Left 4 Dead is a highly ambitious zombie shoot-em-up game that, for a change, actually lives up to the hype surrounding it.

You play one of four characters who are stuck together during a zombie apocalypse. In most modes, the other characters are played by other people online. Your goal is to make your way from one safe house to another in one piece. Of course, along the way you’ll be presented with many challenges, be it basic zombie attacks, finding your way out of a city, or simply running out of ammo. Or perhaps you’ll be especially challenged as I was when I played for the first time and was getting used to the control scheme. I accidentally walked off the roof of a building. Thankfully my character managed to hold on, but one of my teammates was required to come help me get up.

What really makes this game unique is how it forces you to work together as a team. Zombies may pin you down and there is no way to get them off – the only thing that you can do is hope that the other players notice and come to your aid. As such, rather than running around like Rambo wise players stick together as a tight group. Thanks to voice chat in XBox Live, you can talk to the other players and devise strategies for best escaping the thousands of zombies that appear in each level. This dynamic is further reinforced when you realize that every time you play the game it’s different. That’s right – there are no scripted events. The game randomizes things every time you play, so if a zombie appears in a certain area one time, it might not the next. This really keeps you on your toes and forces you to communicate well with your teammates.

Aside from the normal mobs of roving zombies, there are a few “special” zombie types out to get you as well. These are stronger than the others and have special attacks, putting everyone on edge when they are around. Most make distinctive sounds and you may hear it before you see it, further upping the anxiety level.

Gameplay is broken up into a series of campaigns which each have several different levels. The campaigns each take place in different types of environments, but the aside from that there is little to distinguish them. Typically you will play as a group through an entire campaign, but if some of the players decide to call it quits they will be taken over by and AI player. There is also a single-player mode if you are unable to play online, but frankly without that human interaction it feels more like a practice round than the rest of the game. A final “versus” mode pits humans against zombies, and you actually have the opportunity to play as one of the more powerful zombies.

The graphics are amazingly realistic. The game developers worked hard to create a believable world and set a dark mood through dramatic lighting. I’m not joking when I say that I had dreams last night about being stuck in this video game world. The music and sound effects are also top notch, all adding to a really polished package with few flaws.

Overall, Left 4 Dead is the zombie game I’ve always wanted to see made and I couldn’t be happier with it. It’s fast-paced, scary, and boatloads of fun. If you’ve got an XBox 360 and read this site, it’s a no-brainer (no pun intended).

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House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return is the Nintendo Wii port of a long running series of arcade games by Sega. It’s a quick, pick-up-and-play game that offers fun for both the hardcore gamer as well as the more casual video game fans.

Similar to the arcade games, this port has the player utilize the Wii remote as a light gun to blast away at endless hordes of zombies. Gameplay is simple: just point your Wii remote at the zombies on the screen and press the trigger button to shoot them; reload by pointing off-screen. Although on paper is sounds simple enough, when faced with multiple enemies all dodging your bullets it can become quite frantic. Add to this strangers in need of saving, secret areas, and multiple play options and you have a robust package with lots of replayability.

House of the Dead 2 was originally released in 1998, and unfortunately the graphics look a little dated. There is some horrendous voice acting to go along with a barely comprehensible plot, but these don’t really take away from the game’s overall experience. In House of the Dead 2, the original arcade experience is left largely in tact. The one major difference is that from the start you are only given 4 credits to work with compared to the limited-only-by-the-amount-of-quarters-you-want-to-spend experience of the arcade game. The game also includes an “original” mode which is like the arcade game but with a few role-playing elements scattered throughout.

House of the Dead 3 is a little more recent release (2002) and the improvement made to the graphics really shows. The environments and zombies are much more realistic looking. Gameplay is much the same as House of the Dead 2, but feels like there are less “cheap shots” taken where a hit seems unavoidable. House of the Dead 3 also features an “extreme” mode with more play options and harder difficulty level.

Overall, it’s a fun quick game that you can feel comfortable investing as little or as much of your time into. Bring over a friend for some two player action and you won’t regret it.

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A few weeks ago my friend George invited me over to play Dead Rising. I brought the beer and George supplied the use of his XBox 360 and nice big TV.

