2012 Zombies vs. Aliens is a new iPhone game with an intriguing premise:

In 2012, Aliens in search of new habitats wiped out the human race, having mistaken humans for just another pest on Earth. Their massive alpha particle weapons laid waste to all human life on the planet, leaving them free to sow the seeds that would make the planet livable for them.
Upon returning years later, expecting to find a new haven, they instead found that those same alpha particles had transformed the dead human flesh into undead hordes of Zombies! Now, as the Aliens return to Earth, a new power struggle to claim lordship over the planet has begun! You are the Zombie Commander charged with defeating the Aliens and saving Zombianity.
After that you can unlock the ability to become the Alien Commander and seize control over the Earth by eliminating the Zombie hordes.

Which side will you choose?

We’ve seen games before where you were allowed to play as a Zombie, or forced to do so after losing a game or round as a Living person, but almost invariably this is seen as playing the ‘wrong’ side or as a punishment. Here, however, we are presented with a game where the primary objective and strategy is to play as, and further the goals of, a Zombie civilization of some kind. This is very interesting from a Zombie Rights perspective, and I’m curious to learn more. The only thing that bugs me from the description is the ‘horde’ word; that’s a pretty sensitive term by now for the Differently Animated community.

Still, worth investigating. An in-depth review here states that the game is a sort of strategy/action hybrid centered around trench warfare; it’s bloody and gory, in a cartoony way. The Zombies here are anything but savage, disorganized brain-munchers though. They use tactics, weapons, organization; they’re a real playable videogame race, not some throwback to the infamous Romero/Russo stereotypes. Fascinating.

Here’s a gameplay video to show what I mean, where the player is using the Alien side apparently:

Boo Aliens! Go Zombies!

Hopefully an Android version will be available if not now then eventually, as that’s the phone platform we’ve decided to go with here at the ZRC, so I can try it for myself. From the video though? Very promising.

Tags: Videogames

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, December 30th, 2010 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.