I don’t love zombies, but I’m probably gonna eat up I Love Zombies

Gotta be honest here…I’m not a huge fan of zombies.

Nowadays, the gaming trends seems to be “add zombies.” They’re coming soon to Red Dead Redemption, they’re swarming about in Borderlands, they’re funnily enough in PopCap puzzle games, they’re in Crackdown 2, they’re sort of in Fallout 3/Fallout: New Vegas, they’re in Mass Effect (don’t try and deny it, Husks), they are most definitely in the Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising series, and they are most likely not going away any time soon.

Hey, some people really dig ’em. Me? Not so much, and not just because I’d totally die super fast during a zombie outbreak.

Of course, there are exceptions. I’m totally in love with Cherie Priest’s books Boneshaker and Dreadnought, which feature zombie-like minions, nicely dubbed rotters, and I also happen to have really enjoyed Tobias Buckell’s Sly Mongoose. Guess I don’t mind the undead too much in fiction form.

That said, Zombie Daisuki (“I Love Zombies”) looks like a lot of fun. It’s a recently announced new Nintendo DS game that puts the player to the task of rebuilding one’s farm during a mass zombie outbreak. So, a survival farming sim? That’s gotta be twenty-six times better than a boring fantasy dungeon crawler farming sim, right? Check out how adorable it looks so far:

I Love Zombies will be released in Japan on January 20, 2011, for JPY 5,040 (approx. USD 62.36), with a B rating (12 and up). There’s not a lot of information out currently, but I’m definitely going to be keeping tabs on this one. It could very well be the title that changes my snobbiness towards zombie-heavy videogames for me.

IMPRESSIONS: Left 4 Dead 2 demo

I try not to judge a book by its cover. Similarly, I try not to judge a videogame by its…heck, they are different beasts than books and by the time a game is released the public has already been spoon-fed screenshots, trailers, previews, demos, and a landfill of hype. So a videogame’s retail cover means nothing in actuality, but what I’m trying to say is that I normally shy away from the crazy, fast-paced shooters of this generation because I feel like they are just not my kind of game. I’m talking about the Halos, the Gears of Wars, the Call of Dutys, and the Left 4 Deads. Last night, I put that theory to the test.

Left 4 Dead 2 comes out on November 17, and a demo for the zombie shootathon went up on Xbox Live at the end of October. Y’know, to gets folks excited. However, being a lowly wielder of the Silver account, I had to wait until yesterday to download it. Oh, lowly me.

The demo offers up two modes of play–single player and online campaign–within one of the game’s five episodes, The Parish, with the first two sections of that episode available for exploring. There’s no story introduction, and you’re dropped off a boat next to, magically, a table of weapons. Grab your gear and go. Go where? Forward. Then the zombies swarm (or maybe not, thanks to the clever and always thinking AI director), and here’s where the problems started…for me, at least.

One, nervous and unsure of how to play, I hung back and allowed my three other teammates to dole out punishment. A single zombie did not get through so basically I just stood in a corner watching. This is equivalent to watching an in-game cinema. I did nothing.

Second, when I finally did decide to shoot some zombies I ended up hitting my teammates more often. They scolded me, and I retreated to hiding in a corner, popping off a shot only when it was clear who what I was aiming at. This only worked in the open areas, like the park and streets. Inside buildings was a no-trigger zone. Was there a button for zoom? I couldn’t figure it out.

Anyways, you’ll travel down streets, through a dark kitchen, across a shrub-heavy park, all while shooting a variety of zombies. They are fast zombies, too, some jumping on your head and others spitting Ecto Cooler at you. The graphics are colorful and strong, and the physicality of everything is pretty impressive, especially how zombies fall differently under gunfire versus melee weapons. In dark areas, the light from your flashlight makes for eerie gunfights. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with some of the items I found, and I just moved from place to place when it go too quiet until eventually the demo came to an end.

Then I played the demo a second time, and the entire scenario was different, which was nice. Very nice, and I slowly improved on shooting zombies. So I’ll pass on the full retail game, as I don’t have anyone to play with (and I’m assuming this is a great game for friends and such) and just replay the demo when I get a hankering for a zombie massacre.

At least now I can say with total authority that Left 4 Dead 2 is not my kind of videogame experience.

The Top Five Sequels I’m Not Interested In

What? My second list already?

Yes, people. This is what chaos looks like. Enjoy this list of game titles with the number 2 at the end…

5. Left 4 Dead 2

I’m no good at shooters. I’m just as no good at horror games where the littlest of things make me jump. Hence, I was never meant to excel at shooting frenetic zombies, and this sequel looks to be more of the same.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Oh hey, look! Another shooter where you shoot things…just like you did in that first game where you shot things!

3. Bioshock 2

I’m still late to the party when it concerns Bioshock, which is a story-driven adventure, a solo game, all about immersion. Seems like the sequel is adding in multiplayer…why? Because that’s what people demand now in every game? Seems forced.

2. Mass Effect 2

I’ll admit that I greatly enjoyed Mass Effect though I’ve only been able to play through it once despite its design for multiple run-throughs. Truthfully, the storyline isn’t that captivating nor does it differ terribly based on who I play as and how I play them. That’s pretty much going to be the same with Mass Effect 2 and rumor has it Shepherd is biting it in this murky middle. Meh.

1. Assassin’s Creed 2

Repetition, repetition, repetition. Good for learning a new language, horrible for a videogame. And this is something that Assassin’s Creed suffered from greatly. Switching scenery might fool me at first, and giving Altair the power to, y’know, swim is nice, but I get the feeling that this one will not have learned from its mistakes and will just be more climbing, more running, and more stealth kills. Plus, I’m still totally bitter about the first game’s “ending”…

And there you have it. Feel free to argue, but it’s pointless. These are games I’m not interested in; your wants and desires will surely vary.