Watch Kosta run through this weeks zombie-themed games

Quick look behind you there’s a zombie! This isn't a joke. Seriously, there’s a zombie! A slow (or fast) undead thing just waiting to eat your brains. And maybe an arm or a leg. Of course by zombie-behind-you I mean that there’s probably a zombie-themed movie, TV series, video game, graphic novel, poster, book, figurine, board-game, chess set, t-shirt, or printed mug somewhere close by. I was being needlessly emphatic you see, there’s no need to panic. Unless you happen to think that there’s way too many zombie-related things these days and that the zombie-market has become overly saturated. Or completely overrun. By zombie-things. In that case, time to start planning for the eventual zombie-media zombie apocalypse. Which should be starting any day now.



Now it might be hard to recall but there was a time when zombies were pretty low key, the exception, not the rule. In fact, this time was roughly about ten years ago. In the world of video games, simply trying to think of a zombie-themed game pre-2000 that isn’t Resident Evil, can be pretty hard. As for robots, spaceships, guns, monsters, dragons, goblins, and anthropomorphic fungi, there are plenty of examples. It actually took Capcom’s ground-breaking Resident Evil for people to take notice of the undead, and that was mainly due to the nature of its survival horror presentation. Due to the overall lack of zombie-themed video games, Resident Evil became what many perceived game-zombies to be.

It’s only in recent years with titles like Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Dead Island, Pants vs. Zombies, and many others, that zombies have become mainstream. But what about the early days? The ‘80s, the early ‘90s, when EGA, VGA, 8-bit, and 16-bit ruled the day. Were there any true zombie games back then? Experiences where they were more than just an ‘enemy type’?

Sure, although for the most part they weren’t very good. Here’s a few.



The Game: Horror Zombies from the Crypt
The Year: 1990
The Developer: Astral Software
The System: PC (DOS)

A good place to start. After all, it does have the word ‘zombie’ in the title. This relatively obscure game from 1990 (fair warning, these are all going to fall under the obscure Umbrella, #residentevilreference) is pretty much a not very good Castlevania-clone. Except that you die whenever you touch or get hit by a zombie, ghoul, or vampire. Or when a rat runs past your legs. This whole one touch and then you die approach for an action-based platform title isn’t exactly unique. But, the fact that the main character’s death animation, Count Frederick Valdemar, always involves him clutching his throat as his head explodes into a gooey mess does make this particular design decision stand out. That means that when a rat runs past old Freddy’s ankle, his head explodes.

Presented as a faux b-movie from the 1950s, Horror Zombies from the Crypt is one of those PC games that aimed to reach the heights of certain classic console and arcade efforts but fell well short of the mark. It is a challenging and difficult game to play, so it does have that going for it. But when the jump animation looks like the main character is getting around using an imaginary pogo stick, you know that it'll end up being more than a little rough around the edges.

Throwback Rating:

Best Forgotten /A Trip Down Memory Lane / Timeless



The Game: Samurai Zombie Nation
The Year: 1990
The Developer: KAZe
The System: NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)

Okay, so any game with both Samurai and Zombie in the title should at least warrant a look-see. And this very Japanese game for the NES is definitely worth checking out, if only because of its premise. You see, there’s this meteorite that has crashes into the Nevada desert, and shortly after landing it starts shooting out some kind of magnetic ray, turning everyone in the United States into zombies. Pretty standard stuff. But, this is where it gets crazy. As the player you take on the role of the severed head of a famous but dead samurai who is out to stop the meteorite before it takes control of some powerful ancient weapon or something. Because it’s an ancient evil alien. It’s superbly weird.

As for the game it plays like R-Type, with players controlling the samurai head like a spaceship from a side-on perspective. And instead of lasers and missiles, you shoot fireballs and what looks like the world’s most powerful projectile vomit to destroy all manner of zombies and tanks and buildings. Destroying buildings? Yep, there’s that too. Which gives the game a sort of Rampage-style feel, and when you take into account that the floating head you control is supposed to be the good guy, destroying hundreds of buildings just for the hell of it seems a little much. Kind of like Superman in Man of Steel. We get it supes, you’re the good guy. But holy hell, did you have to lay waste to an entire city?

Throwback Rating:

Best Forgotten /A Trip Down Memory Lane / Timeless



The Game: Zombies Ate My Neighbors
The Year: 1993
The Developer: LucasArts
The System: SNES (Super Nintendo)

LucasArts! Now there’s a name that you could trust in the early ‘90s. And this console effort from the studio, Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993), is pretty good. But its not ‘LucasArts good’. Featuring a colourful art-style that models its look on ‘50s horror films and B-movies (in a similar fashion to Maniac Mansion), players take on the roles of Zeke and Julia in a bid to save their neighbours from zombies and various other monsters. With its top-down perspective, bright visuals, and somewhat annoying soundtrack, Zombies Ate My Neighbors can be a lot of fun when played co-op. Split into different suburban-themed levels the goals are pretty simple, save as many people as you can, before they’re eaten.

In that sense it does get old pretty fast, and it’s not something you’d really come back to over and over. But the humour that was present in many LucasArts games from the era is here in droves, with great animation for both the different kinds of monsters and suburbanites. There’s the BBQ-obsessed father, the cheerleader, the whining baby, in addition to the prerequisite zombies, mutant plants, and mummified corpses.

Throwback Rating:

Best Forgotten /A Trip Down Memory Lane / Timeless



The Game: Isle of the Dead
The Year: 1993
The Developer: Rainmaker Software
The System: PC (DOS)

Isle of the Dead is a strange game, one part first-person shooter, one part point-and-click adventure. In it players take control of a survivor of a mysterious plane crash on a tropical island that happens to be overrun by zombies. Sound pretty good so far? Well, if your answer is yes, then taking one look at what passes for an ‘island’ in the game should clue you in to its quality. Which isn’t all that good. Although the mix of different genres may sound interesting, and it is for a few moments, the sheer crappiness of the visual engine, controls, and poorly designed puzzles make this a difficult game to play for more than a few minutes.

But this came out in 1993 you say, and computer graphics were primitive back then! Yeah, that could be a valid point but developers like id Software knew their limitations and what was and wasn’t feasible. Which is why Wolfenstein 3D takes place almost entirely within corridors, and didn’t try to simulate the act of using a machete to hack through an overgrown jungle in the worst way possible. When you have to go into your inventory to look at an item just to work out what it is that you picked up, you know you’re in trouble.

After release Isle of the Dead quickly made its way onto several worst computer games of all time lists and it’s not hard to see why. If it has any redeeming qualities, as a zombie game, then they would lie with its overly violent death animations. But even those were done way better, and gorier, by id Software.

Throwback Rating:

Best Forgotten /A Trip Down Memory Lane / Timeless

So there you have it, some old zombie video games.

Now, back to Left 4 Dead.

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Kosta Andreadis remembers a time when in order to get the best out of a console game you had to blow gently into it and whisper sweet nothings like "please work, I’m up to World 8-3, for fudgcicles sake". Situated in Melbourne, Kosta is a freelancer who enjoys playing RPGs, strategy, adventure, and action games. Apart from investing well over 200 hours into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim he’s also an electronic musician with an album recently released.

Recent articles by Kosta:

• Total War: Attila Review
  
• Cites: Skylines Review
  
• Throwback Thursday - Blood (1997)

Find him or follow him on Twitter - @toadovsky, Steam - toadovsky and Xbox Live - Toadovsky.