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Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse Mini Review
Jon Wilcox
09/02/2006
TVG walks the futuristic city of the 1950s in Wideload Games' debut zombie-flesh eating debut...
This week sees the release of the first title to come from Bungie founder Alexander Seropian's new company, Wideload Games - the brain-eating undead walking Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Cause. Set in the nineteen-fifties showcase city of Punchbowl, and featuring the 'gadgets of the future' including Guidebots, and hover cars, the metropolis' opening day is ruined when a zombie called Stubbs decides to go on a rampage - killing local citizens who then reanimate as the undead themselves. The fact that the tables are turned and players take control of the zombie rather than the defending humans does make for a refreshing change (much like the invading aliens in THQ/Pandemic's Destroy All Humans in 2005), and is certainly one idea that won't be going away any time soon - UK developer Blitz game's mature label Volatile are currently working on zombie-fest Possession for the next-gen consoles.
Armed with a small plethora of formidable offensive manoeuvres including farts that stun within a certain radius, explosive guts, possession empowering arms, and of course the ability to eat the brains (replenishing his health) of anybody who gets in his way, Stubbs is a force to be reckoned with - which is one of the first real problems with the game - it doesn't really pose much of a challenge. Despite certain occasions when the green-skinned corpse is seemingly outnumbered, the fact remains that with an increasing mass of the undead also ripping into the living, any resistance is quickly dealt with making progress through the missions straightforward enough. Thankfully Stubbs does have four difficulty settings, which should pose more of a challenge to the more hard gaming fraternity.
But running around the streets of Punchbowl and its surrounding area isn't the only way of moving around; Stubbs can also make use of several vehicles founding the game including the Sod-o-Mobile and pitchfork-lined tractors, which thanks to Wideload's use of the Halo engine moves and feels exactly like a Warthog. Vehicular gameplay is fairly sparse however and for the most part players will find themselves roaming the interiors and exteriors of the 'City of the Future'. Cue, the second key criticism: repetition.
Like Pandemic's B-movie parody Destroy All Humans, Stubbs has a wide range of humour and it's clear to see that the production of the game has been a true labour of love for the team at Wideload. Unlike that other parody however, the level of humour stays fairly consistent and emerges in a number forms from the whole notion of throwing gut grenades to the pleas of Stubbs' victims - not to mention completing an objective of peeing into Punchbowl's water supply. However Stubbs does suffer from gameplay that gets progressively repetitive. There's little variety in the experience and it's just not immersive as to distract players from this fact, which is a shame. Running around time and time again eating brains is fun to begin with (which technically isn't cannibalism since Stubbs has been undead for over twenty years) all too quickly becomes the mainstay of the experience, compounding to the repetition. There are glimpses of variety, but these are few and far between, but the highlight has to be a dance off between Stubbs and the Chief of Police - not exactly Dance Dance Revolution, but fun none the less; it would just have been good to have more mini-games like that.
Away from the single-player experience, Wideload has also added a co-operative mode, enabling two players to take over Punchbowl simultaneously. Adding the mode seems to have been a stroke of genius for the team, and the humour, which is key characteristic of the game, feels more substantial during co-op. It also makes it easier to negotiate tactics so that one player can be forcing victims backwards whilst the other sneaks up behind them for an easy meal, er, kill. Of course an explanation as to why there are now two Stubbs and not a different looking cohort remains a mystery...
For all its complaints of being repetitive, there's one thing that Stubbs the Zombie certainly doesn't lack, and that's style. From the design of Punchbowl, which jumps straight from the sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s, through to the desaturated colour schemes and visual effects (such as celluloid scratches and noise on screen), and the pseudo-Rat Pack look of the main man(?) himself, the team at Wideload have hit the nail on the head. Further to that is one of the real coups for the game, its soundtrack, which is available to buy separately on CD. Featuring a dozen tracks from the period (such as Earth Angel, Mr Sandman, and Lollipop) covered by bands including The Flaming Lips, and The Dandy Warhols, the music is one of the most memorable aspects of Stubbs and an element that doesn't tire over time.
In the same vein as last year's Destroy All Humans (also from THQ, but developed by Pandemic), Stubbs the Zombie is very much a one trick pony. Though there is a consistent vein of humour running throughout ever aspect of the game from the visuals to the soundtrack, the dialogue, and the gameplay itself, Stubbs does suffer a tad from repetitiveness. There's no doubt that what it does in terms of style, is executed to a high level, but there are aspects within the gameplay that are found wanting. It may use the Halo engine, but a killer app for Microsoft's debut console, it isn't.
