Today I talk about what must be my favorite zombie game of all time right beside Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Left 4 Dead is the greatest zombie game to come out in years, there is no questioning that much if you have played it or the second game. It has everything from big guns to hoards of hungry zombies sprinting at you with every ounce of strength they have. It even has random easter eggs that reference the movies we all know and love. It's a game made by zombie lovers for true zombie lovers.
Right from the start of the game the world has pretty much ended. Everything is in a panic and you are just one of the few survivors that's trying to get out of the madness alive. No one knows where the infection came from and it has not been revealed through the game. You go from place to place running from the infected and the world as it pretty much all falls apart around you while you hope for finding somewhere safe.
The first one has enough blood to satisfy general zombie fans, but the true gore hounds like me will crave something more. This is where the second game swooped in and answered our prayers by adding in melee weapons with sharp edges that left huge gashes in zombies wherever we like them to be. The style of the second game felt much different because of this element and call me crazy, but it reminded me of Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green with how the melee weapons were done during the multiplayer mode. L4D2 was just a far more polished version of this idea that left us with no complaints other than the price tag.
I guess to sum up what I'm trying to say about this game. Go buy it and go play it until you beat it. When you do then set the difficulty higher and beat it again and again. It's well worth the investment and does not require all that much to play it at decent settings.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Walking Dead in Japan!!!
Sorry for being gone for so long. Life has been up and down but I am back and in a bigger zombie loving mood than ever! :)
Recently I was introduced to a new anime series that instantly caught my eye from just the title by itself even. It grabbed me and pulled me in violently only to sink its teeth in and turn me into a devoted fanboy to the show. I speak of Highschool Of The Dead.
It is based on the manga of the same title which has 6 volumes out so far and it is still being made as far as I know. The show has already been licensed in the US I hear so we may see it soon we can only hope.
Don't think of this as a lighthearted cartoon that just happens to have zombies in it along with heavy censorship. No, this is bloody, brutal, and there are a countless moments where you see ladies undergarments flashing. It even backs up every moment of flashing and terror with an equal amount of fast paced action to keep you on edge and wanting to see more and more.
I am trying really hard not to blurt out any of the storyline on here so you will either watch it or read it but I must tell you that it is well worth it if you either like anime or love zombies.
The zombies in HOTD are most similar to Romero zombies above anything else. The only differences being that they are blind so they travel by sound and that the infection travels much faster from person to person. It can infect a person and turn them into a zombie in anything from a few seconds to a few minutes as we see examples of both in just the first episode. Those differences aside they did play tribute to Romero zombies as well as many tributes to other popular movies you all probably know. My sister even pointed out to me that one of the songs near the end of the first episode is the song from 28 Days Later. So keep an eye out for it just for laughs.
Well I suggest you look up this show and watch it and buy the DVD once it comes to the US. It's well worth it from what I have seen.
Recently I was introduced to a new anime series that instantly caught my eye from just the title by itself even. It grabbed me and pulled me in violently only to sink its teeth in and turn me into a devoted fanboy to the show. I speak of Highschool Of The Dead.
It is based on the manga of the same title which has 6 volumes out so far and it is still being made as far as I know. The show has already been licensed in the US I hear so we may see it soon we can only hope.
Don't think of this as a lighthearted cartoon that just happens to have zombies in it along with heavy censorship. No, this is bloody, brutal, and there are a countless moments where you see ladies undergarments flashing. It even backs up every moment of flashing and terror with an equal amount of fast paced action to keep you on edge and wanting to see more and more.
I am trying really hard not to blurt out any of the storyline on here so you will either watch it or read it but I must tell you that it is well worth it if you either like anime or love zombies.
The zombies in HOTD are most similar to Romero zombies above anything else. The only differences being that they are blind so they travel by sound and that the infection travels much faster from person to person. It can infect a person and turn them into a zombie in anything from a few seconds to a few minutes as we see examples of both in just the first episode. Those differences aside they did play tribute to Romero zombies as well as many tributes to other popular movies you all probably know. My sister even pointed out to me that one of the songs near the end of the first episode is the song from 28 Days Later. So keep an eye out for it just for laughs.
