Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse" Preview

The world of video games has changed... a lot. It has changed in such a way that innovative games with a bit of personality simply don't make any money. Case in point: Beyond Good & Evil and Psychonauts. Both great games that ooze with personality and yet, both were, at least according to their publishers, financial flops. (And how do we know this? A sequel wasn't released two months after the original.) And you know what; I think that could be because the main characters don't eat brains. Seriously, if we've learned anything from the Rockstar phenomenon is that sex is bad. Sex is bad. No wait, that's not it. Violence sells.

It's that freaking goulash I had for dinner.

Gives GTA a run for its money.

There are still enthusiasts out there, however, who will attempt to make money by taking the most improbable route - by fusing violence, black humor, and lots of personality in a video game. You'd think that satire, lots of cartoonish (Itchy & Scratchy-like) violence and zombies would be popular with the crowds... Apparently, so does Wideload Games - a studio founded by Alex Seropian, one of the ex Bungie guys who worked on the original Halo. Wideload is developing Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", a game where you take on the role of Stubbs the zombie, terrorizing the city of Punchbowl and turning its citizens into zombies.

So what's the deal with Stubbs? In 1933, Edward "Stubbs" Stubblefield was just another traveling salesman trying to make ends meet during the Great Depression. A pretty ordinary life one might say... until old Stubbs was brutally murdered and buried in a remote Pennsylvania field. Fast-forward some 26 years, and Stubbs rises from his grave, which now lies in the city of Punchbowl, a technology-driven City of the Future, built by billionaire playboy industrialist Andrew Monday. You see, the thing is, the citizens of Punchbowl, the artsy-fartsy yuppies, don't really like zombies, and neither do the authorities. You have clawed your way out of your grave on the day that the city opens, you don't know who killed you or why you've returned, and, oh yeah, everyone wants to kill you... again.

The stage is set for Wideload's 3^rd person action game. The curtains have been pulled and what ensues is a lot of George Romero-esque screaming, graphic, yet inherently offbeat violence, and some really funny encounters between the living and the zombies. First thing you got to know about Stubbs the Zombie is that the game features some really expressive voice acting and a killer soundtrack of upbeat-sounding 50s tunes, performed by contemporary artists, to which Stubbs is performing his killing and brain-eating. That alone gives the game plenty of personality - I was always a big fan of scenes where cheerful tunes (like, um, "Singing in the Rain") are accompanied by images of excessive violence. The soundtrack includes performances by Ben Kweller, The Raveonettes performing My Boyfriend's Back, and Cake doing a take on Strangers in the Night. Other performers include: Rogue Wave (Everyday), Death Cab for Cutie (Earth Angel), The Dandy Warhols (All I Have to Do Is Dream), Oranger (Mr. Sandman), The Walkmen (There Goes My Baby), The Flaming Lips (If I Only Had a Brain), Clem Snide (Tears on My Pillow), Rose Hill Drive (Shakin' All Over), Milton Mapes (Lonesome Town), and Phantom Planet doing The Living Dead. All of these songs you are probably familiar with, except for the last one, The Living Dead, which is an original tune.

Stubbs the Zombie is powered by a modified version of the Halo engine. In my humble opinion, this is a very good thing, as it allows the designers to concentrate more on building and perfecting the existing technology, rather than creating everything from scratch. Naturally, this leaves more room for working on the actual gameplay. What this also means is that the game will feature similar type of combat mechanics, AI, and physics as Halo, but with a zombie twist. Visually, the team has bumped up the poly count and possibly introduced some more advanced shader effects, but there's not *that* much you can do with the old Halo technology (and this one *is* coming for the PC and the "old" Xbox). The main thing is that the animation looks good (very important for this type of game), and that Stubbs the Zombie lives up to its main goal of delivering a zany and stylish comedy-action gaming experience.

Valet parking pisses me off.

Do as the hand says, mister!

To that end, the developers went out of their way to include some really wacky gameplay features. Besides the usual array of kicks and bites that a stumbling zombie can dish out, Stubbs can also run (albeit awkwardly) and do a bunch of special attacks that really make up the core gameplay. When a special fuel meter is filled up, you can use one of the four major weapons at your disposal: unholy flatulence, gut grenades, a detachable hand, and a bowling ball skull. All of these are pretty much self-explanatory, but let's break them down real quick for the mentally challenged.
Unholy flatulence is freaking hilarious; I laughed out-loud the first time I saw it in action. Basically, you let out a ripping toxic fart that does area-of-effect damage on your opponents. Gut grenades are just that - toxic organs that you pull out of your gut and fling at the enemies. A detachable hand works pretty much like a remote-controlled Half-Life headcrab - you use it to possess humans by guiding the hand onto their skull, therefore gaining access to their firearms that they would otherwise use to shoot zombies. Finally, the bowling ball skull attack is where you'd use the famous Hamlet skull as a frag grenade - only the skull in question is yours! Pretty damn neat.

The whole idea of the game is to offer plenty of action that is both original and engaging in an arcadish sort of way. The on-screen interface is very unobtrusive and very well designed, and, oh yeah, the folks whose brains you use for dinner are turned into zombies, so we have the element of squad-based combat as well.

Coupled with the great soundtrack, voice acting, and good writing, this should give a good reason to fans of the action-comedy sub-genre to try the game out. Though I'm not really convinced Stubbs will make heaps of cash, I certainly welcome another brave attempt by a foolish developer to deliver an original title and offer it up to the Sims generation. Good luck, Wideload. You and Stubbs are going to need it. Maybe if you'd let players micro-manage their zombie by guiding it to the little boy's room every time it needs to take a leak out of its ten thousand holes...

Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse" will be out on the PC and Xbox platforms this October.