And now for something completely different.

14 Jul 06

I don't think there's a good way to explain this beyond pressing forward, so here I go. Today I'm reviewing Stubbs the Zombie in 'Rebel without a Pulse.' Why? That's a good question. It all has to do with hope. I'm one of those people who remembers that Halo started out as a RTS/RTT game. Then it morphed into a shooter. Yes, I'm talking about back in the prototype stage I was talking about previously. They decided to follow the fun and it worked out well for them.

So I hear about Stubbs and that it's made with the Halo engine by one of Bungie's founders. I hear about managing your zombie horde. I think that maybe they've gone back and made a hybrid strategy game with some action window dressing. Then I realize how irrational that hope is so I think that maybe they made some of the strategic options as deep as you might want them.

Let's start with the positives. I played the game on the Xbox. It looked pretty sharp and had solid controls. The only time you really felt out of control was leaping on a victim or when controlling your disembodied hand. The game was very stylized and used a film grain and scratch filter to give it the 1950's horror movie look. The art style was consistent and well done throughout.

Easily the best part of the game was the soundtrack. That would be a deathly insult to most games, but the Stubb's soundtrack really soars with an alternative take on Fifties classics. The only downside to the soundtrack was the developers decided to go with a realistic model where you only heard the soundtrack when it was appropriate in game. That was a waste and unnecessary in a horror/parody game where you play the living dead.

Not much for positives, eh? I think the problems was with the premise. It's such a simple idea, turn the horror game around and make it a comedy. It's been done in movies so why not games? I think Stubbs is the answer. The gameplay is either too easy or not fun.

Let me explain. If you're tough undead with a large unstoppable horde, you sweep through the unarmed and lightly armed swelling your ranks. It's fun. Herding the zombies is like herding cats, but the reward is higher. However, that's the only challenge.

Then the game ramps up the difficulty. You face tougher opponents with heavier weapons. Some opponents have helmets which mean no brain sucking. That means your special abilities don't recharge. Your horde is killed off faster than you can replenish it. You go from hunter to hunted with a character that's slow and awkward. One bad move and you're dead over and over again. You've gained most of your powers at the beginning of the game. Your zombies don't get any smarter. The game becomes a grind.

The developers tried to shake things up with some mini games and vehicle sections. There are some boss battles. The dance contest would have been just silly if it hadn't been one of the times they actually showcased the soundtrack.

Let's go through the tools you have at your disposal to give you a sense of the game. You have your basic zombie strength and stamina. You hit hard and heal when not taking damage. You can combo basic attacks to take down tougher foes. Don't over do it though. Then you won't have an opportunity to take their brains to power yourself up.

So what weapons do you get from your brain diet? Your first is the gas emission. You emit a choking cloud all around you. You then can chomp on the incapacitated victims. The only problem with this is the slow recharge (more brains) and the small radius. Tougher enemies tend to back away quickly from you so it's unlikely you'll be able to get the whole group. In other words, it's fun and useful early in the game and gets less so later on.

The next is your gut grenade. This has a short range arc. It will stick to enemies and can be detonated at will or after a period of time. The problem here is that tougher enemies shrug off anything short of a direct hit. They take damage, but barely pause with the heavy weapons fire. The other problem is enemy weapons fire often well exceeds the range of your grenades. The grenades are surprisingly useful against vehicles. Even tanks can be stopped with a hit or two. Except for vehicles, they're fun and useful early on but get less so later.

Next up is your head bowling ball attack. Yes, you take off your head and roll it at your enemies. You will spit at anyone you go near with a chance of turning them instantly into a zombie. Then, at the end of the run, your head explodes in a more powerful explosion than a grenade. That's incredibly useful. So, of course, it takes a ton of brains to charge it. You can't use it anywhere near as often as you'd like especially later in the game.

Finally, you have your disembodied hand. You can rip off your hand and control it around the game world. If you find an enemy without a helmet, you can take control of them and any weapons they possess. That becomes the best way to get through many sections of the game since the best way to deal with powerful weapons is to wield them yourself. The problem is that any enemies you kill with weapons won't become zombies and you can't eat their brains. So you end up playing a pretty generic action game. To me that wasn't nearly as fun as controlling a zombie horde.

There were a few other minor problems. Some areas were amazingly dark. There was no gamma adjustment in the game. Some checkpoints saved at hopeless situations. Your other option was to restart the chapter. The story was at times funny, but the total narrative, beyond site gags, seemed to only take a few minutes of cut scenes.

In short, the best part of the game ended too quickly. Then you're left doing less fun things against tougher odds. It's not that it's too hard. You can adjust the difficulty for each chapter. It just feels less rewarding to get through each section later on. Some have complained about the length of the game, but since it ended up pretty solidly on the action end of the scale, that didn't bother me.

Overall, 70/100.

Jason