A laugh out loud story that is surrounded with great visuals, that will make you sing, “It’s a Dead Man’s Party” over an
Stubbs is a simple guy. He is in love with a beautiful woman, has just moved into a new city and is dead. Yep, you have come back from the grave to find the woman that you love and exact revenge on all those that have done you wrong in life. Instead of pulling this off as some superhuman come-back-from-the-grave type guy, you come back as a brain chomping zombie. Your arrival is a bit of a mystery, but as you play through the dozen or so levels, you are slowly acclimated with your past. You are fed small bits that will add up to the whole truth by the end of the game. It sounds a bit weird, but it really works on a lot of levels. And if playing as the zombie wasn’t enough, they give you the beautiful city of Punchbowl to exact your revenge.
Punchbowl is the first thing that will bring about the visuals in the game. This game is downright beautiful. The city of Punchbowl stands out because of it retro-futuristic style. Ford Fairlane cars that fly, robots that perform menial duties, it is what all of the sci-fi movies of the 1950’s described but never happened in real life. It has the stark feel of a communist society with the uniform style of buildings and architecture. You cannot help but get lost in the design of the city. Few games that are designed today give this much attention to detail, especially an action game.
Character models are also quite detailed. Stubbs is an amazing model when you realize the engine has to model for the missing parts of his body. Facial expressions are clear and give you an idea of what is going on inside the gnarled brain of that lovable zombie. To think that the game uses a modified version of the Halo engine is surprising, because this game looks steps ahead of Halo on the PC. Boss characters also are given lots of details and features to set them apart from the crowd. Unfortunately, the generic characters are all too repetitive. The game needed about half a dozen or so more models so you didn’t feel like you were beating up the same guy every 30 seconds. But even with their generic feel, they still employ a tremendous amount of detail. All of this detail will come at the cost of a high end system. The game is a resource hog and you will need a beefy rig to get the full detail of the game.
Stubbs also goes all out when it comes to the sound in the game. First thing you will notice is the soundtrack. While the designers could have taken the easy route and licensed some existing music, they put some thought into it and decided to get current cutting edge bands to update and record classic tunes. Hearing Cake perform Strangers In The Night, or Death Cab for Cutie playing Earth Angel, is a bonafide treat. The soundtrack overshadows the fact that the main character does not say all that much. In fact grunting is his main thing. The bit players in the game are voiced well, but their catchphrases are quite repetitive. Explosions have a full sound and give you a nice wallop though your speakers. Of note is the disturbing gurgling that Stubbs makes when feeding on a freshly stunned human. It is quite repulsive, yet wholly satisfying on some weird level.
Gameplay has its moments, but starts to fall flat after several missions show the repetition in the action. You can feed on a stunned or unexpected human, or beat them until they die with your dead hands. Some less traditional attacks that you can use include your gastric grenade, which uses your stomach as a flung explosive device. Or maybe pulling off your own arm to scurry about and possess a human that can help you get past a difficult part of the game. This was a great bit of fun, but you never really have a need to use it until the later stages of the game. Using your head as a bowling ball and extremely deadly flatulence round out the special attacks you can use in the game. While this all sounds like a basket load of fun, it just feels like Déjà vu all over again on each stage. The story kept me going though the action sequences towards the end because it was just the same thing over and over.
The game for the most part is fun, but has some weaknesses that keep it from being at the top of the list. The game is short. It is fulfilling, but you just feel like there were some sequences that were way too short and could have been expanded. It will keep you entertained, but you feel a bit cheated when the end comes. The aforementioned action sequences are a bother, and take you out of the game a bit as you get into the late stages of the game. Technically, there are no problems with the game with the exception of one scene where everything went black and the screen would not redraw until the character was moved manually to a different area. Not too bad, except you have to do it while you cannot see. It may be a unique occurrence, but it should be noted.
Stubbs is a great game that gives the player a new type of character to play. The cut sequences will have you rolling on the floor with their insane humor. The visual feast for the eyes and orchestral genius that is presented for the ears will please you to no end. It is just sad when the ride ends a bit prematurely. Hopefully for us gamers, a sequel will finds its way to us soon to continue the adventures of the lovable dead guy that is Stubbs.