Zombie-Pocalypse: A gamers Halloween
Posted in Call of Duty 5: World At War, Left4Dead News, Zombie Master News, Zombie Panic News
With Halloween here, the gamer’s mind turns to all the benefits of the season: large amounts of free candy, videogame-themed pumpkins and, of course, the target-rich environment of endless hordes of undead. They’ve always been the best bad guy for the first person shooter: lots of them, usually slow moving, and they don’t have guns. But you do. (They’re also handy if you have to wussify a game like Carmageddon to get an official release).
The most anticipated zombie game since the first person who didn’t get the hint when they stopped breathing, Left 4 Dead is going to be awesome. When we tell you why, we could talk about all the different types of “Infected”, ranging from your run-of-the-grave corpses to Tanks, Smokers and Boomers. We could discuss the survival mechanic and the various modes of play. We could talk about the range of locations and weapons, like everyone else who has nothing to go on but trailers and screenshots. But we won’t.
Because all you need to know is that it’s published by Valve.
Valve software, the people who thought “Let’s make a single player game” and came out with Half Life 2, the greatest single player FPS ever (with a fun multiplayer deathmatch servers too). The team who, on deciding to make something multiplayer, came up with Team Fortress 2 servers - the absolute best multiplayer game bar none. (You counter-terrorism fans can just run back to your Counter Strike servers and carry on insulting each other about using the AWP).
Now they’re making a Zombie combat game and, at the risk of starting the Church of Valve here, it’s going to be one of the best things ever. Thousands have already pre-purchased the game in anticipation of jumping into a Left 4 Dead server the instant the demo weekend hits.
Not that L4D is the only big-name undead fest on the horizon: Call of Duty 5 servers will also be able to discriminate against the dead in an extremely explosive manner. The “Zombie mode” looks like being one of the best things to happen to the series - as well as adding some much needed variation to the extremely tried-and-tested World War setting, the bad guys are Zombie Nazis. Zombie Nazis! There has never been a better enemy! You can literally do anything you want to those and not even the most ACLU-ified vegan kitten would object!
If you really can’t wait to get some cadaver-combat going, or you suspect that this Halloween is going to be “The Big One” and want to get some practice in fast, you don’t have to wait. Logging on to a Zombie Panic server will get you some fast and furious combat, no waiting. With players as both survivors and zombies you get to try both sides (especially if you suck at the former, because when you die you come back as the latter).
Another undead option is the original idea of Zombie Master. Here one player, the Zombie Master funnily enough, directs hordes of minions to swamp a desperate team of human survivors. You get to play either as the brave hero battling against the swarms of an evil controlling intelligence, or - even better - BE that intelligence. Half Dr Evil, half George Romero, and all fantastic fun.
Get your Zombie-Blasting on this Halloween. You know you want to.
Tags: call of duty 5, left 4 dead, teaf fortress 2, zombie, Zombie Panic