Ever watch “Dawn of the Dead” and wonder what it would have been like from the zombie’s perspective? Well, wonder no more! The kind people at Aspyr and Wideload games have the answer! Stubbs the Zombie is an Xbox only release that puts you in the rotting, damp drivers seat of your very own undead traveling salesman!
Set in a 50s to early 60s era retro future, StZ tells the tale of a traveling salesman, murdered and buried in a no name town about 3 miles west of BFE nowhere. Stubs finds a new life thanks to a chemical fertilizer dumped on his unmarked grave during the development of a futuristic new suburb.
As you begin the story, you have no special weapons, just some strong teeth and a lust for brains. Controls are understandably sluggish: Stubbs moves in a slow lurch that after a few paces accelerates into a blindingly moderate amble. This is aggravating at first for anyone used to the fast movement and high jumps of an FPSer like Halo2, but once a player ets used to the rhythm of the game, the movement feels natural. Stubbs is based on the halo1 engine; graphics are fairly crisp (for xbox1) but nothing amazing.. it’s the little artistic touches that make the visual aspect of this game so compelling… the open ribs and visible organs of Stubb’s torso, the stiff legged walking animation of your fellow zombies.
The game play is just flat out amazing.. initially, you’re mostly feeding on hapless citizens and cops who probably should have spent a lot more time at the range. With each human you off with your mighty undead choppers, you gain an undead ally. Your rapidly growing army of zombies will follow simple commands: you can whistle for them to follow you, or shove them in the direction you want them to go. Unfortunately, they are also hungry for head-stew, and if you’re slow or too far away, they may get to the civilian smorgasbord before you. A nice little touch that I appreciated here is that, the longer the undead hang around, the less responsive they get to your commands…
Damage is no big deal for the undead.. if your Stubbs-shaped damage meter drops too low, hide out and let your undead army do the biting for you for a while.. the meter refills with a lovely liquid sound after a few seconds. Your zombie buddies will generally gravitate towards the nearest warm bodies, allowing you to follow them and use their newly rotting carcasses as moving cover. There’s a fair bit of stealth-like play in this game, though it doesn’t rise to an annoying level.. if you sneak up on a target who doesn’t see you coming, you can bite right into his/her head and feed away. If they do see you coming, they will attack with any weapon they have(bats.. pistols.. shotguns.. machine guns.. etc) and you can swipe back at them.. a few hits leaves them dazed and ready for feasting on.. One too many and they drop dead.. brains inedible and never to rise again. Bummer.
When approaching certain targets, such as helmeted soldiers.. you get the additional option to rip off one of the target’s arms by hitting “Y” and beating the holy living shit out of them with it. A dismemebered arm is a surprisingly effective weapon in this game, usually giving you one hit kills.. it’s loads of fun to run around and smack civvies down with a nice fresh arm!..how many games let you do that?
Attacks
Stubbs gains special attacks as the game progresses. These are gradually reloaded by feeding on the “brain juice “ of the living. Stubbs is able to rip off and fling his left arm at a target or a wall or anywhere. Your consciousness then travels to the arm, and you get to drive it to a nice warm body. The view from the arm is black and white and a little disorienting...particularly because it can crawl up walls and across ceilings on the way to the target. By the way: controlling an armed human in this manner is the only way you will fire a weapon in StZ.
Stubbs can also fling an organ or rip off his head and roll it at a target. Organs are, appropriately enough, just like sticky grenades in Halo.. they can stick to a target. An added feature is that you can detonate them on command, particularly handy if you over throw your target. The rolling head is a much more powerful explosive, and can be steered to the target. Last but not least of course is Flatulence. As one might guess, this is an area effect attack that momentarily stuns any humans within about 15 feet of Stubbs long enough to either move to cover or feast on their brains.
Through the course of the game, the tale of Stubbs untimely death and his final revenge gradually unrolls. There is an interesting story here with many entertaining cinematics and funny one liners.
Graphics: B
Not the best I’ve seen on an Xbox game in terms of looks, but from a conceptual point of view, an A+.
Sound: A-
Good voice acting, a great soundtrack of 50s era hits reworked by current bands, and funny as hell script work.
Game play and camera: B+
Inventive, variable game play..with a variety of enemies and tactics… For example.. to defeat one boss, you have to beat him in a ddr style dance off.. If that doesn’t scream “creepy”, I don’t know what does.
Challenge, Replay ability and fun: B+
The challenge and fun here are the strong suits of Stubbs.. there really aren’t any other games out there like this one. The novelty of the game will drop off after the first play for most people, so replayability just isn’t that great, although there are 4 skill levels.
