order for you, a cop, to witness another day.

required little in the brains department, as a relentless parade of muties

10 FEBRUARY 2022

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