The 10th Hour 07.10.09: Top 10 Zombie Games

Posted by Adam Larck on 07.10.2009

It’s all about the undead this week. From a zombie hero to plants fighting hordes of zombies, check out Adam Larck’s favorite zombie games inside.

Welcome back to the 10th Hour. Before We get down to business I'll do a quick update on what's been going on.

- On the gaming side of things, Sacred 2 is still taking up most of my gaming time. I still do a bit of Call of Duty here and there, but mostly I've been exploring the countryside and leveling up in Sacred.

- Finally saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last weekend. It was a good movie - lots of explosions, as expected. The critics did not like it, as expected. It's nothing new or groundbreaking, it's what people want to see from a Transformers movie. Shit blowing up and robots transforming, and the movie does a good job of that.

Reader Feedback

Last week was patriotic games on the 10th Hour. Let's see what some of the readers had to say about the list.

First up, we have a comment from M A Weyer. What did he think about some missing games from the list?

"Freedom Fighters, terrific action game where you fight off a Soviet invasion of the US, complete with great speech to rally folks and remind them of how great freedom is.

And Freedom Force, the great PC comic book game set in the 1960's with the patriotic Minuteman and Liberty Lad leading the team against guys like Soviet spy Nuclear Winter."

Well Weyer, I've heard of both of those games, but unfortunately have never been ever to check them out or even see a lot of videos about them. I had meant to check out Freedom Fighters, but had gotten side tracked at the time due to other games and a lack of funds I believe.

As far as Freedom Force goes, it sounds like a cool game. I think I've heard of them in passing before (Freedom Force Vs. the Third Reich), but never have checked it out. I'm not the biggest PC gamer out there and, unfortunately, that game is PC only.

Next up, we have Michael Tyner, with a remark over my top game on the list.

"So, lemme get this straight. . . the most patriotic game on your list isn't even available in America? WTF?"

Yeah, I'm not really sure why this never got a release in America. Like I said, I've seen a lot about this game from online videos. As far as the stateside release, it probably had a lot of trouble unique Japanese games like this has, which is finding a developer to get it ready for an American release. The only thing that differs between many other Japanese games that don't get released here is that this dealt purely with America. Maybe a developer didn't want to publish a game in America that dealt with a revolt. Whatever the case may be, this is just another game exclusive to Japan only.

Finally, we have 411's own Todd Vote, the Top 5 columnist, leaving his feedback here. What do you think of the list, Toddo?

"Personally Adam, I would have went with a list that was more reminding of what we do to celebrate on the 4th of July, instead of most patriotic games. Not sure if I could have come up with ten Patriotic games. But ten games that remind me of celebrating on the fourth could all be summed up with one title. California Games!"

I actually had a few ideas for this one Todd. I had Patriotic games, of course, but I also tried other lists like games with fireworks, games dealing with the Fourth of July, etc. However, I found the one that offered the broadest selection and most games was Patriotic games as that could symbolize many different aspects of being American.

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The 10th Hour – Games With Zombies

I've been playing a lot of games with zombies lately. From Sacred 2 to Call of Duty: World at War to Plants vs. Zombies. So, I thought this would be a great time to pay tribute to the undead with a 10th Hour dedicated to my favorite games that have zombies. Let's get started.

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10. World of Warcraft - While not technically zombie in name, WoW does have a whole class that is just undead, called the Forsaken. With bones showing, players can run around as the undead, completing quests and interacting with other zombie players.

If being the undead wasn't enough, Blizzard included a wide variety of zombies to kill in game. While these zombies can't actually change players into zombies by attacking and killing them, they are zombie in appearance and hostility. While zombies are just one small part of this huge game, they make up a considerable amount of enemies in certain areas of the game.

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9. TimeSplitters series - While jumping through different time periods, players could run into zombies during the single player mode. These zombies normally behaved like stereotypical zombies, shambling along slowly while you try to shoot their head off. However, there were also different zombies that could shoot electricity or do different effects.

Another fun thing to do was to actually play as a zombie skin in multiplayer mode. In TimeSplitters 2, the zombies even have a terrible agility to match their slow walking. To accommodate players wanting to be the undead, they had a high stamina. I guess shambling long distances at a time would really help build up the stamina after a while.

