When we continue to see a series of movies with a familiar theme, we will tend to see a parody come out. All of a sudden, there are several Zombie games scheduled to come out. Well the co-founder of Bungie left before Halo 2 and started another new company, Wideload Games. Their debut title, Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel w/o A Pulse, is a Zombie parody that puts you in the role of the Zombie.
You have to realize that being a Zombie puts a lot of restrictions on what you will be able to do. Unfortunately, the game still has problems. There is mostly one big problem, actually. The game starts with an introduction to the city, a futuristic 50's, and Stubbs raising from the dead. With that you have a fairly large open area. There is no map, arrow pointing you where to go, or any general detail on what to do. Most of the game has no real direction except converting civilians/officials into zombies to help you fight off the other civilians/officials and making your way to point B. There are very few actual objectives.
As a zombie, you have some abilities that make the game more interesting. The first thing you can do at the start of the game is Unholy Flatulence which will stun surrounding enemies. While they are stunned, it is easier to eat their brains to convert them into zombies. A little further down, you get to throw your guts that will explode, and even stick to an enemy. Mixing things up, you will be able to detach your hand and take control of it. Sneak up on an enemy and you can possess a living human and use whatever weapon they are holding. Any other humans around will however attack you as well. Eventually you will be able to pull your head off and roll it towards humans and manually have it explode.
Each of these abilities have their own meter that is depleted when you use that ability. To refill those meters you must eat brains. Civilians can easily be eaten with a press of 'Y'. Police officers/army men must be beaten down a little bit before taking a bite out of them. Of course you could just beat them to death and they will still rise from the dead.
Graphically, the game looks good with a 50's look to it. There aren't a whole lot of variety in character models, but having different zombie modifications is a nice touch. What do I mean by different zombie modifications? If you decide to beat someone to death, you might end up taking off their legs. So when that person rise from the dead, they are left dragging themselves across the floor. There are also headless and armless zombies. And in some instances, instead of eating a person's brain you might pull off their hand and they will start going crazy. And you can even use that hand you pulled off for a 1-hit kill on many humans.
The game's soundtrack is interesting as it contains covers of 50's songs by current artists. What's even more interesting is that these songs don't get played through the majority of the game. When they are played, it is only for a small section of a level. You'll hear people screaming and yelling that they see a zombie as well as screaming as you bite into them. A lot of the game features no music despite this interesting soundtrack.
I'm a bit conflicted as to how much I like this game. On one hand: it's pretty short, repetitive, and lacks direction. On the other hand, however, after getting further into the game I had some fun. Having co-op is always a big plus. Also, some moments were pretty funny and memorable (Stubbs riding a sheep like a horse). In the end, though, it comes down to if the game is worth the retail price. At $50, Stubbs is not really worth it. It is more of a rental than buy.
