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Killing stuff with reckless abandon knowing that they are no longer human is fun. Space setting, jungle setting, Vampiric setting, urban setting. All are great as long as story is easily digestable, the mission are clear, and the game gives you a sense of urgency, purpose, and fun.
In short, one can never get enough zombies. :)
What about a game where you play a zombie? Does that exist yet?
Stubbs the zombie. Really fun game. You eat people's brains and they become zombies, and attempt to do the same.
You can also throw your body parts, and different ones do different things. Like throwing your hand lets it crawl around/posess people.
Voted NO and MAYBE....
Was missing an option in the first poll question: "ONLY IF IT IS RADICALLY DIFFERENT!"... no, its not enough to just be good.... yes, I am aware there are Zombie Fanboys that will play ANY good Zombie Game out there, no questions asked.
Point is, the more crowded a certain genre gets, the smaller the piece of the cake for new entrants to the space. The more the normal player gets fed, the more they will not try another piece of the cake anymore.
It doesn't really matter if your Zombies are living dead or dead-looking living (both has been done to death (pun intended))... it doesn't matter if you have to shoot up the living or only the death.
If your Zombie-Game should be anything more than yet-another-zombie-shooter-beating-the-death-horse (pun intended... the horse might still be moving, but it is clearly a Zombie 
), make it something else, with Zombies.
Why was Plants vs Zombies seen as much more innovative when it came out (besides the body count of Zombie games only being at game number 9999 in a few years at the time)?
Certainly not because of the Zombie Part. The unexpected first part of the title made it interesting.
Why was The Last of Us such a big thing? Certainly not because of the hordes of undead shuffling around in it. The Zombies just happened to give the game the postapocalyptic backdrop the story needed to work.
So instead I would try to come up with something new, something interesting. Something beyond small gameplay elements like "bullets really hurt".... that will not be innovative enough in such a crowded space.
It could be the story. Postapoc stories with empty cities filled with undeads are so done to death (yay, pun....)... why not come up with a civilization that actually uses Zombies as Workforce? How about Zombies in Space (Yeah, okay, that most probably has been done already)? How about telling the story FROM THE EYES OF A ZOMBIE ITSELF?
There are so many possibilities of things you could do storywise with the undead, yet everyone just makes them the grunts to be shot up in a boring postapoc setting.
Why not see if you can do something interesting with the Gameplay? I don't know about playing as a Zombie and trying to spread the Zombie disease, but that would be new. How about a "Tower defense" like game or something where you basically need to herd the Zombies so you can use them... for...whatever sinister needs your evil corporation has?
If you could use a Zombie as a Player character, you might get some interesting possibilities... for once you have a good excuse for the players character being kind of superhuman... the character is already death after all. Being able to detach body parts might come in handy, and modelling damage taken as loosing parts of your body might make for some fun gameplay.
Also, the whole fact that your character is kinda mindless and doesn't follow your controls 100%, you need to use the environment or other tools to make your zombie do your bidding might also lead to some intersting gameplay.
As an example, I really liked the Warm Bodies movie... with all the plot holes and weird turns, it was something different and funny, which made the old Zombie Movie genre look fresh again.
Personally i think the zombies are irrelevant.
What makes the game fun ? L4D for example is not fun because of the zombies, its fun because of how its mechanics push people to cooperate, You could take that game and move it to a sci-fi setting with aliens and it would still work.
+1
A good story will always work. Good balanced and thought out gameplay too.
Using Zombies as a way to sell bad stories and mediocre games might just not be possible anymore. Too much good, and bad stuff on the market already.
Stubbs the zombie. Really fun game. You eat people's brains and they become zombies, and attempt to do the same.
You can also throw your body parts, and different ones do different things. Like throwing your hand lets it crawl around/posess people.
Just shows how much I am behind on Zombie games... so my "innovative ideas" aren't even that innovative anymore.
Guess you just need to come up with an interesting story and characters then.