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8. Zombies Ate My Neighbors - A fun little run-and-gun game I played on the SNES where zombies were a big part of the game. You went around a huge amount of levels (48, not including the bonus) trying to save your neighbors from the many zombies, vampires and other creatures running around. Why there were neighbors in Egyptian pyramids, though, I'll never know.

The game could be played alone, but the fun was with the cooperative mode. This was one of the first games I can remember where you could actually kill zombies with a friend and set the level of fun for future games trying it.

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7. Plants Vs. Zombies - The newest game on my list, Plants Vs. Zombies sounds like the strangest combination at first, until you find out that the combination works. A tower defense type of game, you build a variety of plants to prepare for the zombie infestation of your backyard.

The game takes on a lighthearted feel, between the happy plants sitting there and the various zombies being mowed down. Popcap even found a great way to keep the levels varied, with different types of zombies. They range from having a bucket on their head for more defense, to zombies driving a Zamboni, to even a Michael Jackson inspired zombie that spawns four more zombies to dance with him.

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6. Dead Rising - You versus a town of undead and crazed survivors in a mall. That's the best way to describe Capcom's Dead Rising.

The reason it caught my attention is because it is a bit more realistic than other games when it comes to surviving zombies. There won't be ammo dropping everywhere and you won't be prepared with weapons already. You'll be picking things up in the mall you're trapped in and using it till it breaks over zombie heads, than picking up another and going at it again while trying to survive. And, let's be honest, shoving a Servbot head over a zombie before hitting him with a shovel was always fun.

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5. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse - A zombie as a hero? This game had me intrigued from the premise and was insanely fun to play.

You play as Stubbs as you try to take revenge on the city built on top of you. You can't do it alone, though, so you ‘enlist' the help of the citizens as you go by, you guessed it, eating the brains of the living and converting them. Often times you could have a small zombie army doing the dirty work on the front lines, while you snuck around behind the enemy and cause chaos there. I would love to see a sequel to this game showing what happened to Stubbs after he left the city.

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4. Call of Duty: World at War - Specifically, the Nacht der Untoten mode that unlocks after being the single player mode and is available for multiplayer. Up to four people can team up to face the German or Japanese zombies as their shamble towards the building you're defending, destroying the barriers to get to you.

As the updates keep coming for this mode, though, the challenge keeps getting tougher. With the newest map, there is now a huge level to run through and try to defend, along with the new Hell Hounds and a teleporting weapons box. Still, this mode is a fun variation from the normal deathmatch multiplayer on World at War, and really relies on the teamwork as the zombies become tougher.

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3. House of the Dead series - I've only played the arcade versions of these games, but had a lot of fun with them. The series is fun for a rail shooter dealing with zombies. The zombies have different styles of attacks and strengths, so finding the easiest strategy to get rid of them early on in the game is a must.

I especially like the newest iteration that's out in arcade, House of the Dead 4. I think running around with a SMG was a great choice for mowing down the zombies, and the shaking mechanism to reload is nice to keep the action constantly going. It's worth a look if you haven't played it yet.

As a side note, I've seen the spin-off of this series on the Dreamcast (Typing of the Dead), and it looked awesome to be used as a typing instructor, even if it looked ridiculous towards the end with what the game wanted to do. Where was this during school instead of Mavis Beacon?

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2. Left 4 Dead - Ah, here we have a game that spawned a huge following and just as huge of an outrage with the recently announced sequel. Left 4 Dead is a great example of using teamwork to take on an infinite horde of zombies.

The zombies always keep coming, so it's just you and three friends covering each other's back trying to get from safe house to safe house to find freedom. Being able to be a zombie during the Versus mode is also a very nice touch, as arguments started by who took the last health pack can be settled then and there.

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1. Resident Evil series - I'm not even going to talk about Resident Evil 4 and 5 here, that deal more with parasites taking over a person than a zombie outbreak. No, I'm talking about the original series that was on PlayStation.

Being a police officer at the heart of a zombie outbreak and trying to find out the cause was a new gaming idea at the time that paid off for Capcom. RE 2 was a just as fun, giving players two different scenario to play, along with a minigame after the regular game was over to unlock new characters to play as. I personally liked RE 3 the best out of the original trilogy, with the Nemesis constantly after you.

With all of the original Resident Evil's either already out or getting ready to be released on the PlayStation Network, this is a great time to see where the games roots came from.

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Well, that's all I have for this week. Like or hate what I said? Shoot me an email at [e-mail] or leave a comment below. Any feedback is appreciated.

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