Top Ten alternatives to Zombies

Dear Games Designers everywhere,

It has come to my attention that you have gotten quite lazy in recent years. By lazy, I mean ... actually, I simply mean lazy. The sheer amount of zombies I am having to kill lately staggers the mind. Seriously, it was fun, but now it is getting ridiculous.

Is it so hard to come up with new enemies for us to fight? I don't know, but I came up with ten today. Here is my list :

Monkeys

Zombies attack in a straight line. Zombies don't defend themselves. Zombies don't work in teams. Zombies are, basically, stupid.

Monkeys are clever. They will come at you from all angles, they will run away instead of just taking your abuse. They have access to tools, and even weapons.

Zombies are ugly. Monkeys are funny. That closes it for me. Finally, think of a game. Any game. Now put monkeys in it. Your game got better, didn't it?

Weeaboos

Weeaboos already are zombies, except they aren't quite so hard to kill. From a programming point of view, they would make it easy, as they all look the same. 3, 4, 5 models required at most! Also, when it comes to weapons, they will all use a Katana. Why? Because, everyone knows that "Katanas are just better!"

Orcs

Now, I know what you're thinking. Well, you're wrong to think that! Just having Orcs does not make it essential that the game is set in some Tolkien-esque setting. Oh no, not for one second. Imagine the damage that Orcs could do in a modern world setting?

Orcs are badasses. They are just as relentless as zombies, only much harder to kill. They have the capacity to work together, and they have the capacity to defend. An Orc could even pick up a gun and use it. This would make them potentially the most terrifying of enemies.

Lady Gaga

I would quite like the opportunity to beat the virtual snot out of her.

Aliens

Aliens are what we used to fight. They were everywhere! And, we killed so many of them that it seems we lost the bloodlust. So, maybe it's about time they made a comeback?

Aliens are a real blank slate for a designer. They can look like us, or nothing like us. They can have all sorts of awesome abilities, and all sorts of restrictions. You want an absolute killing machine that will die if you take its mask off? That would be an alien. You want a creature that can fly, be invisible, or control enemy bodies? That would be an alien. You want something useless on its own, but you want TENFUCKJILLION of them? That would be aliens. The possibilities are endless with aliens, because whatever we imagine apparently already exists in an infinite universe.

Bugs

Bugs are ugly. Bugs are nasty. Bugs outnumber us by about a billion to one. There is something so wonderfully satisfying about killing a bug. Killing an ant is great. Killing a spider is better. Killing a giant ant is betterer! Killing a giant spider is the betterest!

The thing with bugs is, they can go both ways. They can be more powerful than us, or they can just swarm us. Either way, it can make for some sheer epic gaming.

Genetically Modified Humans

Fair enough, these are really just zombies again, albeit with the scope to be more intelligent. Also, they can be extremely dangerous, adding uncertainty into the game. Is that guy really my partner, or is he one of THEM? He's just like me, but he can PICKUPCARSOHMYGODIMADEADMAN!

Vampires

These are the polar opposite of zombies. Vampires act alone. Vampires are clever. Vampires are stronger than us. Vampires have powers that mere mortals do not posess.

Vampires are much more interesting than zombies, plus you will probably sell more copies of your game to the Twilight-obsessed. Which brings us to ...


Emos

These are basically the same as Weeaboos, except for the hair. Also, if you just ignore them long enough they will kill themselves. Hmmm, maybe not such a good idea.

Chavs

A single Chav is scarier than a thousand zombies.

Imagine a stream of freaks who all look alike and speak in tongues? Imagine a never-ending trail of bottles of cider and burger wrappers? Imagine the sheer horror that coming face-to-face with more than one Burberry cap wearing moron?

Imagine how much fun it would be to kill hundreds of them?

There we have it. I think these things so you don't have to. I ask for no part of the profits, or even recognition. I merely ask that you STOP MAKING FUCKING ZOMBIE GAMES, OK?

Regards,

Lee

What to do with my hands ... ?

