We all know that video games teach us many things but a small sub-section of them provide us with all the survival skills and careful planning needed for theoretical catastrophes or worldwide pandemics.Take the impending Zombie Apocalypse for example.
Fast reaction times, alertness, spatial awareness, hand-eye-coordination and the ability to make swift moral life-or-death decisions are all necessary skills for anyone wanting to survive an onslaught of infected undead.
To prepare us all for the apocalypse, I’ve compiled a list of zombie/infected games which build these skills so that you can practise and plan for that eventual day when the living dead roam our streets, eating the brains of non-gamers who lacked the foresight to train ahead.
Left 4 Dead 1 & 2
These games while never specifically mentioning the “z” word portray a variety of infected beasties who range in speed, dexterity and ugliness.
I recommend any would-be survivor to play these games as they never fail to surprise me. Despite hours and hours of trawling through the various levels, I still find myself screaming out loud when I hear the music that precedes a Tank! That, and I’m never more on edge than when I’m trying to creep past a Witch without a member of my team or one of the AI (probably Louis or Ellis) disturbing her.
The L4D games are without a doubt the best test of courage and trains us to have an iron-clad constitution.
Dead Rising 1 & 2
These games will serve to remind us to lighten up a little and not lose our sense of humour in the apocalypse - which is incredibly important for keeping up morale when you’ve just seen everyone you knew and loved have their craniums shucked and consumed like helpless oysters. Furthermore, the ability to craft and create new weapons from simple items will hone your resourcefulness.
Just don’t get too cocky, making crazy inventions and finding new ways to kill zombies, while creative is not the best use of the majority of your time, so use sparingly.
Resident Evil
The ultimate survival horror franchise has many lessons for the prospective zombie defender, however mixing random plants together is not exactly medicine and it’s probably safer to raid your local pharmacy.
If anything, the Resi games teach us two clear points.
Firstly, don’t trust your boss, chances are he’s working with the enemy and will eventually go too far and genetically merge with the undead filth.
Second (probably the most important advice), before the apocalypse, befriend burly, bearded straight shooters who have a bit of a crush on you and will happily turn up to save you from a sticky situation before quickly quipping and buggering off again.
So.. the Resi tactic, know your colleagues!
House Of The Dead
For those of you who’ve never had arms training or ever actually fired a gun, a lightgun game and the real thing is very different.
Having said that, accuracy, precision and avoiding innocent wandering IDIOTS is incredibly useful. If you can stomach the atrocious dialogue, be sure to get in a few games, just to ensure you know how to shoot straight, just remember that shooting at the floor will not reload your weapon!
Of course, we’ve only just gleaned the surface here, in truth there are countless zombie games and although they can’t all be right (Call Of Duty, I’m looking at you guys!), they all contribute something toward your overall ability to combat the army of blood-thirsty scum, shuffling down our streets any day now.
An incredibly useful resource for all your zombie game needs (console, PC, online, etc) is Zombie Games. Detailed, concise and thorough and so many games, this is a must for anyone hoping to keep their thoughts to themselves... ‘cause the zombies steal thoughts... when eating your brain? Never mind, it was a tenuous attempt at humour.
However, there is one game they appear to have missed from their list.
You see, it appears the Russians been prepping for the apocalypse for a long time, unbeknownst to us.
I’m talking about Tetris.
Hear me out... brightly coloured, or off green for those of us with an original Game Boy, Tetris blocks falling are akin to hoards of zombies.
Our objective was to twist and turn these creatures without actually touching them, so that they could be placed in a neat line and beheaded in a mass culling.
The real giveaway that the Russians have been subconsciously prepping us and have known about the impending apocalypse for a long time is the level design.
Starting with slow manageable zombies that creep and amble down the screen before eventually evolving into terrifyingly fast infected that we are favoured in contemporary media. They eventually overwhelm us because there is no end to the game. Try as we might to decapitate them line-by- line we either get tired of playing, losing all hope or they outnumber us so completely that we can’t become overwhelmed and die.
It’s as if the Russian’s have always known... Argghhh!
So, with this advice in hand I expect to see you on the other side of Z-Day and if you don’t I will berate you for not following my advice; either to your corpse or the zombie you’ve become.
Good luck, all!