Well I suggest you look up this show and watch it and buy the DVD once it comes to the US. It's well worth it from what I have seen.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Who's who in zombies
Another slightly late post. Today I am not reviewing a movie but doing a discussion. We have often looked at zombies and clumped them together as one type of creature, just something that comes back from the grave and kills. This is the one assumption that pisses me off to no end. Some people try to say they are all the same and that when you have seen one zombie movie you have seen them all. They could not be more wrong.
First let me talk about the feel of some of the movies. Some zombie movies have the horror feel where you would say "no, don't open the door!" or maybe you would be thinking of how shocking it was that the dead were rising from the grave. Some movies are just based around the feeling of horror and don't focus on any other factors. There are some zombie movies that focus on only gore and blood. These are fun and all but never very deep in story or feel, we see this in Dead Alive (A.K.A. Braindead). We have action zombie movies like House of the Dead where they seem to be slowly moving targets with very squishy and jelly filled heads. This kind of movie is purely for fun and often has zombies that can somehow die from anything you throw at them in any way. And then we have zomedys like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland where they have the traditional Romero style zombie but add in a touch of humor to the situations the people go through. I left out some but these are the most popular and well known.
The first kind of zombie that I want to throw out there is the first kind that was ever talked about in the media and was put into practice supposedly in various places in the world, the voodoo zombie. These are not flesh craving creatures in any way. Instead they are human beings that look much as they did during their life. They are victims of a type of mind control from brain damage to a certain extent despite the claims of magic controlling them. We first see these in the 1932 White Zombie (maybe I'll review that next week so I have an excuse to watch it ^_^).
Next, in no particular order, is the brain eating zombie of Return of the Living Dead. These zombies are very special in regards to their craving. They want brains. Not flesh, not blood, just brains. And they are smart enough to set traps in order to get them. They can run and move as quickly as they need. And they are appearently stronger than normal humans as we see in some cases where they can simply rip people apart effortlessly. Probably the most dangerous kind of zombie because they are smart enough to learn. Sure some zombies are faster but none are smarter than these. And nothing can really kill them short of a bomb. A shot to the head only makes them cry and a little more hungry, chopping off their legs will make them run toward you separate from the body in a Monty Python scenario. Perfect yet funny killing machines.
And of course the moment you have been waiting for. The flesh eating zombie that we all know and love that makes us giddy with joy and laughter every time we see a chunk of flesh peel away from a bite. Since 1968 these have been the most commonly used zombies in horror movies. They come in all shapes and sizes but they have a couple of things in common with one another regardless of physical abilities. They are dead...ish, they crave any kind of warm human flesh, they are stupid and live on that basic instinct to feed, they burn well, their bites are contagious(you get bitten you turn into one of them), one shot in the head will kill them, and nothing can ever stop them because they feel no pain or emotion. These are sometimes slow or sometimes fast so its really a hit or miss on how dangerous they are, but a bite is ALWAYS deadly. Thank you to George A. Romero for perfecting them.
First let me talk about the feel of some of the movies. Some zombie movies have the horror feel where you would say "no, don't open the door!" or maybe you would be thinking of how shocking it was that the dead were rising from the grave. Some movies are just based around the feeling of horror and don't focus on any other factors. There are some zombie movies that focus on only gore and blood. These are fun and all but never very deep in story or feel, we see this in Dead Alive (A.K.A. Braindead). We have action zombie movies like House of the Dead where they seem to be slowly moving targets with very squishy and jelly filled heads. This kind of movie is purely for fun and often has zombies that can somehow die from anything you throw at them in any way. And then we have zomedys like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland where they have the traditional Romero style zombie but add in a touch of humor to the situations the people go through. I left out some but these are the most popular and well known.
