ANOTHER Zombie Game? Whatever happen to innovation?

[jdwohlever]

Why is it that when one person takes a chance and makes a successful game based on a subject that everyone else latches on to that one subject to siphon off the money from that idea? What ever happened to original creative IP's without everyone stumbling over one others idea?
I am so SICK of zombie games. For the last 4 years we have had nothing but zombie zombie zombie. It's ridiculous,.
First it was World War 2. Everyone had to make a world war 2 game. Once that got so saturated then it was Modern Combat which was innovated by the mod team behind battlefield 1942 that created the modern battlefield mod that now suddenly all military shooters have to be modern warfare.
Left 4 Dead gave rise to all these "Zombie killers" and it's just gotten stupid.
I see nothing wrong with someone improving on a working idea, but when everyone and their brother reproduces that same copy-cat horse manure game after game it gets really dumb really fast.
Come on developers, stop cashing in on other people's ideas and come up with your original thoughts!
:o

[derrman0426]

There are no zombies in this game, Dead Horde has mutants.

[jdwohlever]

There are no zombies in this game, Dead Horde has mutants.

Oh my, that sounds like something a suit at EA would say to defend a game.
Mutants, zombies, "the infected" . It all boils down to the same thing. Stop trying to split hairs.
It is called DEAD Horde.

[derrman0426]

Oh my, that sounds like something a suit at EA would say to defend a game.
Mutants, zombies, "the infected" . It all boils down to the same thing. Stop trying to split hairs.
It is called DEAD Horde.

And if it was zombies it would be called Undead Horde :)

[TeaSeeOh]

I was thinking the same thing as the OP. However, I do like zombie games...when done right.

This (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_303/8818-How-Games-Get-Zombies-Wrong) article is the biggest spoken truth about the zombie genre in general. When I saw Dead Horde and saw in the description "mini-gun" I couldn't help but sigh. Zombie games have been nothing but a disappointment, and tbh Dead Island is another one that looks meh(a "tank" character class? Special types of zombies....again?)

Still waiting on Project Zomboid (http://projectzomboid.com/blog/), which is probably the only real zombie game going to be released(and in the eventual future, multiplayer).

[jdwohlever]

I was thinking the same thing as the OP. However, I do like zombie games...when done right.

As do I. I didn't mean to imply that I don't like zombie games, done right. I just don't like the same game, with the same format, settings, weapons, and plot line, over and over.

This (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_303/8818-How-Games-Get-Zombies-Wrong) article is the biggest spoken truth about the zombie genre in general. +1 rep
Thanks for pointing that out. Great article. And I forgot the whole "Have to shoot them in the brains" rule that the games also seem to have forgotten.


Dead Island is another one that looks meh(a "tank" character class? Special types of zombies....again?) Dead Island was one that at first, I was really looking forward to. It seems in the last few months they changed direction from what would have been a neat original idea for that IP and instead started picking features of "already been there and done that" from other games.

Still waiting on Project Zomboid (http://projectzomboid.com/blog/), which is probably the only real zombie game going to be released(and in the eventual future, multiplayer).

From what I have seen it looks like the only thing holding that titles back is the Desura service and the approval process. I use Desura myself and while they aren't as strict as Steam, they do make sure games/mods are of decent quality before they release them. Hopefully Desura will hurry up and finish their end so the game can get released.

[rexz]

There are many successful zombie games that were out BEFORE Left4Dead.
I can name on top of my head

Zombie Panic (Source mod)
Z_map (modified zombie maps from CSS)
Resident Evil Series
Cold Fear

Zombies game can be made successful, it's just that if a zombie game is all about gun and trying to "win" against the zombie by force, then it will lose a lot of purity in the essence of a zombie apocalypse. Even in L4D, you ever will win against the horde, they will keep on coming at you, and the only way out of it is by getting rescued to fight another day. Plus the reason why I like L4D is that they give you the option to play a zombie game realistically instead of unrealistic crazy insane steroid rampage.

I LOVE survival type game, and zombie survival type are one of my favorite. It make the zombie a lot more scary and it hold you a lot closer to your mates who are alive with you. I do agree that zombie titles are starting to be bland and untasteful but I will agree however that successful zombie games can still be made. All it needs are the right people with the right mind for the game.

[UniversalCypher]

zombie media has been around for a long time, its now only becoming more prominent than it usually is because of some great games being made. all in all, you're not presenting anything constructive, so all i can really say about your post is that you're complaining. did you buy this game?..if the answer is no, then why are you here, to bash the developer?..

smh..





-UC

[Angry Alien]

This (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_303/8818-How-Games-Get-Zombies-Wrong) article is the biggest spoken truth about the zombie genre in general.

Great article, thanks for the link.
But I think most things this article and the OP are saying are true for a lot of other games or, for that matter, movies and tv shows nowadays.

Someone comes up with a interesting and successful use of a cliche and then suddenly everyone jumps on the bandwagon. And soon the original idea is worn out by the excessive (ab-)use and the only thing companies come up with to make the genre more interesting is... violence.

