The final shambling steps

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts over the last few months, sadly we lost authors and then real life took all the time we had to put into the site.

Thus the remaining members of Zombie outbreak have decided that the site shall come to an end. 

Zombie Outbreak started January 2011 as the fevered dream of a single man, who then recruited everyone he knew to do the work for him. In that time 11 people have made just 2 posts shy of 600 hopefully entertaining posts.

As that original fevered dreamer I want to thank (in chronological order):

Friday Voni

Wednesday Luke

Sunday Matt

Thursday Will

Saturday Simon

Tuesday Shanice

Thursday Lindsey

Sunday Tyler

Thursday Santoro 

Saturday Andy

So from me Monday Richard, Thank you all for reading. 

Watch this space, like any good Zombie the site will not stay dead forever.

Even if when it returns, it's in a whole new form.

Gothicpie part 4

the Gothicpie comics continue. 

Gothicpie part 3.

Even more comics for you nice people.

Gothicpie part 2.

More comics for you nice people.

Gothicpie part 1

Today i'm going to be continuing with posting Gothicpie Comics, as they are currently not available anywhere  (except in an obscure German magazine) 

Expect this for the next couple of weeks, until my work load lets up at university. 

without further making excuses...

Gothicpie returns?

As I've made mention on here before, I used to write and draw a web comic called GothicPie.

Well today I'd like to officially announce that GothicPie will be returning. I've started to work on new character sheets and writing the first issues, as I'm a student its going to take a while till I'm ready to get this online again, but in the coming months you can expect the odd blog post detailing my progress. 

To wet your appetite what follows is the last full story line in the comics old style, and a little teaser of the new style. (a little prize awaits the first person to correctly name all the references in this storyline.)

Top 10 PS2 games.

In the style of my past lists. Today I'm going to take a look at top ten PlayStation 2 games. Considering the size and scope of the PlayStation 2 library, this was no easy task.

Note i'm not saying these games have the best story, game play or graphics. They are simply the games I remember fondest.

Number 1.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Probably my favourite grand theft auto game, sure some people will argue that vice city is better, but I always loved the massive open world presented in San Andreas. I'm not going to bother telling you to check this out, if your any type of gamer, you probably already have.

Number 2

Kingdom hearts

there is no reason for this to have worked as well as it did, when I first read about kingdom hearts, my first thought was “A Disney RPG?... Pass” but then I read that it was going to feature final fantasy characters, so I decided to at least try it out and man i'm glad I did. Ecploring the worlds presented in the different disney worlds in the game is a joy, I've never quite gotten around to playing any Kingdom Hearts game other than the first one, but I have many happy memoires about playing it.

Number 3

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake eater

I loved metal gear solid on the playstation, a great stealth game with an interesting story and interesting characters. Then Metal Gear Solid 2 came out... and it was a convoluted mess of a story, with a new dislikeable main character and while the game play was good, it lost so much that made the playstation game a classic. But then they released Snake Eater and the world was good again. Featuring a much harder stealth system without the radar and with the need to think about your camouflage, an interesting cast of characters and the chance to get to know some of the history behind the games mythical Big Boss. Snake Eater to me is as good as the Metal Gear solid franchise gets.

Number 4

Silent hill 2

There is not much I can say about silent hill 2 that has not already been said. Its a survival horror game and probably the first time I realised that you could make horror work in video game format. Packed full of psychological scares and sometimes punishing gameplay silent hill 2 is the reason so many of us who where teens in the early 2000's are still a little freaked out by fog.

Number 5

Primal

Primal is a Action adventure game with a supernatural story that tells the tale of Jennifer Tate, a young women on a quest to save her boyfriend. To do this you have to fight your way through demon realms picking up the ability transform into new demonic forms along the way. The story is good, the gameplay is good (if you don't focus on the water level... *shudders* and the characters are great. Give it a go if you never have.

Number 6

SSX Tricky

This game brings back the memory of me and my younger brother playing video games together. The gameplay is your standard snowboarding, but tricky was the first and still one of the only sports games I have ever got into. I'll never forget competing with my brother to get the highest score and to this day we still quote SSX Tricky's announcer to each other every chance we get. Excuse me while I call my momma in the room to show her how great I am.

Number 7

Resident Evil 4

When I first played this game when it came out, I remember decribing it to a friend as “an almost perfect game” having replayed it recently I have no idea what younger me was talking about. Its a pretty good action horror game, but it has some serious flaws. Still it makes this list on pure nostalgia.

