Zombies: Creepy Adversaries, or Roadblocks in Video Games?

One of the most common enemies you face in video games are zombies. In the recent years, zombies have risen in popularity quite a bit (that was a pun, by the way. Hurrr). And why not? They are the ultimate enemy. They lack emotion. They have no purpose, no will. They exist only to eat your brains and move on to the next living thing. This, apart from the fact that they can look like normal people, is what makes them so scary: their seemingly relentless desire to feed, no matter what the cost. If you chop off a zombie's legs, he'll just use his hands to get to you.

Left 4 Dead, a video game released by Valve a few years ago, was one of the first--and only--video games to truly capture the zombie "feel." While games like Resident Evil had you fight countless hordes of the undead, they felt more like obstacles than enemies, especially considering the large, mutated beasts you faced as bosses. Left 4 Dead took a concept and, playing it as a B-list horror movie that absolutely refuses to take itself seriously, somehow makes it work. While the game can be taken very lightly, there is a small level of tension as you plow your way through the levels in an attempt to get to rescue. The zombies can appear at any time, and sometimes they bring nasty, extra-mutated friends that require a team effort to bring down. This is how a zombie game should play out: a brutal fight for survival.

Apart from cheesy movies and video games, people play live action zombie-based games. At Kutztown University, PA, students engage in a semester-long game called Humans vs. Zombies, where the humans carry around Nerf guns to protect themselves from the "undead." If you get "bitten," you become a zombie yourself and must feed off of humans to survive. The game ends when every player becomes a zombie, or when the semester ends.

But why have zombies become so popular? What exactly is it about them that makes them so appealing? If you look at recent media, zombies have become less terrifying and more of a sort of in-joke in movies. In games, they serve as simple enemies. What better way to "scare" the player than throw a rotting corpse at them? But it rarely seems to work in games, and some developers seem to throw zombies in games just because they can. After all, nerds love them, right? Liking zombies is fine, but the problem with this is that developers will just throw a zombie on the cover of their game and expect it to sell. And sometimes, it does.

After Left 4 Dead came out, a lot of companies tried to get their hands on the Undead Cash Cow, and thus, games like Plants vs. Zombies, I MAED A GAM3 W/ ZOMBI3S IN IT!!1 (this is actually how it's spelled) and other games have surfaced on XBox Live and Steam. Konami has released a game for download called Zombie Apocalypse that is essentially a top-down Left 4 Dead, only... well, boring. Call of Duty: World at War featured a game mode where you had to fight zombies, and now games like Halo: Reach have followed suit with this. Zombie games are fun, and they bring in the money.

It seems that zombies are second only to vampires in terms of mythological horror creatures that can be used for profit. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. As I mentioned before, zombies have become a sort of in-joke in media. Video games seem to have created the notion that there is a level of fun to hunting them down, and there are movies that parody this. It has become increasingly rare that a zombie movie, or game, comes out that even tries to be scary or realistic, because it's so hard to take them seriously anymore. It's not impossible, though. Don't get me wrong, Zombieland was a terrific movie, but I'd like to see some more movies in the vein of 28 Days Later. You know what I mean?

There are developers out there, though, that are doing more than just slapping zombie skins on games and calling it a day. Undead Labs, a new studio created by Jeff Strain (an ex-programmer for Blizzard that worked on StarCraft and formed the development team for World of Warcraft) and other big names, is devoted to creating the ultimate zombie gaming experience with a zombie-based MMO. The game will have a big emphasis on those decisions you think about while watching zombie movies. Do you run into the gas station and search for weapons, or head to the grocery store for food and possible shelter? The game will focus on the survival instinct. Yes, you'll need bullets, but you'll also need food and water. Maybe you can go north in hopes of freezing the horde in it's tracks? The game has no release date yet--indeed, it doesn't even have a name--but it will be a console exclusive MMO, and takes place after the zombie apocalypse has ravaged the country.

Ever since Night of the Living Dead came out, zombies have been a huge hit with movies and games. There are even books out there dedicated to teaching you how to survive once the zombie apocalypse starts (which is so inevitably will). They're creepy, they're fun to kill, and they're hungry. So yes, like it or not, zombies are here to stay. They have been a staple of the gaming world since the NES days, and gamers will always get a kick out of killing them. Whether it be with a shotgun, a lawnmower, or a chainsaw. Or even, in some bizarre cases, with ravenous plant life.