Ever since the first moment that the credits rolled at the end of "Night of the Living Dead" we have wondered how we would handle a zombie invasion. Actually my friend and I came up with a foolproof method of acting like zombies; in turn the brain cravers couldn’t distinguish if you were in fact dead or not. Of course that meant a semester of high school without dates, but such is the price of progress. Thankfully I was able to see my method in successful execution as it was adopted for the film "Shaun of the Dead". Well, when I heard that George Romero was getting behind the camera again I was thrilled. Then when I heard a video game would be made about the feature film,I was nervous yet hopeful. I mean, come on! Those are some big shoes to fill. You obviously have the great past zombie games like Zombies Ate My Neighbors, the Resident Evil games, and of course the beloved Halo series (even though the Flood is an example of intergalactic zombies) just to name a few. To top it off, you’re making a game that essentially is many of the Romero films put together. Well I popped that disc into my system as soon as I got it and I had some mixed feelings and not just because one of the loading screens told me stenches can smell humans either.
In a world where the dead are returning to life the word "trouble" loses much of its meaning.
With all the first-person-shooters flooding the market right now, there were undoubtedly some big shoes that Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green had to fill. There are a lot of promising features that sound good on paper here that just fell short in execution. Land thrusts you into the role of Jack, a good ol’ boy who is just sitting in the farm one day when he notices a man outside who doesn’t look right for some reason. When he goes outside and the guy lunges at him, he rethinks his strategy about dealing with people (shouldn’t we all) and grabs a gun. Well after a few days food runs low and he hears about a "City of the Living" on the radio. Well being the inquisitive redneck that is starving to death, Jack goes to check it out.
Well unlike all the great shooters with monsters in existence, Land just doesn’t come close. The appeal here is fighting your way through a zombie invasion. The guns are few and unbalanced, the enemies are sparse, and the great ideas that the developers had come up with, fall short. Well let’s start with guns. Five times out of six, even if you line up a perfect headshot, on most guns you will not get the head to explode. Actually I’ve noted that the number of shots needed to a zombie’s head or torso differs depending on difficulty. On the easy difficulty two shots to the head and they will be dead, on medium you need to shoot three to them, finally on hard it takes four to bury them in the yard. This of course means ammo runs out very quickly, thus reducing the player to using the crappier weapons more and more often. I suppose this is understandable during a zombie invasion but for the sake of first-person shooters, this is a very poor choice of omission. The melee system is great fun to use for the sheer sake of hitting a zombie in the head with a shovel or other heavy object but I would be very pleased if it were actually effective rather that just being a kick knocking an enemy down temporarily.
Developers need Brainsss
The developers here have come up with some great ideas for this game, taken from past zombie movies/games. Some of these are executed fantastically well. A great addition in this game is the use of radios. Whenever you come across a radio you can activate it using the action button. Predictably the radio turns to an emergency news broadcast which is used to further the game’s storyline. This is a great effect which is exciting and unsettling at the same time. It could’ve been so much more if an ambush were to occur during that time but maybe that’s hoping too much.
Other times additions are underdeveloped such as when the zombies break through doors. Whenever a zombie is on the side of a door that you aren’t, they will break through it. Now when it happens (only on single doors) it happens the same way, every time. The door cracks and immediately the top half falls off. Basically you have time to get about one shot off before the zombie takes 3 more really quick swipes and completely destroys the door. It would be nice if a sniper point could be utilized but that will have to remain a dream for now. Also despite no prior turret action the entire game, there is one mission where you have to climb into a turret mounted into the back of a pickup and mow down zombies attempting to enter the city of Fiddler’s Green. The controls here are too unrefined and if even one zombie makes it into the city its game over and start the entire level again.
You’ve got red on you.
Graphically I am decidedly mixed on, Land of the Dead is based off of the Unreal engine and for this type of game it was a poor choice. There are a few basic designs for zombies which are repeated over and over. Then there are a few basic types of flesh eater, the basic zombie, the crawling zombie who moves like a spider, the acid spitting zombie, and the zombie with a weapon. To top it all off even in the city areas there are never a large amount of zombies on the screen at any given time. If most of the entire world has been overrun by zombies by this point, wouldn’t you expect a sea of undead monsters to fight?
This brings me to a further point of design in zombie games. A great zombie game tells a story in each locale and in each design of each blue. You can tell things like what kind of a struggle occurred inside a building by the blood on the walls or if a person went crazy or not. On each walking dead you should see lots of blood; just soaked through their clothes, coagulated on the area of the wound. Clothing should be ripped and torn in specific parts. To be fair chunks come off the enemy and blood sprays off with each shot you make on a stale skin even though it evaporates seconds later. I wish I had self cleaning floors. Also as it pertains to gun animations can anyone tell me why I need to put six bullets into my shotgun when I only have one bullet to put in? Where do the other five go, why do they go in when I only have one bullet left? To put it simply, the process is mind boggling.
Level design turns most areas into a maze that you have to navigate through. As you course through tight corridor after corridor it successfully gives you a feeling of claustrophobia but this is also an excuse I think to have less grays in the mix. One of my favorite areas in the game is actually wide open; it’s actually a cornfield. You have to run through this wide open cornfield being attacked by a handful of dead flesh. The prospect of being in danger and being not able to see was the freakiest time I had with this game.
Who put this on?!? It’s on random...
Audio here is simple yet effective. The music in each stage is very low quality and repetitive, yet it still manages to be very atmospheric and creepy. The voice acting is something that borders on B-movie which considering the genre’s roots, works for me. Sound effects could have been so much more though. You don’t hear any groans or growls until the zombies are right up on you, and it’s this sloppy audio treatment that knocks the audio down in my opinion.
Game play itself is extremely simple. On Xbox You have Halo movement style with a right trigger fire. You can give a little hop with A which is basically pointless. Reload is moved to Y even though X is still open. Melee weapons allow you to attack with right trigger and knock back/down with B. Change weapons with the D-pad and "Grenades" need to be switched to in order for use with the right trigger. Learning curve of about five seconds here, if that.
No more post kill celebrating
The game offers up a System Link and Xbox Live multiplayer offering. You are offered up a few typical options here as well. You can setup a Death match, Assault, or a Capture the Flag. The one thing that I found innovative in this game is that multiplayer is actually somewhat enjoyable because as you are fighting each other, the flesh feasters are still running around trying to eat you. Watch your back you kill stealers! Finally for George Romero, saying yes to stamping his name on this game got him free advertising as a trailer for "Land of the Dead" is featured, simultaneously released on DVD.
You know this game hit me like being bitten by a zombie. First I was nauseous, then I was giddy at being able to exact revenge on people, then I realized I was mindless. Actually for the multiplayer offering this game isn’t bad for the price of 30 dollars; even better if you can nab the PC version for $20. So if you’ve been hankering to put the hurt on some zombies, why not nab a copy? Oh and I almost forgot, the moral of the story here is obviously "If you listen to country music, you will be attacked by zombies."