Multiplayer: C-
While there is a co-op mode, there is no pvp or xbox live support.
Conclusion: B
To any fan of horror or sci-fi films, this is probably a must have.. for anyone else, this game is most likely a rental.
As you begin the story, you have no special weapons, just some strong teeth and a lust for brains. Controls are understandably sluggish: Stubbs moves in a slow lurch that after a few paces accelerates into a blindingly moderate amble. This is aggravating at first for anyone used to the fast movement and high jumps of an FPSer like Halo2, but once a player ets used to the rhythm of the game, the movement feels natural. Stubbs is based on the halo1 engine; graphics are fairly crisp (for xbox1) but nothing amazing.. it’s the little artistic touches that make the visual aspect of this game so compelling… the open ribs and visible organs of Stubb’s torso, the stiff legged walking animation of your fellow zombies.
The game play is just flat out amazing.. initially, you’re mostly feeding on hapless citizens and cops who probably should have spent a lot more time at the range. With each human you off with your mighty undead choppers, you gain an undead ally. Your rapidly growing army of zombies will follow simple commands: you can whistle for them to follow you, or shove them in the direction you want them to go. Unfortunately, they are also hungry for head-stew, and if you’re slow or too far away, they may get to the civilian smorgasbord before you. A nice little touch that I appreciated here is that, the longer the undead hang around, the less responsive they get to your commands…
Damage is no big deal for the undead.. if your Stubbs-shaped damage meter drops too low, hide out and let your undead army do the biting for you for a while.. the meter refills with a lovely liquid sound after a few seconds. Your zombie buddies will generally gravitate towards the nearest warm bodies, allowing you to follow them and use their newly rotting carcasses as moving cover. There’s a fair bit of stealth-like play in this game, though it doesn’t rise to an annoying level.. if you sneak up on a target who doesn’t see you coming, you can bite right into his/her head and feed away. If they do see you coming, they will attack with any weapon they have(bats.. pistols.. shotguns.. machine guns.. etc) and you can swipe back at them.. a few hits leaves them dazed and ready for feasting on.. One too many and they drop dead.. brains inedible and never to rise again. Bummer.
When approaching certain targets, such as helmeted soldiers.. you get the additional option to rip off one of the target’s arms by hitting “Y” and beating the holy living shit out of them with it. A dismemebered arm is a surprisingly effective weapon in this game, usually giving you one hit kills.. it’s loads of fun to run around and smack civvies down with a nice fresh arm!..how many games let you do that?
Attacks
Stubbs gains special attacks as the game progresses. These are gradually reloaded by feeding on the “brain juice “ of the living. Stubbs is able to rip off and fling his left arm at a target or a wall or anywhere. Your consciousness then travels to the arm, and you get to drive it to a nice warm body. The view from the arm is black and white and a little disorienting...particularly because it can crawl up walls and across ceilings on the way to the target. By the way: controlling an armed human in this manner is the only way you will fire a weapon in StZ.
Stubbs can also fling an organ or rip off his head and roll it at a target. Organs are, appropriately enough, just like sticky grenades in Halo.. they can stick to a target. An added feature is that you can detonate them on command, particularly handy if you over throw your target. The rolling head is a much more powerful explosive, and can be steered to the target. Last but not least of course is Flatulence. As one might guess, this is an area effect attack that momentarily stuns any humans within about 15 feet of Stubbs long enough to either move to cover or feast on their brains.
Through the course of the game, the tale of Stubbs untimely death and his final revenge gradually unrolls. There is an interesting story here with many entertaining cinematics and funny one liners.
Graphics: B
Not the best I’ve seen on an Xbox game in terms of looks, but from a conceptual point of view, an A+.
Sound: A-
Good voice acting, a great soundtrack of 50s era hits reworked by current bands, and funny as hell script work.
Game play and camera: B+
Inventive, variable game play..with a variety of enemies and tactics… For example.. to defeat one boss, you have to beat him in a ddr style dance off.. If that doesn’t scream “creepy”, I don’t know what does.
Challenge, Replay ability and fun: B+
The challenge and fun here are the strong suits of Stubbs.. there really aren’t any other games out there like this one. The novelty of the game will drop off after the first play for most people, so replayability just isn’t that great, although there are 4 skill levels.
Multiplayer: C-
While there is a co-op mode, there is no pvp or xbox live support.
Conclusion: B
To any fan of horror or sci-fi films, this is probably a must have.. for anyone else, this game is most likely a rental.