What I don't like about undead zombies is the fact that it doesn't make much sense.
I don't think that they would be "a meaningless mass". "A meaningless mass" wouldn't have as objective infecting you or potentially eating you alive. But that's a good point of view.
Thanks you for your answer.
Well, do living Zombies or Zombie diseases really make more sense? Of course they are easier to explain than "living death" and "magic" for that matter... Yes, there are things that CAN to some extend control the brains of living beings. Doesn't explain why these Zombies would attack and eat Humans.... and Humans shuffling brainless around and maybe attacking small animals for food (much easier to kill than big bad humans after all), would maybe be disgusting, but not very scary....
On the other hand, what makes Zombies scary is the mere fact that they have no objective really to attack or infect you... they just have very basic instincts, like craving human flesh. the killing and infecting part is rather accidental.
Which makes Zombies more like a force of nature like a flood or volcano than a sentinent being you can hate, talk to, or hurt.
Great Scott, I just watched a gameplay video of this. That's... wow... bizarre. Must play.
Stubbs the zombie. Really fun game. You eat people's brains and they become zombies, and attempt to do the same.
This game is rated "M" (that is, targetting 17 year olds)? Seriously?
one of the really bad Blade sequels (part 3?) had zombie vampire chihuahuas
It was a zombie pomeranian. Otherwise funny part of a really bad film that bought discrace on the films that came before it 
Stubbs the zombie. Really fun game.
I agree. Best zombie game EVER. We bought this when it came on sale on xbox live, and binge played it an entire afternoon in co-op mode until we'd finished it. The only bit we didnt enjoy was the dance-off. Someone should re-make something similar to this
I think they let you skip the dance off though.
If you fail it twice, you have the option to re-try it, or just start eating the cops' brains instead.
They were actually planning a stubbs 2, but they were bought by Disney 5~ years back, and earlier this year DIsney closed the studio.
Sadly I don't think the IP will ever be used again.
Well, not much into Zombie games but maybe it can be something like iZombie (didn't watch just read the plot, so hope I am not mistaken) you need to feed on brain just like a vampire does with blood to sustain as normal human. So, something like Vampire The Bloodlines : Masquerade but with zombies.
Actually, apart from the "curse" that both two studios making Vampire game is closed, a vampire game might be a good idea as well. (if IP is affordable)
Then I realised that, well, maybe there's too much games about zombies and maybe mine wouldn't make any difference and would be swallowed by the huge mass of generic zombie games and changed the subject.
One can apply the same line of reasoning to a variety of popular themes/settings, such as 'space marines' or 'high fantasy' (dwarves, elves, wizards, etc), or 'minecraft, but with X'. Just because a trope may be overused, doesn't mean that a good game can't succeed anyway.
It does however raise the bar considerably. You now have to make a game that is good enough, and market it well enough, to stand above the sea of mediocre entries crowding gamer's shelves.
Coming up with a unique theme/setting, while it may require more imagination and effort up front, is a relatively sure way to differentiate your game from the competition.
I'm not sure why zombies get such a bum rap.
Yes there are lots of zombie games but there are also lots of games with spaceships, lots of games with wizards, lots of games with barbarians, lots of games that use modern realistic weapons in a first person perspective.
I don't think a game needs to be unique or even cutting edge to be good. It just has to be well executed. Sometimes people just want more of the same.
A few years ago, there was a towerdefense game called "Plants vs Zombies" it wasn't about zombies, it wasn't about plants
it wasn't even a multiplayer-game(so the "vs" was useless) BUT it needed to skin the towers and the attack-waves, so they became plants and zombies,
and it had an interesting, original(and dare i say brilliant) gameplay and scored very high.
The story was a comedy and the zombies were cannon-fodder.
And to be honest, i don't think i 've ever played a game where zombies are more then cannon-fodder,
soo i 'd say, if you can make a good game that has use for (a lot of) cannon-fodder, use zombies, otherwise use something else.
