Zombies. They’re everywhere these days. Games, t-shirts, books, movies, bar coasters, comics, TV shows, you name it. Hell, the only place you can’t find zombies these days are out on the streets of your local neighborhood… but that may change some day.
In the last few years, we’ve had all sorts of zombie-themed video games. Pretty much all of them involve killing them. Killing them with bullets, fire, frying pans, plants, and kicks to the face. While we all enjoy slaughtering zombies in these ways, one wonders how many zombies can be killed by those methods before sheer boredom starts to kick in. This is a problem plaguing many zombie-themed video games, because believe it or not, mass zombie-slaughter can get pretty old.
Enter Dead Rising 2. DR2 takes zombie-killing en masse to the next level – creativity. The same “anything is a weapon” formula from Dead Rising is still present – see a flower pot? Pick it up and throw it at a zombie’s face. See a bench? Use it to ram through crowds of zombies, then sit down and do that Sudoku puzzle you’ve been eyeing. Dead Rising 2 adds to this by allowing you to make your own makeshift weapons. At the core of the game is the gameplay mechanic of making your own homemade weapons with nothing but an endless roll of duct tape. There are a huge amount of weapons to be made, just by combining two parts that can be found all over DR2’s Vegas-themed world. Want to smash some zombies with a sledgehammer but also get the satisfaction a bladed weapon provides? Combine a sledgehammer and fire axe, and get the best of both worlds. Need to get around Fortune City quickly but also cause some havoc at the same time? The blitzkrieg (wheelchair plus lots of guns) will solve both. Damn funny, and damn effective. Suffice to say, combat in DR2 is most excellent, and racking up your “zombies killed” gauge while being rewarded for doing so is both addictive and fun.
Because I have nothing better to write about, it’s time for the weekly update! A little update post of sorts I make from time to time, though hardly on a weekly basis. I talk about what I’m playing, stuff going on in the gaming world, and I usually include a stupid video. Here goes.
NOW PLAYING:
This past week was pretty crazy. Lots of cool stuff going on, exciting announcements and releases. Sadly, I’ve over exposed myself to shooters on the PC and I’m at that point now where every FPS game I play online pisses me off. Maybe playing lots of COD4, COD:WaW, and (shudder) MW2 has something to do with that. I don’t know what I was thinking. I hadn’t played any of those games in a long while and decided to give World at War another shot. One killstreak lead to another and before long I was playing Modern Warfare 2 again. Though I must say, out of all those games, MW2 was the one that pissed me off the quickest. It was fun for the first two or three games and then it just all went to shit.
So yeah, burnt out on shooters. I would be playing Halo Reach but my gold ran out, so until I buy another card that’s a no-go.
Luckily for my burnt-out ass, Dead Rising 2 came out this past week. It was just what I needed. Single-player, third person, zombies, console. The total opposite of what I had been playing. I’ve only played several hours but I liked what I played. I’m still not 100% okay with the time limit and everything, but it never bothered me. In fact, I have a funny story for those still on the fence about the whole time-management aspect of the game. I decided to rescue a survivor the game told me about to score some Zombrex for Katey (the main character’s infected daughter). The guys name was Sven and he was a paramedic. So I went out to find him, and bring him back to the saferoom before my next Case expired (missions that you have to do to progress the story). I realized I didn’t have enough time to go back, so I ended up bringing him along to the underground area for the mission. I can’t really explain it well enough, so just watch a few seconds of this video so you can get an idea (beware, there is a cutscene in here which does contain a very minor spoiler):
So yeah, I was playing this mission while Sven the paramedic was on his own, isolated, alone, and left for dead somewhere in the train tunnels. Did I mention he was surounded by zombies and had just a sliver of health left when I brought him into the tunnels? But, by some divine miracle (perhaps it is his knowledge of medicine) he survived during the entire course of the mission and I managed to come back for him. Then we both speeded away in a golf cart of sorts (wish I had screen shots). Needless to say, we got back safely and I got my Zombrex. SUCCESS!