The first kind of zombie that I want to throw out there is the first kind that was ever talked about in the media and was put into practice supposedly in various places in the world, the voodoo zombie. These are not flesh craving creatures in any way. Instead they are human beings that look much as they did during their life. They are victims of a type of mind control from brain damage to a certain extent despite the claims of magic controlling them. We first see these in the 1932 White Zombie (maybe I'll review that next week so I have an excuse to watch it ^_^).
Next, in no particular order, is the brain eating zombie of Return of the Living Dead. These zombies are very special in regards to their craving. They want brains. Not flesh, not blood, just brains. And they are smart enough to set traps in order to get them. They can run and move as quickly as they need. And they are appearently stronger than normal humans as we see in some cases where they can simply rip people apart effortlessly. Probably the most dangerous kind of zombie because they are smart enough to learn. Sure some zombies are faster but none are smarter than these. And nothing can really kill them short of a bomb. A shot to the head only makes them cry and a little more hungry, chopping off their legs will make them run toward you separate from the body in a Monty Python scenario. Perfect yet funny killing machines.
And of course the moment you have been waiting for. The flesh eating zombie that we all know and love that makes us giddy with joy and laughter every time we see a chunk of flesh peel away from a bite. Since 1968 these have been the most commonly used zombies in horror movies. They come in all shapes and sizes but they have a couple of things in common with one another regardless of physical abilities. They are dead...ish, they crave any kind of warm human flesh, they are stupid and live on that basic instinct to feed, they burn well, their bites are contagious(you get bitten you turn into one of them), one shot in the head will kill them, and nothing can ever stop them because they feel no pain or emotion. These are sometimes slow or sometimes fast so its really a hit or miss on how dangerous they are, but a bite is ALWAYS deadly. Thank you to George A. Romero for perfecting them.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
BRAINS!!!!
Well today I looked at Return of the Living Dead and just like every other time I have seen this movie I laughed my butt off. It has an awesomely crude sense of humor that lasted through the first three films in the series to make them instantly classic. This is THE movie that made us think of zombies when someone says "brains". They explain this because brains somehow ease the pain of dying. ROTLD covers a variety of hot topics from gangs to military conspiracy theories.
While it may not be the first zomedy it did break new grounds in some ways. It got the chance to play on nearly every stereotype for the living dead that people could come up with and make the zombies seem near invincible. It changed them from being slow, brainless, creachers that only munch on arms to being intelligent, crafty, bloodthirsty killers that could move as fast as their stage in decomposing would allow. Fresh bodies could run and old bodies could shamble slowly along.
It was a moment that holds a special place in my heart as funny and shocking when the zombies showed just how crafty they can be. When the paramedics or cops would come they would use the radio after they ate them to call in backup and bring more brains for their midnight snack. We have never seen behavior like this in other big name zombie movies outside of this series. They could think, talk, plot and more. Perfect killing machines as far as zombies go.
Don't mind the language but this movie also consisted of several "oh shit!" moments where there would be one person in the theater saying "no, don't do it!". The moment the tank is shown in the movie is our first moment, we get a feeling that something will go terribly wrong and they don't dissapoint in any way. Even when they start trying to get rid of the first body we get one of these moments as they turn on the fire and then we see the smoke going into they sky. All the way to the big finish of the movie which I won't tell you, so go watch it and find out.
Like many zombie movies, this one goes in phases. Things are peaceful and its another boring day, someone does something stupid and then "the shit hits the fan". It goes from one living corpse to a few more and it builds up fast to being a hoard of hundreds of brain hungry zombies. At no time do we feel that ROTLD drags on because they keep some sort of humorous event or bloody mess happening at many points in the movie.
This is a great addition to any zombie fans collection and I highly reccomend it for a night of pizza and drinks with friends. Go watch it and have a blast. There's no video this week simply cause this one is not open to public domain. So go do netflix or something to see it or just buy it, its well worth several viewings over time with friends.
While it may not be the first zomedy it did break new grounds in some ways. It got the chance to play on nearly every stereotype for the living dead that people could come up with and make the zombies seem near invincible. It changed them from being slow, brainless, creachers that only munch on arms to being intelligent, crafty, bloodthirsty killers that could move as fast as their stage in decomposing would allow. Fresh bodies could run and old bodies could shamble slowly along.
