Last night as I sat down playing a game for which we shall talk about in a moment I thought that I may have an unhealthy obsession with the undead. I have always been facinated with Zombies, Vampires, Frankenstein, etc. My most memorable, favorite games always tend to have games like Resident Evil, House of the Dead, and their ilk ranking up high on the charts. I enjoyed all of the recently released Zombie and Zombie like movies, with 28 Days Later being the best (I even... gah... shared a passing interest in Twilight, although vampires are not supposed to sparkle in the sun, they are supposed to BURN). Even television, I liked Buffy and Angel, was interested in Vampire Diaries (although that has passed) and now the fantastic new show New Blood. What is it that fascinates me so much with all things dead?
So I took a look at my collection Sunday and decided to fill in this "in between game" time with some older titles that I picked up ages ago and never really got into. I picked up "Dead Rising" (surprise! It's about ZOMBIES!!!) and got into it a little. The save feature of the game has always turned me off... it being if you die you load the last save file (which generally is as many as 3 levels previous) or to save your status with your newly acquired levels and START OVER FROM THE BEGINNING. In typing this doesn't seem so bad. In practice, it's fucking hard. Dear lord, I've played the starting missions of the game at least a dozen times since yesterday levelling up my character. It's insane really. But I gotta say, chopping zombies is a hoot. Anything you can grab can be a weapon, ranging from awesome (see: Katana and Viking War Axe) to useless (see: potted plants and a plastic bubble gun). All totalled yesterday, I managed to kill around... 5000 or 6000 zombies. I saved a dozen or so people, and left a dozen or so to their useless, stupid AI fate. I think I used the Bat the most, smashing zombie skulls into paste more than once.
The game revolves around snarky freelance photojournalist named Frank (oddly, that's my dad's name) who gets a tip that something is going on in Willimette, Colorado. What he doesn't realize is that it's a ZOMBIE OUTBREAK. The town is all dead save for a few meager survivors (78 to be exact) trapped in a mall. It starts out with a pan over the city, you taking pictures of people getting eaten and killed by zombies. At that moment you think it's just people gone mad, because you are unaware of the zombie plague. Next, you get to the mall, and see people barricading the doors to keep them out. Of course, there is the STUPID FUCKING OLD WOMAN who needs to save her doggie (isn't there always one of those?), and of course the doggie is running around outside with the zombies. She opens the barricade, and the rest is predictable. Everybody but you dies. You run to the hills and set up in the security office with some wierd government agency types who won't tell you anything, and then the game gets going. Save people, kill psychos, survive. Lots of fun.
Last night my wife opened me up to a great show called New Blood. It stars Anna Paquin, the girl who played Rogue in the X-Men movies. She is a telepath, and in this world, Vampires live amongst Humans, and treated like a minority. She meets a vampire who is handsome and quietly soft spoken, who is nice and deals with the follies of being considered a minority. Basically, it's a better story than Twilight, but with Red Necks, as it's setting is the deep southern states. It's based off of a book series, and it remarkably follows the books very consistently, with very little lost in translation. Anyway, I'm two episodes in and am sold on the series. I'll talk more about it when I see more episodes.
And finally, a thought for my good friend Steve. He was the best man at my wedding last fall. Steve, what better way to spend a Sunday evening than chopping up zombies and having a bag of sour keys at your side? :D
See you tomorrow.
C
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