Stubbs The Zombie in Rebel Without A Pulse (Xbox / PC / Mac)

Stubbs The Zombie in Rebel Without A Pulse (Xbox / PC / Mac) :

Fed up of endless zombie games where you have to survive wave after wave of the undead? Tired of avoiding the zombie plague and starting to wonder what would be so bad about just succumbing to the inevitable and becoming a zombie yourself? Then Stubbs the Zombie is the game for you!

In this 1950's America-set tale, you control Stubbs, a chap who has recently returned to life and is out for revenge on the folks who put him in an early grave. Punchbowl, a futuristic city is being built atop the place where you were buried, and so you decide to explore and see if you can hunt down the people responsible for your death.

Being a zombie, the main focus of the game is to try and turn everybody else into the undead. In order to help you achieve this, various bits of your body can be used ! Stubbs' hand can be detached and sent off to leap on someones head and control their brain...his gut can be flung as a grenade...his head becomes an exploding bowling ball...and his farts are bad enough to stun enemies, making them easy targets for a bit of brain breakfast!

The members of the public you infect aren't quite as well evolved undead creatures as your good self, and so require a bit of herding to get them to go where you want them too...you can shove them around and if you walk a bit away from them, a whistle will have them regrouping and following the noise to where you are..making it easier to take on the soldiers and policemen who are out to put a stop to your mission.

There are some vehicles to be found too, and as this game was created using the same game engine as Halo, they all control pretty well and are a nice change to shuffling around. Sound too is superb, with versions of fifties songs sung by new bands and generic B-movie type sounds playing elsewhere! The enemies do get a lot tougher as the game progresses, but it never seems unfair and you should make steady progress..

Causing zombie chaos is fantastic fun, and the B-movie atmosphere adds a lot to the appeal of the game. It doesn't take itself too seriously at all, and as it was created before the current saturated zombie genre took hold, you could say it was before its time too..and it still makes for a refreshing change! I reckon it deserves a sequel on current gen!! Lets start a petition or something!!

Minecraft (Various)

Minecraft (Various) :

"WHAAATTTTTT!???!??" I hear a million (well, slight exaggeration...maybe 30 or so) voices say! "Minecraft on a horror game blog! Surely you jest, good sir!?" 

Well, if you're saying that, then clearly you've never played Minecraft's Survival mode properly! I mean it's right there in the name...Survival...and that is what this Minecraft mode is! Ultimate Survival Horror!

You start stranded in a wilderness with nothing but the clothes you have on, and have to find some trees, chop some wood with your bare hands and then create tools to build a shelter before they come out at night...

Zombies, Skeletons, Spiders... All of them creeping towards you and wanting to put a stop to your breathing!  If you haven't created weapons and built a shelter by nightfall on the first day, you will die! And when you do get inside your shelter, you probably won't have been able to create a bed yet and go to sleep so you can skip until morning, so you have to sit there...all night...listening to the moans, groans and hissing outside the door. Unable to do anything until daylight comes to your rescue....

And then there's the Creepers! Even when you do manage to progress far enough into the game to survive the other enemies, there's always the threat that one of these numpties will sneak up behind you and explode with a massive KABOOM, making you jump about ten feet in the air and then come to the realization that the epic castle you've just spent 4 hours building has a hole in it the size of an elephant...

And the Endermen! These teleporting Slender Man rip-offs will mind their own business, and just randomly shift blocks around...unless you look at directly at them! Then they emit a horrible, terrifying noise and come after you like the rest of the enemies!

Then there's the Nether with it's Ghasts and Zombie Pigmen...and the Slime.....and the ever present threat of a fiery death in the lava pits...and..and...Well, you get the idea! Minecraft can be scary stuff, especially if you're under the age of 10, which a lot of its players are!

It even has it's own urban legends! Like Herobrine, a character said to actually haunt the game! He looks just like main character Steve, but has spooky  white eyes...He supposedly builds random constructions, and does weird things with your inventory items if you happen to bump into him. The creator of Minecraft, Notch, has denied he exists...but helps add fuel to the fire by stating in update logs "Herobrine Removed"....

They've also added a skin for your character so that you can pretend to be him and scare any young kids, nieces or nephews that you happen to be playing Minecraft with too, which is great fun!

So there! Minecraft is survival horror! And it deserves a place on the blog because of it, so I won't hear any moaning! Well, apart from the moaning coming from those bloody zombies outside the door of my hastily constructed cabin....*shivers*....