It was a moment that holds a special place in my heart as funny and shocking when the zombies showed just how crafty they can be. When the paramedics or cops would come they would use the radio after they ate them to call in backup and bring more brains for their midnight snack. We have never seen behavior like this in other big name zombie movies outside of this series. They could think, talk, plot and more. Perfect killing machines as far as zombies go.
Don't mind the language but this movie also consisted of several "oh shit!" moments where there would be one person in the theater saying "no, don't do it!". The moment the tank is shown in the movie is our first moment, we get a feeling that something will go terribly wrong and they don't dissapoint in any way. Even when they start trying to get rid of the first body we get one of these moments as they turn on the fire and then we see the smoke going into they sky. All the way to the big finish of the movie which I won't tell you, so go watch it and find out.
Like many zombie movies, this one goes in phases. Things are peaceful and its another boring day, someone does something stupid and then "the shit hits the fan". It goes from one living corpse to a few more and it builds up fast to being a hoard of hundreds of brain hungry zombies. At no time do we feel that ROTLD drags on because they keep some sort of humorous event or bloody mess happening at many points in the movie.
This is a great addition to any zombie fans collection and I highly reccomend it for a night of pizza and drinks with friends. Go watch it and have a blast. There's no video this week simply cause this one is not open to public domain. So go do netflix or something to see it or just buy it, its well worth several viewings over time with friends.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
They're coming to get you Barbara
If I say the name of the movie I can almost guarantee that most of you know what it is. Night of the Living Dead has been the most referred to zombie movie of all time. It changed the way we look at zombies and it formed the genre as a whole. Voodoo zombies quickly became a thing of the past and the new flesh eating zombie became the face of the word.
The funny thing about us calling them zombies when we refer to this movie is that George A. Romero himself never said the word even once throughout the entire movie. He thought of them as something much simpler. Dead humans that came back to life. They were people family and friends, and they were real people first and foremost. The word zombie just seems to make people think of nameless savage walking dead creatures with no identities that randomly kill whatever is in front of them for the fun or whatever else the reason. But Romero looked at them as being real people who had loved ones that cared for them and that they were forced into this new life of eating purely because of instinct.
Now getting to the actual movie. Yes we will actually talk about the movie itself eventually during its review. Surprise surprise! :) I will be talking mostly about the characters and the situations and how they relate to reality rather than fantasy.
The first thing we see is that they are far away from any large civilized area. There would be a house every now and then I can safely assume, but there are no large towns for a good distance and no help could come to them if they were in need. So the first message I saw when I just start up the movie is simple yet clear. They are alone. Call me evil but whenever I see that in a movie I get really happy and cheerful because I know something very bad will happen to everyone there. I get the same feeling from the Friday the 13'th movies.
What we may call cheesy acting actually comes across as very accurate if we were in the same situation. Who among us wouldn't be mentally crushed if we saw a close family member die and the killer running for us. At the beginning we see what happens to her brother and how it affects her through the movie. She can't even put together any rational thoughts after it happened because it's something she never imagined could go wrong.
What we have here is a very down to earth telling of a disaster. And they tell it very effectively. The people are scared, there is an unstoppable force that takes them by surprise, and they deal with it the best they can. I wont say the end of the movie because I have it sitting at the bottom of today's blog.
What about the blood? Well it is of course a zombie movie and what would it be without blood. You are in luck because for a black and white movie this is a true blue gore fest. The woman sitting on top of the stairs with her face eaten away, the little girl stabbing her mother with a shovel, and even the feast after the explosion. It even does well by today's standards for blood in a movie. It was black and white so it may not scare people but it was ahead of its time still.
From this movie we got Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and pretty much every Of The Dead movie since then. After Night of the Living Dead most zombie movies have been of a similar structure and plot.
It's a great movie, and this has been a long and drawn out review since I am watching it as I type.
