Favorite Representation of Undeath in a Game?

[Emiscary]

That's mine, hands down.

Functionally impossible to harm by any means (even the passage of time), in service to a horrible otherworldly monster, fears nothing save being confined (which makes sense), and he's not just undead... he's *DOUBLE* undead.

Meaning he was dead, he was raised as a vampire- then burned alive and turned into a parasitic ghost... thing that can eat your fucking soul.

And what's more he never falls into the trap of acting like a malicious monster for its own sake.

Plus he lives in a world where vampires look like this:

And in a post Anne Rice world that fact makes me happy.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Demons/Dark Souls, man. And if TNO counts (despite not being strictly "undead" in the "harmed by positive energy, healed by negative energy" sense), Planescape: Torment.

 

[DoPo]

Pops for Legacy of Kain. It's a nice different feel to vampires. Not the bog standard Hollywood type.

As for me, I'll go with the World of Darkness. Each of them has a very interesting spin on things. And that's aside from, well, being the bog standard vampires. It gets bonus points for covering a very significant portion of vampire stereotypes out there in organic and consistent fashion (most of the time, at least). And aside from vampires, there are all the other undeath related creatures - ghosts, zombies, and mummies (somewhat vaguely related, though).

 

[Emiscary]

Pops for Legacy of Kain. It's a nice different feel to vampires. Not the bog standard Hollywood type.

As for me, I'll go with the World of Darkness. Each of them has a very interesting spin on things. And that's aside from, well, being the bog standard vampires. It gets bonus points for covering a very significant portion of vampire stereotypes out there in organic and consistent fashion (most of the time, at least). And aside from vampires, there are all the other undeath related creatures - ghosts, zombies, and mummies (somewhat vaguely related, though).

It's definitely a well realized setting. Although I'm much more familiar with The New World of Darkness than its predecessor.

I did greatly enjoy their spin on Frankenstein's monster (Promethean: The Created).

 

[Don Savik]

EEeeeehhhh.....that undead guy or whatever seems a bit too much Deus Ex Machina for me.

CANNOT BE HARMED. BADASS KILLER. PLOT ARMOR.

One of the reasons why I hate Kratos as a character. What's his weakness again? Really sad for his dead family so he goes on a killing spree to justify it? Yea that's not a weakness. I hate Kratos so much.

I like Resident Evil viruses personally. As cheesy as they are, its a good way to introduce over the top ridiculous enemy types. Plus I like strains like Las Plagas and Uroboros where you become like, half-zombie, and still have basic human intelligence. I dunno, just kinda cool.

But honestly, I would say necromatic undead are always the best over virus zombies. Why? I don't like sprinters for one. Its cool, but to me its not "undead", its just rabies. Also, necromancy is just more eerie and is better for atmosphere.

Say what you want about World of Warcraft, the undead designs are quite cool. And the forsaken live in a city straight out of Beetlejuice......which is awesome.

I have a couple on the tip of my tongue but I just can't remember the games for some reason.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

EEeeeehhhh.....that undead guy or whatever seems a bit too much Deus Ex Machina for me.

CANNOT BE HARMED. BADASS KILLER. PLOT ARMOR.

One of the reasons why I hate Kratos as a character. What's his weakness again? Really sad for his dead family so he goes on a killing spree to justify it? Yea that's not a weakness. I hate Kratos so much.

His weakness would be his uncontrollable rage that doesn't even subside when he wins.

GOW1 ends, he wins. He's a God. He's had his revenge on Aries. He could of learned to control his anger, stop being a dick and plain enjoy life.

Nope. The rage still consumes him, and he forces the other Gods to turn against him, loses God hood, ensures more suffering from himself.

I mean, yeah it doesn't work game play wise, but he's a character that can never enjoy life... pretty big weakness there bro.

 

[Don Savik]

EEeeeehhhh.....that undead guy or whatever seems a bit too much Deus Ex Machina for me.

CANNOT BE HARMED. BADASS KILLER. PLOT ARMOR.

One of the reasons why I hate Kratos as a character. What's his weakness again? Really sad for his dead family so he goes on a killing spree to justify it? Yea that's not a weakness. I hate Kratos so much.

His weakness would be his uncontrollable rage that doesn't even subside when he wins.

GOW1 ends, he wins. He's a God. He's had his revenge on Aries. He could of learned to control his anger, stop being a dick and plain enjoy life.

Nope. The rage still consumes him, and he forces the other Gods to turn against him, loses God hood, ensures more suffering from himself.

I mean, yeah it doesn't work game play wise, but he's a character that can never enjoy life... pretty big weakness there bro.

But its still not a deep character. Its not a sad and depressing tale of being consumed by rage and grief, its a muscle bound power fantasy. Who the hell feels sad for Kratos? Really? The guy that rips of heads like its going out of style? Everyone associates Kratos with raw badass power and gets a joy out of watching him kill things, and every iteration of the franchise just builds on these moments. His rage is just a way to lazily progress the story forward.

Oh no, we need more things for Kratos to kill!

Lets make him really angry at another bunch of gods for some reason so he fights them!

PERFECT!

 

[Easton Dark]

Spoiler

Frost Wyrm is pretty cool.

Undead. Ice. And it's a DRRRRRRRRRRRRRAGONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

 

[The Madman]

There was a fan campaign for the original Neverwinter Nights named Revenant which really stands out to me.

In it you play as the revenant, risen from the grave with few memories remaining save for the incredible desire to seek vengeance for your own demise whatever the cost may be. I particularly liked in the campaign how you could become a benevolent sort of spirit seeking to right a wrong, or the stereotypical twisted undead so consumed with the desire for revenge that nothing else matters. It's also neat to be playing a DnD setting and to for once have cleric and paladin threatening to cast turn undead at you, nice reversal from the norm.

