Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse

Hundreds of movies and dozens of video games have taken the dead,
returned them to life and sicked them on the currently living. Blood,
guts and general gore are mixed oh-so well into a cornucopia of plot
holes and mediocre acting to achieve box office profits. Now, players
can assume the role of one shuffling post-mortem citizen as Stubbs the
Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the Xbox, PC and Mac platforms.

Stubbs is a former life insurance salesman who met his fate one day
when a prospective customer introduced a shotgun to his belly. Left to
rot in an unmarked grave, Stubbs awakens some 20 years later in an
alternate 1950’s Pennsylvanian city called Punchbowl, where robots do
all the manual labor and cars hover, but horny teenagers still make out
(and take shelter from zombies) at the mall. As stubbs, your only
motivation to escaping from Nazi scientists, plowing through militia
and ripping the arms from average citizens is the pursuit of a zombie’s
nectar of the gods: brains.

There’s no necessarily cohesive
storyline, just like most living dead flics, but Stubbs finds several
unique methods of causing chaos at his decomposing fingertips. Off the
bat, an undead fart is available to stun your opponents long enough to
easily walk in and take a bit out of their skulls. Each victim you
eviscerate becomes a zombie himself, one in which you have limited
control over. They will in turn attack the living or help to slow your
aggresors down. As you progress, you’ll be granted to ability to toss
lethal body-part grenades, tear off your own hand to possess opponents
and decapitate yourself to use your head as an exploding bowling ball.
These abilities each have energy meters that only refill after you’ve
snacked on some gray matter. Ripping your hand off lets your fingers do
the walkin until you’ve found someone among the living you’d like to
take over. If that’s a cop, you have a gun and an arm stunner at your
disposal. If it’s a militia man, you can get a shotgun or muzzle loaded
rifle. If they’ve got it, you can get it. Lasers, crowbars, rocket
launchers, even the vehicles they drive.

Please note, this
game is rated M for mature and for a VERY good reason. There is a lot,
repeat A LOT of blood in this. Blood, guts, dismemberment, language and
content found in this title scream KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. That
being said, the title has some great adult humor, constantly taking
shots at cornball 50’s horror movies. Cut scenes and in game dialogue
from non-playable characters bring out the one-liners and should force
out a few laughs to the non-prudish.

The game controls well,
being built on Bungie’s Halo engine so frame rate and responsiveness
are top notch, however the visuals are “grained-up” to make it look
like you’re playing a 50’s B-movie. This is more distracting than
stylistic and tends to keep things very dark and on the blurred side,
especiialy during times when the visuals go to black and white (rolling
your head, using your hand to possess others). Co-op play is also an
option, splitting the screen for Stubbs and a friend to play through
the story together, but the gameplay doesn’t lend itself to any
specific teamwork tactics and becomes more of a nuisance not having the
entire screen to play in. There are a few Vs. Challenge modes, but we
didn’t find them to be of much interest.

Overall, the game
handles very well, throws in some good humor and has an excellent
soundtrack using new artists covering classic 50’s rock fare, but there
is a lot of tedium in the wide open levels that makes it hard to come
back for more. Definately worth a play for it’s uniqueness, but a
rental might be the way to go.