| Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse review |
|
Stubbs the Zombie:Rebel Without a Pulse and Halo. Not necessarily two games that you’d associate for a multitude of reasons. At first glance they couldn’t appear any more different from one another, but after a while the similarities become very apparent.
Created by Wideload Games (which employs several ex-members of Bungie), Stubbs the Zombie is actually created using the robust Halo engine. Though it’s being put to an entirely different use for a third-person horror/comedy outing, it’s almost instantly recognisable from the rechargeable health bar, the control of vehicles, even right down to the layout of the profile screen.
As Stubbs himself, a suit-and-fedora-wearing ghoul with a taste for warm brains, the player is placed in a unique situation. After countless titles where the slow-moving undead are the enemy, here the tables are turned. In the role of the rotting corpse it is the player's job to survive the wrath of the humans of Punch Bowl, Pennsylvania who understandably aren’t too pleased to see a zombie shambling around their wannabee utopia - particularly one that happens to be badly decomposing and dining out on the brains of their friends and families.
Like most zombies, Stubbs is quite slow which makes him an easy target, something that will be sure to frustrate some. While he is capable of moving with a lolloping gait by building up some momentum, in order to stand any real chance of survival it's necessary for Stubbs to convince a few locals that their time would be better spent amongst the ranks of the undead. Hitting them until they are dazed, or simply creeping up on them, leaves them vulnerable to having their brains munched on (complete with over-the-top spurts of blood). Doing this replenishes some health (handy since Stubbs can annoyingly still take damage while feeding) and has the added bonus of turning them into a zombie. Those that he kills get up and kill. Those that they kill also get up and kill. Unfortunately having sired some undead, the game doesn’t offer the player any real control over them, other than whistling to call them over. That said, they are zombies and certainly shouldn’t be capable of anything greater than shambling about and eating humans. In parts there’s no real need to accumulate a vast number of undead minions as shields since humans can be converted almost instantly, and in later stages the zombie menace has grown so out of control that it throws a number of insta-zombies in for good measure at key points.
Aside from conventional biting, players also have a number of other attacks available. Stubbs can tear off the arms of some enemies, which not only zombifies them but allows him to use the detached appendage as a club for greater attack power. His rotting state also builds up a lot of noxious gases which can be released in a fart attack, causing all within its foul range to retch and become disoriented - thereby leaving them open to brain harvesting. Parts of internal organs can also be removed from the hole in Stubbs' side, tossing them into crowds of opponents as makeshift grenades.
Later on, whole limbs become detachable for the player to cause additional carnage. His head can be used as an explosive bowling ball (it actually grows back pretty quickly) while his arm can be used to take control of humans. Scuttling up to them (either directly across the floor or along the walls and ceiling) like a cross between an Alien Face Hugger and Thing from the Addams Family, his hand can dig into their brains controlling their every move. This is particularly handy if the possessed human happens to be carrying a weapon that can then be used to even the odds.
Unfortunately this idea is initially introduced in an appalling fashion. Players are forced to control a Police Officer and are unable to let go until they reach the checkpoint and progress the (rather limited) story. Since the health of possessed humans cannot be replenished this can prove quite frustrating, particularly as the number of gun-toting enemies is high and health can be depleted rapidly. Later on, once freed from this narrative-induced confine, death of a possessed human does not mean Game Over. It simply means that Stubbs' arm returns to him for further use but by this time the aching memory of the initial fustration will have pretty much tainted using the feature further.
This is just a single example of the poor execution of some parts of the game that stop it from achieving its potential. Another is the visual grain filter that masks the graphics. Clearly designed to imitate the movies of the game's '50s-style setting, initially it will have the player searching for an option to turn it off. Sadly there isn’t one. The setting for the game also seems to be a mishmash of concepts in parts – neither one thing nor the other. It’s almost as if someone on the design team was adamant that the game should be set in the '50s but another that it should have robots in it. While obviously the whole affair is meant to taken with a pinch of salt, its style ends up being neither '50s pastiche or futuristic twee. It’s often a bewildering sight to see a random robot scattered around a level doing nothing more than spouting a mildly amusing one-line quip about his nuts (and bolts).
Which leads to the game's humour. While it can raise a chuckle or even a bawdy guffaw, it’s largely executed with the force of a sledgehammer. Entitling play-areas things like 'Knobb Cheese Farm' is just one example of how in your face it tries to be; the danger with this being that by trying too hard to be amusing, it lends itself to falling flat on its face in most people's estimation. Like the current crop of Grand Theft Auto-styled roaming games, the city's inhabitants are reasonably verbal with their one-liners and comments but sadly these are also unfunny and, for the most part, instantly forgettable.
One area that the game does excel in is the audio: the music is a collection of '50s bubblegum-pop hits covered by current artists like The Flaming Lips, Cake and The Dandy Warhols. Some of the tunes are so well done, and with the additional strength of being so instantly recognisable (such as the puntastic If I Only Had a Brain, My Boyfriend’s Back or Lollipop) it's hard not to get them lodged in your head and unwittingly annoy all and sundry by regurgitating them at top volume. Sound effects are also impressive, with some humorous zombie gurgling and obligatory moans of that immortal line “Brains!”, although the 'amusing' voice acting often sounds stale with some voices being overused.
Stubbs the Zombie is a game that runs out of steam far too quickly for its own good. What begins as an intriguing and fun game rapidly goes downhill. The main problem is that unlike recent similar titles, for example Pandemic’s Destroy All Humans, the game does not have any seperate missions or objectives to vary the onscreen action. The game consists of nothing more than moving from point A to B, creating more zombies along the way, before another cutscene kicks in. Some later levels do try to address this, but by which time it’s too little, far to late. While some of the levels are a definite nod to other zombie-related material (such as the Mall level and Dawn of the Dead), there’s often very little to distinguish between areas making them feel bland and uninteresting. This isn’t helped by the fact that the game isn’t particularly long either, although the inclusion of the splitscreen two-player co-op mode will certainly increase the fun factor.
In short, how much the player will get out of the game depends on how funny and appealing they find the reoccurring gags and repeated attacks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
System: Microsoft Xbox
Genre: Action
Developer: Wideload Games
Publisher: Aspyr
Players: 1-2
Version: United States
Reviewed: Nov 2005
Writer: Jamie Davies
|
Pros:
- A novel approach to a zombie-themed game
- A brilliant and very catchy soundtrack
|
Cons:
- Poorly executed ideas
- Repetitive gameplay and zero replay value
- Not as funny as it thinks it is
|
|
|
Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse Video: 5.3MB
|
| |
|
|
|
