Monday 10 December 2012

My history of zombie-ing

So zombies eh...

It's hard to say where my interest in zombies really began. The first zombie film I remember seeing is Return of The Living Dead 3. I'm not sure why that one stands out in my head more than any other but it just does and I haven't saw it in years either. Reminiscing really makes me want to go and see it!

Return of the Living Dead 3
Although it's the one I remember most it's not my favourite of the genera by a long shot. My favourite has to be Dawn of The Dead, it knocks the socks off of everything else.

Dawn of The Dead
It's a great film, so much going for it. Great build up, great action scenes, drama, suspense, twists and then there is the whole social commentary aspect of it. That being said I'm not a pretentious film critic or anything so I'm not going to go on about how great a film it is or even go so far as to say it is waaaayyy superior to the remake. In fact I love the remake, I think it really stands up on its own 2 feet and brings Dawn into the current generation. I know we really have to thank 28 Days for that (and I also know but don't care that they are 'rage infected' people in 28 Days and not 'real zombies') and that is my 2nd favourite zombie film. I love the pace of it, being thrown straight into the apocalyptical world with just a little bit of back story. And actually a pretty decent back story at that, believable enough as far as zombie back stories go, sure beats radiation or solar flares.

I think the great thing about the films is it is so easy to put yourself into the place of the protagonists. To see them reacting to discovering their first zombie, coming to terms with the outbreak, making their defences, saving others and so on. It's great to watch them and think of all the things you'd do and how you'd do things differently. Learning from other's mistakes and pre-planning is what it's all about at this point!

As well as films, zombies have also had a great representation on the video game front. 

The first zombie related game I remember playing is probably Zombies Ate My Neighbours. It was great fun and a brilliant multi-player, never completed it though cause damn it was hard! House of the Dead was a great shooter, one of my favourite at the arcade where I remember me and a friend spending £20 in one sitting to try and complete it. We got all the way to the end boss but then run out of cash, gutted!

Zombies Ate My Neighbours
Of course you can't make a list of zombie computer games without mentioning the Resident Evil series. I wasn't a huge fan of RE1, probably because I played RE2 first and just found it a lot more exciting, RE1 has a very slow start. I'm proud to say I completed RE2 with an A ranking.

And although I'd class myself as an old school gamer I have to hand it to the next gen consoles for getting the zombie game just right. Left for Dead 2 (again I didn't play the first) and Dead Rising (1 and 2) are pretty much what I'd class as zombie gaming perfection. Left for Dead is great because of its fast pace, team work and great sense of accomplishment that comes with getting good at it (and I was good). Dead Rising is brilliant for its openness, bizzareness and all round fun. It's great to see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously.

I actually spent a little time developing my own zombie game as well. Its been a while since I worked on it but I plan on coming back to it at some point. The aim is to make it a pretty open survival game, focusing more on lasting for as long as possible than horror or scares. Here is a little video I made about it and posted on-line a while back about it (be warned though it is 20 minutes long) : 


My game and this blog aren't the only times I've used technology as part of my interest in zombies. A while back, when I was just a wee kid lad learning the internet, I made an Angelfire website dedicated to sharing information about preparing for the zombie apocalypse in my home town. It never got very far as most of my time was spent fighting with the HTML but amazingly it is still up and viewable here: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/zombieguide/index.html My HTML may have changed by my interests sure haven't!

Something I really want to address in this blog is how we can use technology to help us survive in the zombie world. It's something I haven't saw a lot of the films focus on (other than attaching chainsaws to things) and I think it's an area that really gives us the edge over our life deprived counterparts. Hopefully I'll manage to put the 2 together in some interesting and creative ways.

No comments:

Post a Comment