If you had suggested to me at this time last year that the majority of my gaming time would be taken up by my MOBILE SODDING PHONE, I would have looked at you as if you were a cartoon duck who just started talking to me. There I was, arguing all over the place that handheld gaming was limited pretty much to the DS and the DS alone. Sony tried, bless them, but the PSP for whatever reason never really hit the heights it could have done. This is probably due to the Sony philosophy of the last few years of trying to be everything to all people, and not really having a clue who to market their games machines towards. (Hint : The ones who play the GAMES on them might be a good place to start!)

However, things changed quite drastically on my 39th birthday. For that was when my beloved spent far too much money on an iPhone for my present. Naturally, I was completely blown away, but even at that point I had no idea what lay in store. No. Freaking. Clue. Seriously, when Apple hit you with numbers it all sounds a little dry. But, you don't factor in just how big those numbers are at the time. "We have 50,000 games to download." says Mr. Jobs, to which I and every other gamer replied "Yes, but maybe 5% are any good!"

5% of 50,000 is still 2,500. This is probably double the entire library of any of the bigger consoles.

The App Store is, quite simply, the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. It is possible to log in, and then spend the next 3 to 4 hours just looking at things in there. The sheer amount of stuff means that there is ALWAYS something else to see. Games are very much to the forefront of my searches, naturally, but even when not looking for games there are imagination catchers. Muslim Speed Dating? There's an App for that!

Take today as an example. Now, today is the day that The Secret of Monkey Island 2 : Special Edition is released. Available on XBox 360, PS3, PC, and iPhone. Guess which version is the only one that costs less than £5? Yup, the iPhone version. And, the incredible thing is, that even though it is nearly £5, that actually makes it one of the most expensive games available on the platform. The sublime Angry Birds is a mere 59p! For that 59p, you get one of the year's best physics based puzzlers, which at time of writing clocks in at 160 levels. (I shall have to review-me-do that one, actually!)

My gaming time has, to all extents, been totally taken over by my phone. This is completely unexpected, and I am not sure if I like it. (Read as : I love it!) I now find myself wanting an iPad, for no real reason I can discern. The idea of smaller games is not as repellent as I thought, and the idea of cheaper games is just as erection-inducing as I expected. So much so that I will never be without my phone again, and I can actually quite possibly attribute my poor showing as an author over the last 12 months directly to the little Apple beastie that has been in my posession.

I guess that means I should write about the bloody thing more, then...

Re-launch!

Or, version 2.0?

So, it has been over a year since I last posted here. I don't actually know why I didn't follow up on the MS E3 conference with the planned Sony and Nintendo dissections, but I'm sure I had a good reason to not do what I was supposed to. There were probably too many games to play, or too many other things to talk about, or I was just too lazy. (All genuine reasons!)

So, recap : Sony showed off the Wagglewand (later christened 'Move'), and Nintendo showed a lot of rubbish. A year on, and MS have rechristened Project Natal to 'Kinect' and turned into Nintendo 3 years ago. Sony have done more with Move, but also a lot with 3D. They are still unmistakeably Sonyish, and still seem to not quite know what to do with the PS3. And Nintendo? They only went and wowed the whole bloomin' world with a new console, the much expected and heavily vaunted 3DS.

It really does look like they have trumped the others once more. The 3DS basically offers 3D without the need to adorn some stupid goggles. Now, a lowly scumbag like me doesn't get invited to swanky press events, so I have had to rely on what I have been able to dig up on youtube, but even that looks bloody impressive! Put it this way; if they package this thing for less than £200, they will clean up. Another license to print money, on top of the multiple licenses they already have.

Gameswise, E3 treated us to much of what we already knew about. Rage, Crysis 2, Killzone 3, Gears 3, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, and all the other blockbusters. All of which looked as shiny as we all expected them to. Nintendo once more raided their back catalogue, and so we got new Zelda footage. We also got a couple of new oldies, like Donkey Knog Country Returns and Kirby's Epic Yarn, both of which look infinitely more exciting than Call of Duty : Who Cares.

That's the lot for this one. I am aware that I often write too much, and so this time I wish to keep my posts more succinct.