Being a movie that is now open to public domain, I can post up Night of the Living Dead on here for you to enjoy. You can even watch it from youtube! If you love zombies and have not seen it then I strongly suggest you put aside an hour and a half and do so. Its a great movie for zombie lovers and you will not be disappointed.
The funny thing about us calling them zombies when we refer to this movie is that George A. Romero himself never said the word even once throughout the entire movie. He thought of them as something much simpler. Dead humans that came back to life. They were people family and friends, and they were real people first and foremost. The word zombie just seems to make people think of nameless savage walking dead creatures with no identities that randomly kill whatever is in front of them for the fun or whatever else the reason. But Romero looked at them as being real people who had loved ones that cared for them and that they were forced into this new life of eating purely because of instinct.
Now getting to the actual movie. Yes we will actually talk about the movie itself eventually during its review. Surprise surprise! :) I will be talking mostly about the characters and the situations and how they relate to reality rather than fantasy.
The first thing we see is that they are far away from any large civilized area. There would be a house every now and then I can safely assume, but there are no large towns for a good distance and no help could come to them if they were in need. So the first message I saw when I just start up the movie is simple yet clear. They are alone. Call me evil but whenever I see that in a movie I get really happy and cheerful because I know something very bad will happen to everyone there. I get the same feeling from the Friday the 13'th movies.
What we may call cheesy acting actually comes across as very accurate if we were in the same situation. Who among us wouldn't be mentally crushed if we saw a close family member die and the killer running for us. At the beginning we see what happens to her brother and how it affects her through the movie. She can't even put together any rational thoughts after it happened because it's something she never imagined could go wrong.
What we have here is a very down to earth telling of a disaster. And they tell it very effectively. The people are scared, there is an unstoppable force that takes them by surprise, and they deal with it the best they can. I wont say the end of the movie because I have it sitting at the bottom of today's blog.
What about the blood? Well it is of course a zombie movie and what would it be without blood. You are in luck because for a black and white movie this is a true blue gore fest. The woman sitting on top of the stairs with her face eaten away, the little girl stabbing her mother with a shovel, and even the feast after the explosion. It even does well by today's standards for blood in a movie. It was black and white so it may not scare people but it was ahead of its time still.
From this movie we got Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and pretty much every Of The Dead movie since then. After Night of the Living Dead most zombie movies have been of a similar structure and plot.
It's a great movie, and this has been a long and drawn out review since I am watching it as I type.
Being a movie that is now open to public domain, I can post up Night of the Living Dead on here for you to enjoy. You can even watch it from youtube! If you love zombies and have not seen it then I strongly suggest you put aside an hour and a half and do so. Its a great movie for zombie lovers and you will not be disappointed.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Night of the Living Blog?
No I am not going to munch on your brains or feast upon your insides. But I will talk about someone who will. Zombies, that's right, zombies. This is the start of what I hope will intrigue and entertain you over time by showing you the names of many great movies, games and books out there that deal with the exploits of the living dead.
They range from Frankenstein all the way to the much newer Zombieland in movies. They are talked about in several countries as fact and fiction. From voodoo ritual zombies in South America(as seen in white zombie) all the way to what we know today as the common flesh craving virus zombie(as seen in Dawn of the Dead).
We will laugh(at others expense of course), and we will cry(when our favorite zombies are killed, poor bub), and most of all we will have fun.
I'm gonna try to post up a new blog every Saturday at an undetermined time. sometime on Saturday though for sure if I'm home. If not I'll just post and say when I will be posting.
Thanks and remember, shoot em in the head.
They range from Frankenstein all the way to the much newer Zombieland in movies. They are talked about in several countries as fact and fiction. From voodoo ritual zombies in South America(as seen in white zombie) all the way to what we know today as the common flesh craving virus zombie(as seen in Dawn of the Dead).
We will laugh(at others expense of course), and we will cry(when our favorite zombies are killed, poor bub), and most of all we will have fun.
I'm gonna try to post up a new blog every Saturday at an undetermined time. sometime on Saturday though for sure if I'm home. If not I'll just post and say when I will be posting.
Thanks and remember, shoot em in the head.
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