Poll: Are Left 4 Dead/28 Days Later "zombies" really zombies?

[pejhmon]

I generally do call L4D style "zombies" infected much as I call the ones in Killing Floor specimens (or Zeds for short) but the term zombie is thrown around for anything along the lines "thing with no brain function attacking you" and I admit to using it in the cases stated above along with others. Thing is, the living dead are too boring for the modern day audience to be used since they are so slow which is why the infected (dead) are the style being used.

 

[Rad Party God]

I think they are zombies in the context that they're no longer what they used to be or at least have any kind of conciousness and only thirsts for blood/meat/brains, with no future ahead of them and to only make society a delightful post apocalyptic hell.

So yeah, they're still zombies for me, no matter if they're rotting and shambling or running fast and screaming.

 

[pope_of_larry]

in theory no
in practice yes

 

[monkey_man]

the l4d zombies aren't zombies, because they die. Silly eh? Let me explain. If you wander around in peace ( not being hoarded), THE "ZOMBIES" stand around barfing their guts out, weeping, mumbling, being in pain. fighting. dying. They only respond to the players if they are angered, or disrupted from their slowly-dying way. See, The l4d zombies just want to stay the F*** alone. So they could embrace the enivitable(or whatever) death of theirs. They don't care about humans. or eachother. they want to die. peacefully.
Then the humans come, with their loud boomand bang making pain devices and annoying bright lights. They crave peace, so they attempt to eliminate the annoyance.

Normal zombies just want people killed. And feed. So they can survive and spread their infectious zombievirus. So eventually everyone dies.

 

[loc978]

If they go into rage mode before death and can be killed by means other than the destruction of the brain, then I'd say no. Not zombies (though I'm not terribly familiar with the mythology of either Left 4 Dead or 28 Days Later... didn't like either enough to pay much attention).

 

[SaetonChapelle]

the l4d zombies aren't zombies, because they die. Silly eh? Let me explain. If you wander around in peace ( not being hoarded), THE "ZOMBIES" stand around barfing their guts out, weeping, mumbling, being in pain. fighting. dying. They only respond to the players if they are angered, or disrupted from their slowly-dying way. See, The l4d zombies just want to stay the F*** alone. So they could embrace the enivitable(or whatever) death of theirs. They don't care about humans. or eachother. they want to die. peacefully.
Then the humans come, with their loud boomand bang making pain devices and annoying bright lights. They crave peace, so they attempt to eliminate the annoyance.

Normal zombies just want people killed. And feed. So they can survive and spread their infectious zombievirus. So eventually everyone dies.

I don't know about this.. I've just been standing out in the open, no one around me, and the damn AI sends the damn horde after me. I wasn't disturbing them, I wasn't doing jack cause I was too busy gettin' a snack and I come back and they are devouring my insides.

The only ones I ever see crying are the witches. I would understand them. However the others, besides vomiting all they do is shamble around and decide they want to eat me when I'm just chillin in the safe house.... Damn tanks sneaking in there on me...

I also don't think zombies WANT anything, if we are thinking of the traditional. They don't have the brain power to have any form of desire. More animalistic really. To assume they want to eat you for the sake of eating you would mean they have some type of cognitive thought process, and planning skills. Not good ones, but planning skills none the less. I believe the traditional zombie is just doin' what it's doin' without any form of plan or desire.

Course what do I know, I'm just a human. :3

 

[WitherVoice]

Well in L4D 1+2 they are dead, ergo Zombies.

According to the manual, they are still living, breathing humans infected with a rabies-like pathogen, causing unchecked aggression and loss of higher brain function. You may notice that at no point are they shown EATING downed people, merely ripping them to shreds or brutalizing them in other ways.

As for "infected" vs "zombie", I go for the spirit of the thing. If it's a former human, now out for the life of anyone not on its allencompassing "team", then calling it a "zombie" saves on effort. Also, have you noticed that in all these zombie apocalypse scenarios, there are never multiple different sources... neither competing, nor cooperating, it's always the same curse, virus or whatever causing all of them. Odd, I think.

 

[manythings]

The

Well in L4D 1+2 they are dead, ergo Zombies.

