Recently here on the ZRC we’ve had a stirring discussion about the nature, and plausibility, of a ‘Zombie Apocalypse’. Yet, amongst virtually all of the media and games surrounding these apocalypse scenarios, very rarely is the plight of the Zombie, even the poor imitation of one Hollywood allows us to see, considered.

We’ve seen that Movie Zombies have it very rough indeed, at least on an individual basis. More realistic modern takes on the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ scenario, like ‘Shaun of the Dead’, show just how ruthless and efficient a modern military apparatus can be in massacring the poor and relatively defenseless Differently Animated, while both “Night of the Living Dead” films posited that rednecks with guns would be a dire threat to the Zombie population. For some reason, never properly explained, the Romero model ‘zombie’, adopted by many others including Robert Kirkman, is at least eventually a terrible threat despite being relatively unintelligent and poorly coordinated, and up against the combined might of PBR drinking hayseeds and the Military-Industrial Complex.

(My personal theory is that the biggest Anti-Zombie creators like Romero and Kirkman are miserable misanthropists, who thusly desire, in their heart of hearts, some form of karmic comeuppance for humankind, and when deprived of this justice in the real world, deliver it in their fiction. But that’s a topic for another day.)

Given the more realistic modern assessment, and the obvious perils faced by these zombie-substitutes, what would it look like if you played a Zompocalypse game from their perspective?

It might be something like this:

Fans of zombie movies will know that surviving hordes of the walking dead isn’t exactly easy, but few are likely to have thought about how hard it would be for a zombie to survive a human onslaught.

Zombie Runaway, Com2uS’s latest game for the iPhone and iPad, allows you to explore that scenario. In this arcade game, you control the last remaining zombie in an attempt to escape from the humans.

Ignoring the Anti-Zombie editorializing there for a bit, wow. A ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ game from a zombie, or ‘zombie’ at least, perspective?

That’s *some* progress at least.

The game itself doesn’t look like my cup of tea, and of course we tend toward Android over iPhone here at the ZRC, but still, it’s a pioneering approach, and we hope to see more games from the Zombie perspective in the near future, so it’s at least a decent start.

It will apparently be out on the App store in a few days, so those of you with iPhones or iPads might consider picking it up.

Tags: Videogames

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 1:20 am 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.