Number 8

Dark cloud 2

One of the weirdest games on the list. This is an action RPG that combined randomized dungeons and city planning. In simple terms its a dungeon crawler, you progress by finding new city pieces in dungeons and levelling up items. Its also an incredibly stylish and pretty game and I have fond memory’s of playing it for hours at a time.

Number 9

Beyond good and evil

Number 10

Psychonauts

Number 9 and 10 are both games I have spoken about on this blog before, so rather than repeat myself I will simply link you to the original blog post. http://www.zombieoutbreak.com/2011/08/ogyhphoapbidciltsmiwttata-part-2.html

So there you have it. The 10 PS2 games that I remember most fondly. Did I miss out any of your favourites? Let me know in the comments section.

Deponia

Another new game? At this rate I’m going to become a relevant game reviewer...

As i've made mention of before, I'm a big fan of old school point and click adventure games, so I warn you in advance that nostalgia bias me somewhat.

Deponia is a new point and click adventure that came out on in the uk on the 7^th of august. Its made by Daedalic Entertainment the developers of some other recent adventure games, most noticeable The Whispered World.

Deponia It tells the story of Rufus, a self obsessed, rude and mostly useless resident of Deponia a trash planet living in the shadow of the beautiful Elysium. Rufus main motivation is to leave Deponia and live on Elysium but in pursuing that goal he accidental knocks an Elysium pixie called Goal, off of a transporter, damaging her brain in the process, the rest of the game becomes about 

waking her up and getting her home again.

Rufus' efforts to return Goal to Elysium turn into a crazy string of events with everything you need for an exciting story: Storm Troopers, a speeding mine bike, an evil doppelganger and weirdly flavoured cotton candy...

The gameplay is exactly what you would expect from a point and click adventure game, you point at objects and click on them, you have an inventory and you collect items and then take them where they are needed to solve puzzles. The Puzzles are pretty logical most of the time, and unlike some old school games there is no pixel hunting in this game.

This game is good, but its not great, it has a couple of mini games that did nothing but annoy me, its very short, I finished it in about 3 hours without a guide and its ending it not great, but since I've learned there is a sequel on the way I can forgive it that.

What is game has in droved though is heart, its humour is reminiscent of Monkey island, its writing is good and brought to mind the old Terry Pratchett adventure games and it even has a great little song. I felt good while I played the game, and it left me with a smile on my face. But don't take my word on it, this game is available everywhere go pick it up and try it yourself.

Orcs must die 2

In another strange turn of events, I'm going to review another game this week... that is actually a new release...

I'll get back to reviewing old games and films that no one cares about soon... promise.

This long awaited sequel...

Wait that’s not true, the original Orcs must die came out less than a year ago... let me start again.

This shortly awaited sequel to Orcs must die was released on steam on the 30^th of july, since then I played the frell out of it, the reason I’m posting so late today, is because when I started the drawing for today's post, it made me want to play the game, so I played for 3 hours or so, then got back to it.

Orcs must die 2 is a tower defence game, your job is to stop the Orcs getting from the door they enter the level from, to the door they exit the level through. To help you with that task are a bunch of weapons, spells and traps. You can play it anyway you like, go completely hack and slash and kill the Orcs yourself, or set up cleaver trap combinations to kill the Orcs for you, however once the levels start getting harder and harder its only through a combination of these two techniques that your going to succeed, especially when the harder baddies start to show up.

As you can expect from a game with such a short turn around, not much has changed since the first game, the graphics and gameplay are just as they where in the first one. This is not a bad thing, if its not broke, don't fix it. The game has buckets of personality and while the story is very much an excuse to kill as many Orcs as possible, its not horrible.

The big change between this game and its predecessor is the inclusion of co-op multiplayer, now you can recruit a friend to come kill the Orcs with you. This is not without its problems, you get much less gear and traps when you play co-op so you need to get on well with the person you are playing with and come up with real strategies, if you don't work together your not going to succeed, this is not necessary a bad thing, but because you unlock things and upgrade them as you play it does mean you need to find someone who is at the same sort of point in the game as you to play with, or things can feel very one sided.

All in all Orcs must die 2 is a great edition to my game library, and one I highly recommended to everybody, even if you don't normally like tower defence games you can find a lot to love in this one.

However, put your own music on while you play, the in game music gets old fast.