Have zombie games gone down the tubes?

[Ganado_Headshot]

I want to take a moment to reflect on some truly great zombie games. The first titles in the Resident Evil series seemed great. Scary, full of puzzles, and lots of innovative ideas.

I'm not dissing any new zombie titles, but they just seem different. As though something has changed with the whole zombie franchises nowadays. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but It seems as though new titles aren't incorparating what we loved about the old games.

I would love to hear anyones thoughts on this subject, because truly I am looking for other
opinions.

DISCLAIMER: I searched this topic, and similar zombie articles came up but nothing that touched on the issues I wanted to discuss.

 

[Hunde Des Krieg]

How many zombie games have there really been?

 

[Fightgarr]

I'm not dissing any new zombie titles, but they just seem different. As though something has changed with the whole zombie franchises nowadays..

You mean they aren't just making the same game over an over? They're trying to advance gaming concepts? The nerve of them!

 

[ExplosionProofTaco]

How many zombie games have there really been?

Not Enough

Never Enough

 

[Ganado_Headshot]

To clear things up, there are things I like about new and old releases. I just want to know if they've evolved for better or worse, or perhaps somewhere in between.

 

[Vinculi]

I think maybe its us that's changed. zombies can only really do one thing: eat. Maybe we've just gotten used to the idea of a zombie apocalypse.

Which means the only way to keep zombie games interesting would be to come up with new ways to fight the damn things...

 

[Zixxilon Kellidar]

I think the zombie genre has just been plain milked to the point of drying the cow out to a crazed starving state. When I was young, zombies were fun to kill, a fun concept, and things like Resident Evil and Silent Hill made them interesting. Than along comes maturity, and the nagging notion that, oh wait, zombies are fucking slow stupid idiots. Unless all zombies are made like the ones in Dawn of the Dead, being overtaken by their virus just proves how much of a goddamned idiot you are. The thing is, the people who grew up on zombie games are just plain sick of the concept. I'm sick of the same old, "Entire towns get polluted like the bunch of living walking fails they are." concept. I think it's time to kill the zombie thing down for a while, and come up with games full of enemies with half a decent neuron and advanced abilities besides moan and bite. Perhaps then we can wash our hands of the degrading quality of such games.

 

[Archereus]

i agree with zixxilon, but not so harshly, the zombie games arent as good any more because we are more used to them. When the first resident evil came out it was new this whole zombie thing so it scared us to death and now its some thing normal and unchanging to us, maybe if we were to come up with a new creature to kill maybe then we might come on to some thing good for a few years

 

[Vinculi]

maybe if we were to come up with a new creature to kill maybe then we might come on to some thing good for a few years

Agreed, there's only so many times you can kill the same thing and not get bored out of your mind.

 

[Floodclaw]

I see where you're going with this, but zombie games are far from dead. Just look at Left 4 Dead <Resident Evil 5, Dead Rising, etc.

It's zombie MOVIES that died a long time ago.

 

[The Shade]

Tip of the hat to the "zombies" of Half-Life for adding the headcrab trait. Those blighters scare the heck outta me. Look like they've got a turkey stuck on their head. Mr. Bean's Christmas gone horribly wrong.

 

[Anomynous 167]

I want to take a moment to reflect on some truly great zombie games. The first titles in the Resident Evil series seemed great. Scary, full of puzzles, and lots of innovative ideas.

I'm not dissing any new zombie titles, but they just seem different. As though something has changed with the whole zombie franchises nowadays. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but It seems as though new titles aren't incorparating what we loved about the old games.

I would love to hear anyones thoughts on this subject, because truly I am looking for other
opinions.

DISCLAIMER: I searched this topic, and similar zombie articles came up but nothing that touched on the issues I wanted to discuss.

I find your statement completely unjustified.
WHERE ARE ALL THE TUBES??

 

[Archereus]

maybe if we were to come up with a new creature to kill maybe then we might come on to some thing good for a few years

Agreed, there's only so many times you can kill the same thing and not get bored out of your mind.

here I just came up with some thing to the zombies don?t go on the endangered species list, we should make them a little harder to kill, in most zombies games they always have that one very large zombie that is very hard to take down, we should have that but as a standard and not so large.
Example, the normal zombie on Resident Evil 4 will flinch when you shoot it, why does it flinch though? isn?t it dead, so wouldn?t shooting it not do any thing at all, there is my point also, they are to easy to kill, just like any normal living person, a bullet shouldn?t even make them stop for as long as it isn?t a shot gun blowing them against a wall or some thing

 

[Ganado_Headshot]

Sorry, I have to interject, the enemies in RE4 are infected with an alien parasite known as "Las Plagas", not the T-Virus strain we know and love.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

What are all these zombie games you guys are talking about? We have Left 4 Dead, the Resident Evils, Dead Rising, Stubbs...what else now? I can barely name any others. I never understand what it is about people saying the market is overrun by zombie titles.

Where are all of them? The way you guys always talk about them, I feel like I've missed out on 10 years worth of zombie games.

 

[Vinculi]

maybe if we were to come up with a new creature to kill maybe then we might come on to some thing good for a few years

Agreed, there's only so many times you can kill the same thing and not get bored out of your mind.

here I just came up with some thing to the zombies don?t go on the endangered species list, we should make them a little harder to kill, in most zombies games they always have that one very large zombie that is very hard to take down, we should have that but as a standard and not so large.
Example, the normal zombie on Resident Evil 4 will flinch when you shoot it, why does it flinch though? isn?t it dead, so wouldn?t shooting it not do any thing at all, there is my point also, they are to easy to kill, just like any normal living person, a bullet shouldn?t even make them stop for as long as it isn?t a shot gun blowing them against a wall or some thing

So we could make a game where the enemies are nigh-impossible to kill, and you spend the whole time running away in brown-panted terror?

Well, I'd play it, but i'm not sure the general public would appreciate it...

 

[SquirrelPants]

I think that we need less kill everything games, and more 'DEAR GOD MY AMMO'S GONE RUUUUN!' games. It's less about survival horror now, and more about killing fucking everything. Which means you might as well just go play Halo or something.

 

[JDongs]

There's only so much you can do with a single game concept, zombies run around and you shoot them, everyone has a great time. Then a game like Stubbs comes out and it actually does something new, allowing you to play as the zombie and changing the zombie stereotype from dark and scary to bright and comedic. So like many of the people in this thread have mentioned, there should be more games like Stubbs, the problem with that is that even though it was a great game and got generally high reviews, it didn't really sell all that well. The general public of gamers don't really want anything new, they want games that they know are good just with updated graphics, that's why remakes are working so well, and sequels.

I think it would make a great, pants-wetting game if zombies were fast, didn't flinch or stop due to getting shot, and just bum-rushed you until either you or they are dead. But it would be difficult to make a whole game based on this concept, get it to sell well, and even get it to play well.