 

[ChocoFace]

Spoiler: behold...RYUK

Because he does it all for the lulz
Also you'd be hard-pressed to find a character more intriguing - both design and personality-wise.

 

[Reginald]

Arx Fatalis did it nicely, I think. Zombies looked like rotted, skeletal corpses, mort skin hanging from their bones. Parts of their faces have sloughed from their skulls, and their clothes have decayed. After defeating them, through the use of spells or combat, you need to stake them through the heart to ensure they don't rise again, otherwise they'll keep getting up. Liches in Arx Fatalis are as tough as you'd expect. They have a lot of hit points, they can paralyse you, cast a variety of spells, and summon other monsters.

Quake did the undead very well, too. You could only ensure their re-death by blasting them into numerous pieces. If they magange kill you, the death message informs you that you've joined them.

 

[Instant K4rma]

Spoiler: Still one of the scariest undead incarnations for me to this day.

Hate hate hate these things. The whole freezing scream, the face-grappling...

[sub]Hold me.[/sub]

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

The Zombies in Dead Rising easily

Spoiler

Dead Rising is the only game that's ever captured the classic zombie feel for me, they're slow, they're stupid, they aren't much of a threat individually... but you'd best be prepared if theres a huge crowd of them.

That being said the gas zombies at the end of Dead Rising 2 were super annoying, I wouldnt have minded the occasional faster, stronger zombie but they were far too common

 

[Starik20X6]

Spoiler: That blood curdling scream that haunts a thousand nightmares...

 

[Kahunaburger]

EEeeeehhhh.....that undead guy or whatever seems a bit too much Deus Ex Machina for me.

CANNOT BE HARMED. BADASS KILLER. PLOT ARMOR.

One of the reasons why I hate Kratos as a character. What's his weakness again? Really sad for his dead family so he goes on a killing spree to justify it? Yea that's not a weakness. I hate Kratos so much.

His weakness would be his uncontrollable rage that doesn't even subside when he wins.

GOW1 ends, he wins. He's a God. He's had his revenge on Aries. He could of learned to control his anger, stop being a dick and plain enjoy life.

Nope. The rage still consumes him, and he forces the other Gods to turn against him, loses God hood, ensures more suffering from himself.

I mean, yeah it doesn't work game play wise, but he's a character that can never enjoy life... pretty big weakness there bro.

But its still not a deep character. Its not a sad and depressing tale of being consumed by rage and grief, its a muscle bound power fantasy. Who the hell feels sad for Kratos? Really? The guy that rips of heads like its going out of style? Everyone associates Kratos with raw badass power and gets a joy out of watching him kill things, and every iteration of the franchise just builds on these moments. His rage is just a way to lazily progress the story forward.

Oh no, we need more things for Kratos to kill!

Lets make him really angry at another bunch of gods for some reason so he fights them!

PERFECT!

Basically this.

Compare Herakles, another unstoppable badass who suffers from psychotic rage, this time written by actual ancient Greeks. In his case, the psychotic rage isn't a power-up, it's a curse - it makes him kill his family, which his 12 labors are penance for.

In other news, part of the reason why the God of War games have never appealed to me is that it's attempt to make Greek mythology dark and edgy results in a story that is both less dark and edgy and (more importantly) much less interesting as a story than actual Greek mythology.

 

[DoPo]

Pops for Legacy of Kain. It's a nice different feel to vampires. Not the bog standard Hollywood type.

As for me, I'll go with the World of Darkness. Each of them has a very interesting spin on things. And that's aside from, well, being the bog standard vampires. It gets bonus points for covering a very significant portion of vampire stereotypes out there in organic and consistent fashion (most of the time, at least). And aside from vampires, there are all the other undeath related creatures - ghosts, zombies, and mummies (somewhat vaguely related, though).

It's definitely a well realized setting. Although I'm much more familiar with The New World of Darkness than its predecessor.

I did greatly enjoy their spin on Frankenstein's monster (Promethean: The Created).

I was being generic there - both are nice. In fact, I'd go for the nWoD for a better depiction of undeath. For the small benefit of things being consistent and all that. And Promethean (if you want to call them undead ) are a bit weird. I mean, the idea behind them is good, the premise is interesting, their take on the matter is a breath of fresh air. And yet somehow they fail to amaze me.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Necrons, yeah they are machines... but they are UNDEAD machines.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Actually, that's just a way to explain the fact that in that game, you respawn when you die. So instead of "YOU ARE DEAD, REVERT THE STORY TO 5 MINUTES EARLIER WHEN YOU WEREN'T DEAD", the story just moves on with the justification that you re-composed yourself at an earlier point in your travels.

It would normally take the impact of dying out of the story, that is, if this was your average story. But Legacy of Kain is written in such a way that the biggest threat to the character's existence is stagnation and confinement. And there's also the fact that he's kind of supposed to "die" at one point (with "die" meaning "be forever trapped in an endless repeating cycle that goes nowhere") and the entire game is a search for a way to avoid that.

It's certainly a novel approach to videogame storytelling in general, and one of the reasons why Legacy of Kain is such an underrated series.

But my favourite portrayal of videogame vampires must be with Bloodlines and its World of Darkness setting. But that's mostly due to me liking the modern, urban setting more than a medieval countryside one.

Elder Scrolls does something similar, loading save games after you die is something your character actually does in the plot via a power called CHIM.

Your character used CHIM to bring himself back to life at some point in the past, which is whatever save you choose.