I’ve thought that Anti-Zombie media was getting more militaristic for some time, whether it’s the transition from early Survival Horror games like Resident Evil to more martial and ammunition-laden titles like Left 4 Dead and the Call of Duty Zombie levels. Likewise, Army Times recently disgraced itself peddling violent Anti-Zombie imagery to the American military itself.

Still, I think this ‘Zombie Gunship’ app sets a new low for blatant militarization of Anti-Zombie violence:

If you’ve played a gunship level in a Call of Duty game or watched Youtube videos of actual Apache helicopters in action, you’ll recognize the grainy, black and white visuals of Zombie Gunship immediately. The idea is that you’re in control of the weapons on an aircraft that’s circling the base where the humans are holed up. Your goal is to wipe out as many of the invading zombies as you can, while steering clear of the civilians who are also trying to make it to the base. Kill too many civilians or let a zombie into your base, and it’s game over.

…

The graphics and sound are simple but effective. The undead appear as the dark figures trying to make it into the base, while the warm-blooded civilians appear white. Depending on which gun you have equipped, you look down on the environment from three different levels of zoom. When you see a zombie you’d like to fire at, you tap the fire button. Some ammo takes longer to reach the ground than others, so you have to aim accordingly.

Unfortunately, as you can see it goes beyond a graphical design mimicking the kind of gun-cameras that have been a staple in American news since the Gulf War. No, here you’re enacting the slaughter, callously removed from your victims who are easily and mechanically sorted into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ targets based on their body temperature. Segregation by heat signature. Slaughter by infra-red. Disgusting. Disturbing. And apparently, very affordable, hate priced to move at only 99 cents.

Brother. This smartphone era is generating a ton of new and strikingly grim work for the ZRC.

Tags: Social Justice, Videogames

This entry was posted by John Sears on Saturday, July 30th, 2011 at 6:00 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.