axle 19 said:
The zombie idea in videogames has pretty much been beaten to death. As far as innovation goes, I agree mostly with some of the above. A zombie game in which you have to defend your self with whatever you can find in a big open world would most likely be the next step. Think an open ever changing destructible city and you are one of the survivors with an ever increasing number of zombies trying to kill you. You try to escape the city as best you can maybe save some people along the way or die trying.
Zombie games are always about shooting the zombies but in a true survival situation what's to say your going to have a gun handy. Fight the zombies with anything you can find from pieces of wood to chairs to appliances. The genre is by no means dead and can still be improved
Maybe toss in a nice crafting system there. Allow the player to do stuff like mix that bat with those nails to come up with a nasty spiked club, or let them weld that cardoor handle onto that stop sign to make an improvised shield. Let them barricade themselves into that auto garage with that ambulance and let them transform it into a mobile weapons platform capable of picking up survivors from crowds of zombies.
Also, if we go sandbox here, how about putting things like radio transmitters, radio towers, and power generators in there. Building have gas powered generators that will, of course, need gas, which means you give the player a reason to leave the safety of their base to go on supply runs, either that or give them a reason to abandon their base of operations. Likewise with the towers and transmitters. Maybe we make the zombies attracted to these somehow, pass it off as it being the heat and/or noise that makes them come close and subsequently destroy these things, which means that the player will be forced to either go out and repair these things (also forcing them to scavenge for parts here) or be faced with a communication blackout that can potentially leave them unable to find pockets of survivors to fill their own groups ranks with.
I also wouldn't mind seeing an army mechanic in place here, something like what we had in Kingdom Under Fire, or at the very least some squad based mechanics, like what we have in games like Rainbow Six.
The Kingdom Under Fire approach would lead to some pretty epic battles with the undead, maybe you have some riflemen take up posistions on rooftops while you have some machinegunners run down the alley with you, using yourselves as bait, you wait for the zombie horde to chase you into the alley before the riflemen open fire and the demolition men you had in hiding spring forward to blow up both ends of the alley, trapping the undead in a shooting gallery.
On the other hand the Rainbow Six approach leads to some less epic but more suspenseful encounters, it also opens up the possibility of showing off your fellow survivors as being actual people instead of just faces in a crowd...plus you can show the player that they also have to worry about the guy that's supposed to have their back, especially when Frank, the father of the missing girl your looking for suddenly finds her teddy bear and runs off screaming while you're trying to carefully sneak your way through a zombie infested hospital. You look to your right, Harvey, the grizzled vet that came along with you has already went running around the corner after Frank, you try to follow, and you quickly hear Frank's cries cut off with an 'Ooomph'. You round the corner to see Harvey holding Frank down on the ground with a hand over his mouth telling him to hush. Frank pulls away from Harvey's grip and screams out for Emily again, frantic this time. If only you'd been closer you could have seen the desperation and fear in his eyes, you would have known that there was no reasoning with him, and that he'd only keep screaming until you either found the girl or the undead found you. Only you're not close enough to see this, but Harvey is, and now you get to watch as he swiftly snaps Franks head to the side, a loud crack echoes the air as Frank goes silent. You stand in disbelief as Harvey looks at you as if to say "it had to be done, him or us". The silence is palpable, and then you hear it, weeping. You look behind you to see a small scared girl step out of the shadows, she rubs her tear stained eyes and simply whimpers "daddy?". Yeah, the small squad, 'Rainbow Six' approach would let you really see the drama's play out, and would also give you some pause to consider the people that you're picking to take along on your little scavenger missions. Harvey's a grizzled vet, trained soldier, crackshot, great in a fight, real survivalist, but he's also a cold blooded killer that won't hesitate to kill someone to protect himself. Frank's the guy next door, the do anything for a neighbor guy, the one that won't hesitate to throw himself in harms way to save you, but he's frantically looking for his kid, and will quickly go off the deep end if anything happens to her. Maybe you should have brought Jake instead of Harvey, after all he's the weekend warrior, trying to be all he can be, reservist, he's just as good in a fight, but he's stupid, he's seen too many action hero flicks and thinks of himself as the hero of this particular horror, and he thinks that makes him invincible.
So, yeah, we definitely need to make some good survivor characters here that the player will be able to become attached to, or, at the very least, come to depend on for their unique talents and special abilities. The player will also have to try to please and get along with these people, and anticipate which might be a hazard to a mission or to eachother. Also, while on the topic of survivors, give each one a special talent or ability, make them useful. I mean, Dead Rising had a ton of survivors for you to find and rescue, but once you rescued them that was it, they didn't do anything for you (except for a few rare exceptions) and ultimately they only mattered to you if you were going for an achievement. Give the survivors the player can find a real use and make the player actually want to find and rescue them all. Using the examples above. Frank was an emt, he can help heal you, and at your base he can help heal the rest of your psuedo army as well and keep everyone in fighting shape. Harvey knows a lot about war, and he definitely knows how to hold a posistion, if he's with you he's a great fighter, if he's at the base, then he benefits you by being able to help fortify it beyond what others normally could. Jake is the reservist, he's a great guy to have watching your back since he's all gung-ho soldier, but at your base he's able to help train and coordinate some of your less combat oriented survivors to be a lot more effective at defending your base of operations.
