Halloween is just a day away. It's the time of year for haunted houses, ghosts, candy, pumpkins, scary movies, and most important of all....zombies! It seems no game is safe from the undead anymore. They show up in World War II, the wild west, our lawn full of killer plants, even in our giant trap filled mansions.
So just in time for Halloween, I give you the top ten games I feel best capture the spirit of zombies. Be it chopping down the undead with an axe, or running from a hoard of them for dear life.
10. Zombie Apocalypse: What happens when you and up to three friends get dropped into a small arena with lots of weapons and a big mob of zombies? Lots of blood, guts, and body parts, just hope none of it is from you or your buddies! This game is mindless old school arcade shooter fun at a budget price.
9. Hunter The Reckoning: You are a Hunter, you hunt and kill supernatural monsters. Why? Who knows, but it's certainly a lot of fun chopping them to pieces and riddling their bodies with bullets. This is another game that calls back to the glory days of when multiplayer meant you and 3 friends sitting on the couch until 3 a.m. playing games. Hunter is what you get if you take Gauntlet and throw in a lot of zombies, lots of guns, and sprinkle in other supernatural baddies like vampires and werewolves for good measure.
8. Splatterhouse: While Splatterhouse may not be a zombie game by strict definition. The game very much fits in with the zombie bloodbath mentality. As a college student trying to save his girlfriend from horrible abominations things look pretty grim. But hey, you have a demon possessed mask and a 2X4! Needless to say things get bloody in a hurry.
The game is a side scrolling beat em up with a horror movie skin that fits like....well like second skin! Given the nature of the game, that skin was probably attached to something else not long ago. Seeing as the game is getting a long overdue revamp next month, the series signature over the top gore looks like it will reach new levels.
7. Plants vs Zombies: Who says a zombie game has to be gory and/or scary? Plants vs Zombies proves that the undead can be charming and silly too! Everything that has made the tower defense style games so popular is here and honed to a perfect level. While the game may not play horribly different from other similar games. It has a wealth of content and game modes to keep you playing and more than enough character to keep you entertained the entire time. Be it trying to figure out the best selection of plants to use in a level to defend your home against the brain eaters. Or rolling your eyes at the fact you're being attacked by a disco dancing zombie or a zombie riding a dolphin.
P.S. The dolphin is also a zombie.
6. Zombies Ate My Neighbors: Who says you need automatic weapons and chainsaws to deal with the undead? In Zombies Ate My Neighbors you and a friend take up the most unexpected weapons (such as a squirt gun or a weed whacker) to rid your town of zombies and other absurd enemies such as crazy dolls with giant knives, killer plants, even aliens. Almost every B-movie cliche is present and made fun of in some way in this game, and it all fits together without a hitch.
5. The House of the Dead: Back when arcades were still a booming business Sega released a little light gun game called The House of the Dead. The game quickly became a favorite of arcade goers everywhere. Who would of thought getting up close and personal with splattered zombie brains would be a hit? The game kept the pace high and threw zombies and other creatures at you from every angle. Combine that with multiple paths to take through the levels, huge screen filling bosses that require a steady hand and a fast trigger finger and you had an arcade hit that is still remembered fondly to this day.
4. Dead Rising: You're trapped in the back room of a sporting goods store in a huge mall. Their are roughly a few thousand zombies mindlessly shuffling about on the other side of the door. What do you do? You grab a bowling ball and start smashing undead skulls in! Or a golf club, or a baseball bat, or why not some baseballs? The staggering amount of make shift weaponry found in Dead Rising provides dozens and dozens of entertaining, and often bloody, ways to survive the walking dead infestation. All the while trying to get the story of the decade by uncovering the cause of the outbreak.
3. Doom: Like Splatterhouse, Doom may not be a true zombie game. But this first person shooter is a classic none stop shooting gallery of zombie space marines and other demonic hell spawn for you to unload your weapon of choice into. Demons from hell have invaded a Mars space station you're stationed on. You're a tough as nails space marine with a stockpile of guns, and metric ton of ammo, and trigger happy chip on your shoulder. I see nothing wrong with this scenario.
2. Left 4 Dead: Valves undead slaughterhouse of a game has become an instant classic in just a few short years. The games unpredictable nature makes for an entertaining experience no matter how many times you play. A heavy emphasis on your team of four survivors sticking together and watching out for each other means even the best players are going to need help often. Add in a fantastic versus mode that lets you and three others take up the role of the infected undead and ambush the hapless survivors before they reach safety and you've got a zombie apocalypse that you may hope never ends.
Aaaaaannnndddd my number one pick for best zombie video game ever is.....
Wait for it.......
Resident Evil: Their were horror games before Resident Evil. But few were prepared for what waited in the dark of the Spencer Mansion. The game that coined the term "survival horror" gets the top spot in my book. Sure the game may of controlled like a tred-less tank trying to tip toe down a creaky staircase, but the game oozed atmosphere. The narrow corridors and claustrophobic rooms meant you never felt safe. Finding ammo for your weapons were rare and you always had to think twice about wasting it on any zombies or the mansions many other biological mutants that want nothing more than to rip you open and play with your internal organs. This lack of munitions caused you to run more often than fight, instilling a real sense of fear and helplessness. The voice acting was terrible, the plot was B-movie at best. But this game left a huge smoldering undead crater in the video game landscape. Resident Evil is a true classic that will go down in video game history as the moment console games grew up.