1 minute Zombies game

I recently signed up for the month trial of Netflicks on my Nook.  I've been spending my time catching up on missed episode of The Walking Dead.  I started watching that series at the beginning of season 3.  I missed a few episode at the end of that season but caught a few more at the start and end of season 4.  I really thought it would be a good idea to start watching from the beginning so I know who to cheer for and who should just go kill themselves.

That led me to another good idea.  I was wondering how many zombie video games I could name in one minute.  I got 20.5 (more on that half one later).  So I propose this challenge to you.  Set a timer, an alarm or a clock and give yourself 1 minute to list as many zombie games as you can.  These are games with zombies figuring in prominently.  So for you Minecraft fans out there that game doesn't count.  Yes, there's Creepers but they're not the point of the game.

So why don't you take a minute and give it a go.  I'll start your time right . . . . NOW.

Yep got that one.

And that one too.

Oh, didn't think of that one.

You're missing an obvious one.

If you got that one you should get the other one.

Is that all you can come up with?

And your time stops now.  I said now.  No cheating to get that one you just thought of down.  If you didn't make a list and want to see which ones I came up with before you try it on your own than you can't use any of the ones I thought of.  My game.  My rules.

My list was:

Hunter: The Reckoning
Hunter: The Reckoning Wayward
Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer
Dead Island 1-3
Resident Evil 1-6 (?)
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Deadlight
The Walking Dead
The Last of Us
Call of Duty (W@W; BO, BOII): Zombies
and the one that I couldn't remember the name but I could picture the whole part of the beginning of the game.  I later realized it was State of Decay.  I remembered the game, but not the title, so I'm only giving myself a half point for that one.

Here are some that I missed that if I had given myself more time I would have eventually gotten around to remembering them.

Plants vs. Zombies
Zombie Apocalypse
Borderland (DLC): Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

I can't remember how many Resident Evil games there have been.  My memory seems to stop at 6 but I'm sure there's more but I'm only counting what I know.  The Hunter: The Reckoning games were listed first on my list before they are the first zombie games I played.  They creeped me out and still do to this day.  But I loved them enough that I got them all when they came out, even if Wayward was on the PS2 and didn't seem to play the same way.

I also started thinking about the Dead Space games.  Yes, you kill humans made zombies by the head crab thingies but for me the jest of the story is fighting monsters which are different than zombies.  When I was looking up the name for the State of Decay game I came across a reference to Half-Life zombies.  While I haven't played much of that game I'm lumping it in with Dead Space and that it's aliens you are fighting not zombies, in the traditional sense of course.

So, how many zombie games can you name in 1 minute?  Put your responses in the comments and let's see how many more I should have known but missed.  And I don't know about you but I thought this was fun.  Maybe I'll do it again next time with something else.  Maybe vampires.  Or dragons.  Wait and see.

Zombies!? Are you kididng me?

Okay, I promised you a post about zombies . . . and it's going to be a whopper. But first I think you need some back ground info.

On a writing forum I'm a member of we've been having a discussion about the appeal of vampires (and how they've changed through history) as they're portrayed in the media (books, movies, etc.) these days. The more we talked about it the more I realized that from a geek/nerd perspective, it's not vampires, but zombies. We love our undead. Just look at all the zombie killing games that are out there. Hunter the Reckoning, Resident Evil, Left for Dead, Zombie Apocalypse, Dead Space and even Call of Duty: World at War. Just to name a few.

But unlike vampires, the undead have remained creepy. There's no love story between a lonely female human and the undead, but handsome, creature she stumbles across. If one of the undead (handsome or not . . . and usually not) stumbled across a human (male or female) the only thing going through whatever passes for their brains would be "Mmmmm, warm flesh, me hungry". And that doesn't bode well for the human.

With that said, that very same night I had that brilliant epiphany (I thought it was brilliant) I got an email from Borders Books with the subject line "Star Wars and Zombies". Eh? At first glance I thought they were trying to put those two ideas together, but then I figured it was poor editing/proofreading on someone's part and what they were trying to say was "we have new Star Wars books and new Zombie books". It is, after all, the Halloween season. And there's no shortage of suckers for anything Star Wars. As a geek AND a nerd (and a sucker) when it comes to Star Wars I opened up the email and found this book:



My first thought was "Oh, it looks creepy". Then I read the plot details.

Apparently the subject line of the email was not an error, but in fact there are now zombies inhabiting the Star Wars universe. Zombies? In Star Wars? Are you kidding me?

The story is about some virus that spreads rapidly through a prison transport space barge and turns troopers/prisoners into zombies. Seriously? We've seen that before. Hunter the Reckoning happens with inmates in a prison. Dead Space has zombies in space. Now you mix those two together, throw them into the Star Wars Universe and WRITE A BOOK ABOUT IT? Are you kidding me?

Have the geeks and nerds of this world become so infatuated with zombies (like teen girls and the Twilight novels/movies) that we have to tarnish the most Holy of all geek/nerd-doms with zombies? Is that what is going to keep the Star Wars universe relevant to today's kids? Or is Lucas Arts that hard pressed for fresh original ideas that they decided one day "let's add zombies to Star Wars and see what the fans think"?

Well, this fan (and one who buys everything/anything Star Wars related) was revolted. I wanted to throw up. I felt like my innocent childhood of big dreams and epic space operas had been violated . . . by a lurching mass of the undead. Yes, I will most likely read this book. After all I am a Star Wars geek/nerd to the tenth power. Do I think this book will be an entertaining read? Possibly. Will it be great literature? I doubt it. But then again someone did put zombies in Pride and Prejudice. I guess they had to do something to get kids these days to read.