My History with Zombies

When I was younger I was enamored with zombie films. Any movie I could possibly get my hands on from Hollywood Video or Blockbuster would become my "favorite". It was a weekly ritual to visit and pick up some new horror film - zombie preferable. Strangely, I skipped out on Braindead/Dead Alive for years because the cover disturbed me.

Interestingly enough, when I was even younger I was frightened by The Rocky Horror Picture Show cover. There must be some deep-seated fear of lips in my head. Anyway, zombie movies were my life. When Resident Evil 4 came out it was really exciting. It was a fast paced zombie game that gave you lots of power. When it came time in a chapter to survive in a 2 story house being assaulted by zombies I lost my mind. THIS was the perfect style of gameplay. This is what I had been waiting for. I made a save right before that chapter so I could play it over and over and over again. It was just like a zombie movie.

I remember when Dead Rising first premiered. My heart nearly stopped. This was probably one of the last few times a game really got me caught up in excitement and for good reason. It was almost exactly like Dawn of the Dead, location-wise, and that was a movie favorite of mine. The game didn't disappoint me and instead of playing through the missions I would simply run around surviving and killing the ever-increasing waves of undead. 

When Left 4 Dead first started coming into the picture I went bananas again. While "action"-style horror games were no longer catching my interest this was different. Here was a game again like what I Had always wanted when dealing with zombies. There were multiple occasions where you were stuck fighting it out in a house with partners. I played the hell out of L4D. Before that, I'd spent a good while on the Half Life 2 mod/completely new game Zombie Panic which was quite similar, but actually allowed you to be a zombie after getting bitten up and dying. I can't tell you how cool that was to me, since Stubbs the Zombie never really seemed a great game. 

When Left 4 Dead 2 came about I no longer really cared. I had built up such affinity for the original four survivors that this felt unfair. I didn't want to start up all over again. Thankfully, Killing Floor came around to satiate me with even more frentic gameplay. It also had melee weapons before L4D2. While KF might not be 100% zombies I took it as if they were. 

Since all this has happened I have really gone out of the loop with modern horror games. I barely touched Bioshock and have yet to try Bioshock 2. I've not played any Dead Space game. Resident Evil 5 was such an affront to the rest of the series (what happened to Jill?!) that I still don't own it. Whatever else comes out as horror these days is usually ignored - and I'm still pretty sure horror is my thing! It's just that the Doom-style super powered and nasty monster stuff has never appealed to me. I enjoy feeling that my "life" is at risk with each turn. 

However, today I saw a trailer for a game which excites me again. I remember seeing screenshots of it or something a couple years back but had since filed it away as vaporware. Apparently this is not the case!

It feels so weird to be excited over a game. Usually the current types of trailers with blasting audio don't elicit any reaction. Bullets flying around and huge explosions have lost their severity. But here is this cinematic trailer that makes me get the sudden urge to play it right now. Maybe it's due to the fact that the supposed island in the title hearkens back to Zombi 2, in my mind anyway. That movie was one of the first zombie flicks I ever saw and it has stuck with me ever since. It is fantastic. Even though I doubt the story of Dead Island will revolve around voodoo and whatnot it still looks great. Normal people being forced to survive zombies is always neat to see and I hope this game really does come out at some point. Until then, I'll try to satiate myself with more rounds of L4D finales and zombie flicks.

I'm just gonna leave you with the trailer for Zombi 2 and maybe later I'll share a list of my favorite zombie movies.