Don´t get me wrong, I am an adult, I can handle virtual violence and in my videogames I am even enkoying it. A lot.
But just look at the CoD series. I really enjoyed the first two games. Then things went downhill and World at War was, at least in my oppinion, plain terrible.
All the things I really hated in this series were still there. Incredibly stupid comrades for instance and their nasty habit of pushing you out of cover, jumping into your line of fire or having a great time just watching a enemy walking past them and kill your while you are reloading.
Instead they added more violence. More severed limbs and crueler ways to die. The hate spitting russian who forced you to shoot germean POWs or to watch them burn alive did not make the game better. Just more disgusting.

Maybe the problem is the audience itself or maybe the way the industrie sees them.
I must admit that after 30 years of videogames it might be harder to come up with something new and interesting than 1990. But the industry thinks every single one of us gamers is just stupid and with the attention span of a 4 year old in a Toys`R`us store and a lot of games are aligned with this view. And unfortunately they grew a breed of gamers that fit exactly into this perception.

In older games often the journey is its own reward. Nowadays gamers need an achievement for every bloody step they make without stumpling over their own feet and for every shot without hitting their own knee caps.

I love the zombie genre. Well, love might be the wrong word, it´s more like a morbid fascination. Anyway, for all I care there could be a dozen new zombie games every years as long as they are DONE RIGHT. I really mean it. I would not even mind if some of the rules would be bend in favour of a pleasent gaming experience. I am a sucker for happy ends since I believe life is hard enough and I just love to see the family escape the zombocalypse or the nerdy guy getting the supermodel.

But what the industry is stuffing down our throats is plain ridiculous, at least in some cases. "Dead Rising 2" for instance was amazingly stupid. And I am not talking about the zombie shredding part but some of the game mechanics. Having to PAY some jerk for the privilege to rescue them? Yeah, sure...

Especially the zombie genre is full of chances. Great games could be made, games with action as well as suspense, games were humour and great despair go hand in hand, games were moments of deep contemplation alternate with parts of mindless zombie shredding.

Instead we are fed with shallow crap and this will not change because people are still buying this crap like there is no tomorrow and this is, in my humble oppinion, the real problem.

[Zeev]

Same thing I can say on American propaganda against the Russians..
Every second game you play as US hero that kills dozens of Russian soldiers.

[DarkByke]

PROtip: money makes the world go round.

[Dax331]

Once that got so saturated then it was Modern Combat which was innovated by the mod team behind battlefield 1942 that created the modern battlefield mod
I'm sorry, but no. Desert Combat (if that is what you are referring to) did not innovate the modern war sub-genre. Games like Rainbow Six 1, Counter-Strike,
Left 4 Dead gave rise to all these "Zombie killers"
Again, sorry, no. Most "zombie killers" got their inspiration, or for better term ripped off, the older Resident Evil games. Most of them anyway.

Every era in FPS gaming goes through some sort of phase, somehow, someway. This is definitely unrelated in comparison to the survival horror genre, where even if this game isn't scary (spoiler: it isn't) it still counts as Survival Horror. SAW (and it's farm of sequels) might not be scary, but it's still a horror movie isn't it?

For everyone with nostalgia glasses, put it in perspective. Back then we were stuck with very little other than Sci-Fi shooters (From 1993-2003: Doom, Quake, Unreal, etc.). 1998-2003 had it's fair share of Vietnam FPS's (as obscure as they were, yes they existed from mods like Heart of Evil to retail games like Battlefield: Vietnam). 2002 - 2006 was a mess of WWII shooters. And 2007-2011 is, yup, you guessed it, the age of modern FPS. I seriously wonder how you people don't notice this by now; there was an age of gaming before 2002, and yes it did have problems.

It's not hard to find good games now, it's just that people won't abandon their favorite franchises of past fame in exchange for newer ones. It's because of this that they get angry at companies for changing main parts of gameplay in a series, or when publishers become greedy as hell. Call of Duty comes to mind; many people loved CoD1-4, and won't abandon it for anything else in the world. Please do, Call of Duty has become stagnant (for a long time now), move on and realize there are good games now. ;)

[rexz]

Not everyone loved CoD1-4, CoD1 wasn't as significant and so did CoD3. CoD 2 and 4 however were THE game back in the day. But just because people are still playing it now doesn't mean they are not moving on and enjoying better games. People are still playing them now because they are good games and hence there will still be people playing them.

[sarrik]

Eh, I'm yet to see a good zombie game in the last five-odd years. Zombies should be horror and suspense, not action.
Wonder why Resident Evil was so popular... Not cause of it's playability, obviously.
TBH, zombies have become cannon fodder. Yes, they're perfectly suited for it, but just mowing them down is boring.
I would love to see a game with zombies that don't die from a single shot to the nuts and which use unconventional methods to get to the player.
They're dead already. They shouldn't just stop if you shoot them.
I want to see a game where the player needs to be creative about the way he stops the zombies from killing him.
If this involves setting traps, or procuring a big, badass weapon which breaks things to the point of no return, then good. As long as the zombies act like zombies, and not tour de france cyclists who spotted a stray steroid needle.
Zombies should be a slow, broken killer, not a sprinting bag thief.

[DarkRanger57]

There's been a lot of dead goin' on around here.

[Sampo]

Don't blame zombies. It's the same cliche as blaming the WWII era and whatnot. It's an uninventive complaint.