Given the prevalence, not to mention high sales, of Anti-Zombie games lately I suppose it should not have been a surprise that the Kinect, Microsoft’s hot new(ish) peripheral for the Xbox 360 might look to an Anti-Zombie game for some sales:

Color me excited. A 360 exclusive where you can use the Kinect as your interface to fight off zombies. While Sega may have forgotten long ago how to make a Sonic game they sure as hell still can make some fun horror themed games!

Excited? Color us appalled, if the admittedly hyper-vague trailer is anything to go by:

Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, the press kit makes clear the game’s vicious Living Supremacism:

Survive one hellish night as you fight using the hands-free controls of Microsoft® Kinect.

Introducing Rise of Nightmares™, a truly mature experience for Microsoft Kinect. Survive one hellish night as you fight hand to hand against undead enemies and mad scientists using the hands-free controls of Microsoft Kinect. Using knives, chainsaws and your bare hands, rip your foes limb from limb while uncovering the location of your kidnapped wife.

So far this seems to follow in the long and ugly Sega tradition of the ‘House of the Dead’ games. Only of course now, instead of using a plastic quasi-gun to hurt the Undead, you’ll be using your bare hands.

Delightful.

They’re upping the ante however with some preorder bonuses that raised our eyebrows here at the ZRC:

• “Mini Zombie” from the game that will interact with the player’s Avatar on the Xbox 360® dashboard
• Gamestop-Exclusive Premium theme for their Xbox 360® dashboard, inspired by some of the game’s most terrifying locations
• Gamestop-Exclusive Gamer Picture pack that includes a total of ten pictures

Avatar pets are fairly common on the Xbox, and I believe there has been a Zombie ‘pet’ you could own before, but this one is still likely to be very offensive. I mean, what are the odds it asks the player’s avatar for a cup of tea and a nice chat?

I’d wager pretty close to zero.

We’ll keep an eye out for this one here at the ZRC blog; maybe even get a Kinect to try it out.

Though I’m not sure I could stomach ripping apart a virtual Zombie with my bare hands, even to study our enemies and advance The Cause.

Tags: Social Justice, Videogames, What's Up with Japan?

This entry was posted by John Sears on Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 at 4:45 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.