New Challenger: 3 Reasons Why Gaming Will Destroy Itself Part 1
10 hours 29 mins ago
OXCGN writer Alex Baldwin takes a look at the current trend of some developers steering away from calling their 'undead' zombies. Are Zombies fading out and dying off (sorry, couldn't help that one)?
As it seems not favourable to mention the Zombie word in some games now. Like Resident Evil 5's undead aren't zombies, according to Capcom, and they were removed from Resi 4 as well. Plus there are several other games mentioned.
So please slip on over and check it out, we'd love to have your opinion on the notion.
Zombies have always been a part of the gaming landscape. From early 80s games such as the imaginatively titled Zombie Zombie on the ZX Spectrum right up to Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360 and PC, gamers have been shooting, chopping, sawing, cutting, stabbing, beating and generally causing all sorts of abuse to our brain-eating undead friends.
However, with the release of Resident Evil 5 and its not-zombies, are gamers slowly getting tired of slaughtering the mindless shambling hordes?
Back last generation a lot of buzz was caused by the removal of traditional zombies from Resident Evil 4, the series that had always championed the undead in video game culture. Despite this RE4 was widely considered the best of the Resident Evils and a change for the better with intense combat against enemies that could run and wield weapons. Likewise, Resident Evil 5 is now hitting stores and has followed this formula leaving doubt to the fate of zombie-kind in the series.
News story attached to:
- Resident Evil 5 [PC, PS3, XBOX360]
Comments
I don't have an opinion on what they are by definition; just sayin'.
However, in games, which is about all things Unreal, the term zomb ie is misused to great extent, and simply represents those who are the walking dead - the undead to a degree. The true Undead are the "Nosferatu" - the worst kind of beast in the vampire range.
The undead have stuck around because it doesn't bring up a moral conundrum. They're already dead, brain dead, and trying to kill you. 3 reasons why you should have no problem 'killing' them...
In any case, the traditional zombie is also disappearing from movies as well. Last good zombie film would be Diary of the Dead which is pretty ironic that the man who started the zombie trend is the only one keeping it alive.
The way Dead Rising worked is really the best way a zombie game really works. Left 4 Dead didn't have such a bad concept but it sure as hell ain't scary...especially when the zombies are more pissed than hungry and they're more intent on beating the ever loving shit out of you than eating you.
Therefore, not zombies.
HTH.
So a dead person walking (who, mind you, has died first and has come back in the traditional zombie horror sense) is NOT a reanimated corpse? I wonder how you came up with that one.
They don't die from the virus, yet get turned into mutants, therefore they're not reanimated corpses.
Simple.
Oh, didn't know those limping, decomposing, dead looking people were actually alive; thanks for the insight.
Considering the movies are taken seriously by Capcom (see references to the movies in Umbrella Chronicles) I still don't know what your problem was with me using them as examples.
Do the viruses affect the living the same way they affect the dead? Yes. Therefore, not zombies.
Simple.
Nonsensical comment # 2. You are on a roll.
You know how Los Plagas act like zombies, does that make them zombies?
Oh and how exactly is it nonsensical? They turn living people into the same mutant they turn dead people into. Simple.
Living parasite hosts =/= The walking dead.
Besides the fact that it evidently kills the living person before reanimation?
That enough?
Mutants =/= The walking dead.
Poppycock.
Lastly, no one here has said that these are NOT mutants, as they have obviously changed, but they ARE the walking dead and denying that (especially after everything you HAVEN'T been able to come up with) is just being stubborn for the sake of the argument.
They DID change.
Insightful.
It seems likely that they only have downhill to go.
I would say that yes, the living dead in the 'game' resident evil 5 (and 4) are in fact mutations of "living humans' who never died. Yet they are the living dead as by removing the parasite, which infests them, the body loses animation, thus is dead. Obviously.
If you watch the earlier cutscene when Sava and Chris come upon a chap in the room who had been attacked, he does not die, but the attacker had "infected" him with the "virus" . . he slumps to the floor and the virus takes over, transforming him (mutating him) into something "unhuman". Alive, but not alive, dead, but not dead in the true sense of the word.
Neither zombie or human, which as we remember is classified as the dead risen from the grave. But he is more akin with a living human who has been infected with a mutating virus which has changed the DNA of its host.
So in fact, Capcom are 'correct' in saying the "creatures" are NOT zombies, but remnants of the viral strain that was originated during the Umbrella Company's first experiments.
In the "true" sense of the word, the townsfolk are mutations, rather than zombies as we normally know them.
The article is more aimed at seeing the change on developers wanting to perhaps distance themselves from the Zombie and alline themselves with something more modern, plausible in fact, such as a viral mutation. which does make sense, and fits in with the movies perfectly.
Which btw, I find great entertainment, I have no idea why ppl need to rubbish the movies so. Like this discussion here, I think many gamers do not see the movies as movies, but as games turned into movies, which can never be done in the first place.
They need to approach the movies based on games as new experiences based "around" the games, not aimed at being a remake of the game in cinematic style. If that makes sense.?
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