Dead Rising follows photojournalist Frank West as he investigates a zombie outbreak. It starts out with you (playing as Frank) on a helicopter ride into the center of the outbreak. The pilot flies around and your job is to take pictures of the scene. There is almost too much to see with all riots, car crashes, and zombie attacks going on, but the game gives you the freedom to zoom in and take pictures of whatever you want. It employs a unique rating system that judges your pictures on the amount of drama and gore in the composition. After playing this section of the game a few times, I was able to anticipate the events that occur and get some cool shots of people falling off buildings and gas stations explosions. This introduction served as a brilliant way of setting the mood – you are quite literally flying into the middle of hell.

The helicopter lands on the roof of a shopping mall (ala’ Dawn of the Dead) and the pilot takes off, leaving Frank for few days before coming back to take him home. Frank’s job is to uncover the mystery surrounding the outbreak in time to be picked up again. There are other humans trapped in the mall as well, each with their own story. Many times they will find themselves surrounded by zombies and you are given the option of trying to lead them back to safety or leaving them to fend for themselves.

Much like Grand Theft Auto, you are given a sprawling “sandbox” environment and there are thousands of ways to interact with it. The highlight of the game is being able to fight zombies using whatever is at hand. You’ll find firearms in some locations, but just about anything in the game can be used as a weapon. You can swing around a lead pipe, throw a cement planter at the zombies, or even run around with a large market umbrella and push them out of your way. At one point we found that you could smash the gumball machines which would cause the candy to spill out like marbles, causing the zombies to slip and fall. This creates an immersive environment that really puts you in the shoes of the main character.

While exploring the mall is fun, you are on a race against time if you hope to finish the goals given to you. The entire game runs on a clock and many tasks must be completed on schedule. For example, a character may have some information for you and wants to meet in the food court, and you have a four hour window to get there and meet him. While it does work to move the story along, it can be frustrating at times when you have too many tasks and not enough time.

One of the main aggravations of game are the save points. Every time you die you have to start again from your last save. Each save point is located in the restrooms of the mall, which are few and far between. Worse still, if you are running low on health and save the game, it may take you several attempts to go from the save point to an area to recover your health. When this happens it’s irritating, repetitive, and just plain no fun.

When all is said and done, exploring the game and finding new ways to kill zombies is the meat and potatoes of the game. We had a blast running around dressed in children’s clothing with a pony mask on (you can change your outfit at the clothing stores in the mall) fighting zombies with the chainsaw. Who cares about the story when you can live out your Dawn of the Dead fantasies?

Overall, Dead Rising is an enjoyable game and probably the closest you’ll ever come to a “real” zombie apocalypse. The developers really created a polished experience that you’ll want to play over and over again.

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The most recent game in the Resident Evil main series is Resident Evil 4.  Originally released for the Nintendo Gamecube, it was eventually ported to the Playstation 2 and Nintendo Wii.  The latest installment has radically changed the way the series is played, and is hands down the best game in the Resident Evil series.

Technically the enemies in Resident Evil 4 aren’t zombies. They’re just slow moving cult members possessed by large parasitic insect creatures who would love take a chunk out of your flesh. If the zombies in 28 Days Later were just humans infected with the rage virus and technically weren’t undead, I’m comfortable calling these things zombies too.

Resident Evil 4 is one of the most amazing video games you will ever play. It’s really that good. The first 20 minutes of this game set the stage for an adrenline soaked rush to the finish that rarely lets up. You start in a rural, Eastern-Eurpoean town investigating the kidnapping of the president’s daughter. Out of nowhere, hundreds of zombies attack, and you seek refuge in one of the nearby houses. They beat down doors and crash through windows as you try and brace them with pieces of furniture. You hear the chainsaw before you see the hooded man wielding it and it’s a pants-wetting moment as your gunshots to him barely slow him down. And this is all in the first 20 minutes folks!

The rest of the game is equally awesome. You progress quickly from place to place with little or no backtracking. It’s a nice change from so many other games where you are forced to search around for items, get lost, go back, etc. The boss fights are epic in scale and tons of fun to play. There are a few puzzles here and there, but a far cry from the esoteric and confusing puzzles of the previous Resident Evil games.

The controls are so fluid it becomes second nature. The game allows you to target individual body parts which has many advantages – you can shoot a pitchfork out of an enemy’s hands, or take out his kneecaps so he can’t pursue you. Press the action button once to open a door, or quickly tap it twice to kick it in. It just all works so smoothly and cinematically.

Nuby Tech released a Chainsaw Controller for use with the game. It doesn’t add any new functionality, but it sure does look cool. Speaking of new functionality, Capcom also released a Nintendo Wii port of the game takes advantage of the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii remote.

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