So survivors in Dead Rising 2 = Not as moronic as you think they’d be. Moving on…
NEW & COOL STUFF:
Cataclysm, that World of Warcraft expansion that tons of people are excited for, has an official release date! Blizzard confirmed today Cataclysm will hit stores on December 7th! Also, I’m sure some of you have seen this before, but the Cataclysm Collector’s Edition has been detailed and it is PACKED with good shit. Look at all of this (click to enlarge the goodness):
I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting the collector’s edition now. All of that for 80 bucks. Wowee!
No more Taliban in Medal of Honor! Nope, instead you’ll be fighting the frighteningly named “Opposing Force.” EA confirmed this due to countless people complaining. Does this change effect the game? Not at all, really. I probably won’t be buying Medal of Honor, but a heads up for anyone who is.
Snafzg of The Greenskin fame is back on the blogging scene! Go check out his new site, it’s pretty spiffy. He was one of the people who inspired me to blog about games in the first place, and I was an avid reader of The Greenskin when it was around, and it’s awesome to have him back at it, and not just confined to talking about Warhammer Online! Go show him some love.
And finally, for those Halo Reach fanatics, Bungie literally just (~30 minutes ago) announced Multiplayer Update #1 will be out tomorrow, providing tweaks and fixes for things that need them.
That’s it for this week’s Weekly Update. Thanks for reading!
Holy balls, it’s been a week since I last updated here! What in the hell have I been doing that could warrant such a long time without posts?
…Vacation, mostly. I got back a day ago so I’m getting back into gaming and whatnot before summer ends. The Vacation was good! My family and I ate lots of tasty but expensive food and rented a boat on Lake Okanogan. It came with a little raft too, so my brothers and I took turns being pulled around the lake by the boat. When I went, we hit this huge oncoming wake and got about a meter of air. Fun stuff!
Over the vacation, I bought a bunch of apps for my iPod touch so I’ll be getting around to reviewing those. I sort of lost my interest in iPhone gaming, but it’s slowly returning. There’s always good stuff to play on that thing.
NOW PLAYING:
City of Heroes: Going Rogue – I recently came to the decision that City of Heroes is probably my favorite MMO. It also happens to be the first MMO I ever played, but at the time my computer was rather shit and couldn’t handle the game at more than 5 FPS. So I merely dabbled in it. Now that I have a pretty gaming-oriented PC though, I play it on and off. Going Rogue, the new expansion had me interested so I finally bought it today. So far, I like it. I will probably do a first impressions post about it when I get about halfway through Praetoria (the new zone).
Honorable Mentions:
Bad Company 2
OpenArena
But, enough about me. Time to move on to things much more exciting…
NEW & COOL STUFF:
Dead Rising 2’s Collector’s Edition is probably the most kickass CE bundle I have seen in gaming history. $89.99 gets you all of this zombie-related goodness:
In my opinion, I think this one beats Halo Reach’s Legendary Edition. Sure, it too has a kickass statue but Dead Rising’s comes with a Poker set! Maybe that’s why this bitch is limited edition. EDIT: Oh, with every CE you get a chance to win the statue Zombie Dude. Doesn’t come with one. Ah well. Still, this is perfect for Poker Fanatics. I’m definitely not one of them, but this CE still looks awesome.
SOME COOL VIDEOS BEFORE I GO:
Top 17 most satisfying PC Game weapons of all time – Posting this because it’s awesome and the guy who made it doesn’t get the attention he deserves. Check it, much better countdown than anything on IGN or Gamespot.
F*** You Song – Seriously good. Just watch it. Better than any other song ever that has the F-Word in it. I guarantee. Plus, there’s a gaming reference in there. Nice!
-Rav4ge
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Hi there! Here at Nomnom, we love video games. What's better than playing video games? Well, pretty much nothing, but blogging is fun too. We produce a wide variety of posts and videos about video games for your enjoyment. Stuff like reviews, guides, ramblings, and more recently, podcasts.