According to the manual, they are still living, breathing humans infected with a rabies-like pathogen, causing unchecked aggression and loss of higher brain function. You may notice that at no point are they shown EATING downed people, merely ripping them to shreds or brutalizing them in other ways.

Really? Well there you go. The look pretty dead but I guess that puts the vomiting animation in a different light.

 

[gl1koz3]

the l4d zombies aren't zombies, because they die. Silly eh? Let me explain. If you wander around in peace ( not being hoarded), THE "ZOMBIES" stand around barfing their guts out, weeping, mumbling, being in pain. fighting. dying. They only respond to the players if they are angered, or disrupted from their slowly-dying way. See, The l4d zombies just want to stay the F*** alone. So they could embrace the enivitable(or whatever) death of theirs. They don't care about humans. or eachother. they want to die. peacefully.
Then the humans come, with their loud boomand bang making pain devices and annoying bright lights. They crave peace, so they attempt to eliminate the annoyance.

Normal zombies just want people killed. And feed. So they can survive and spread their infectious zombievirus. So eventually everyone dies.

I don't know about this.. I've just been standing out in the open, no one around me, and the damn AI sends the damn horde after me. I wasn't disturbing them, I wasn't doing jack cause I was too busy gettin' a snack and I come back and they are devouring my insides.

The only ones I ever see crying are the witches. I would understand them. However the others, besides vomiting all they do is shamble around and decide they want to eat me when I'm just chillin in the safe house.... Damn tanks sneaking in there on me...

I also don't think zombies WANT anything, if we are thinking of the traditional. They don't have the brain power to have any form of desire. More animalistic really. To assume they want to eat you for the sake of eating you would mean they have some type of cognitive thought process, and planning skills. Not good ones, but planning skills none the less. I believe the traditional zombie is just doin' what it's doin' without any form of plan or desire.

Course what do I know, I'm just a human. :3

They also should NOT be able to do such fine movements without the usual mind capacity. Their running, climbing, flanking, friend-foe and motion-prediction abilities are amazing. I wish Valve focused on removing these issues in the next game as a new game submode, but with tens more zombies. Just slow, dumb and impossible to entirely kill. Mwuahaha...

 

[Spygon]

You can call them what the hell you want as it doesnt matter when there ripping you limb from limb.Also if someone shouts zombie i will be running away if they are fast or slow lol

 

[monkey_man]

-zombiestuff in my opinion-

I don't know about this.. I've just been standing out in the open, no one around me, and the damn AI sends the damn horde after me. I wasn't disturbing them, I wasn't doing jack cause I was too busy gettin' a snack and I come back and they are devouring my insides.

Well, it's still a game, If there wouldn't be random hoardes, it would be too easy.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

Spoiler

Simple answer

ZOMBIE

A zombie is asserted to be a reanimated corpse, or a human who is being controlled by someone else by use of magic with some media renditions using a pandemic illness to explain their existence

INFECTED

they are living humans who have been Infected by the Green Flu virus, causing massively increased aggression and loss of many higher brain functions such as speech and self-preservation. Unlike cinematic zombies, those present in the Left 4 Dead series attack human victims but do not attempt to eat them.

There is a middle road.

Solanum works by traveling through the bloodstream, from the initial point of entry to the brain. Through means not yet fully understood, the virus uses the cells of the frontal lobe for replication, destroying them in the process. During this period, all bodily functions cease. By stopping the heart, the infected subject is rendered "dead". The brain, however, remains alive but dormant, while the virus mutates its cells into a completely new organ. The most critical trait of this new organ is its independence from oxygen. By removing the need for this all-important resource, the undead brain can utilize, but is in no way dependent upon, the complex support mechanism of the human body. Once mutation is complete, this new organ reanimates the body into a form that bears little resemblance (physiologically speaking) to the original corpse. Some bodily functions remain constant, others operate in a modified capacity, and the remainder shut down completely. This new organism is a zombie, a member of the living dead.

infected, then dead.

They instinctively eat humans, too, though they gain no nourishment. Given enough victims, zombies have been known to eat until their abdomen distends and bursts, at which time they simply continue eating with the consumed flesh falling right out onto the ground.

Using a work of satire to describe a cultural allegory is somehow 'proof' of what exactly? Sorry to sound like an ass, but The Zombie Survival Guide is frequently brought up as some kind of Bible in just about every zombie thread, and frankly I'm tired of seeing it used for this purpose. It's nothing with you specifically, but the trend.

OT: for me a zombie has exactly 2 requirements - neither of which require any explanation of how or why.
1: must live, then die, then return to undeath
2: must eat humans

This is why the creatures in Left4Dead / 28 Days are NOT zombies in my book, and never will be. The zombie is a reflection of human nature - we've become afraid of ourselves, of what our actions really mean in the grand scheme of the world. We've become aware of our effect on the transmission of diseases, and of the mutations we've caused by dumping toxic chemicals and radioactive waste. The zombie is a cultural mirror showing everything we're ashamed to admit makes us human.

"Fast-bies" or whatever you want to call them are certainly a scary thing to think about, but it's the same kind of cheap thrill you can get out of the unstoppable monsters - like Godzilla or Jason Vorhees. Zombies are the slow, unstoppable terror of a bleak future where we're finally held accountable for our deeds. "Fast-bies" are just a scary monster coming to get you and the people close to you, and though it might still mean the end of the world they are absolutely NOT capable of the parable and ironic justice found in 'traditional' zombies.

 

[LightOfDarkness]

In the first resident evil, if you play as chris you eventually stumble upon a diary. It documents a person going through the change from human to zombie.
At the end it reads itchy tasty

So even in resident evil the zombies are not "zombies" and the Crimson Heads (i.e. "real" zombies, ones that come back to life) are like zombies in Left 4 Dead 1/2.

 

[Netrigan]

Technically speaking, the Living Dead zombies aren't really zombies.

So I don't have a problem with people calling the infected zombies. It's as accurate as calling Romero style walking dead zombies. Plus, the infected are actually a frightening concept that is mildly plausible. Walking dead are just pure fantasy and I have a problem understanding how they could bring down society like in The Walking Dead. When a small group can clear out a prison filled with them using only melée weapons, I wonder how the military could fail to contain them.

 

[Dastardly]

So, I was playing Left 4 Dead 2 locally with some friends the other night, and our group came across a cemetery. Upon seeing this, the always charismatic Ellis said something along the lines of "Aw man, a cemetery? If these were real zombies, we would be screwed!" This sparked up a conversation, about whether the "infected" in games like L4D and in movies like 28 Days Later are really "zombies" in the traditional sense. They don't rise from their graves, and they seem to be less centered on eating you and more focused on spreading the infection. So, what do you, my fellow escapists, think of this? Are they zombies? Or should they be removed from the zombie (not horror, mind you) genre altogether?

Their NOT zombies! Their infected with a virus and "technically" they are still living people.

Point is their not really zombies, just a bunch of rage-infected people.

Believe it or not, the L4D and 28-series "zombies" are closer to the actual definition of zombie than any of the Romero or Russo zombie types. The origin of the word "zombie" goes back to living people in a trance-like state, under the control of another. They behaved like "walking dead people," but were known to be living. The voodoo zombie is the original zombie. Reanimated corpses are more accurately called "ghouls."

In the case of the "living zombies" of L4D and the 28-movies, they are in a highly-agitated trance-like state, under the control of pure aggressive instinct. It's not magic powders and witch doctors, but the mechanism is similar.

 

[sheah1]

All right, the general consensus among zombie nuts is that Romero style shamblers are zombies, but Zack Snyder/28 days later monsters are infected. They both fall into the zombie title but the specifics are just for if you wanna be picky.

 

[King Kupofried]

Fairly certain that Zombies are, by one definition at least, simply a person who is mindless, listless, or essential driven in a automated way. So they are still technically zombies, just of a different kind than Undead Zombies. I think it's just that in 90% of situations they are Undead Zombies, so it sorta has become a given for us to associate being a zombie with being undead.

 

[nuba km]

short, no.
long, they count as zombies. they are mindless human beings that try to kill you that is a zombie.

 

[Sad Face]

28 Days Later...while they were interesting antagonists, they were not zombies.

Left 4 Dead (and 2, duh), I see where it's debatable but I think they are zombies. Though they are Zoombies, so they're on the line.