Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse Review

Stubbs the Zombie is like a dream game for zombie fans. We finally get the chance to play as a zombie and eat brains, tear people in half, and beat people to death with their own arm. If any part of that sentence was appealing to you, you should go buy Stubbs the Zombie right now. If you aren’t a zombie fan, though, there isn’t anything new or terribly exciting going on here. Just some good old fashioned horror/comedy that zombie lovers will love to love.

Story and Setting

The star of the game is, you guessed it, a zombie named Stubbs. You get some little insights into his backstory and how he came to be a member of the walking dead as you play through the game, but the story isn’t terribly important. It all boils down to some people wronged you and now you must eat their brains. Stubbs himself is actually a really cool character that is quite likeable. A friend of mine commented that he looks sort of like Steve-O from Jackass and that just makes the jokes and humor even better if you think about it that way. The game takes place in a retro-futuristic take on the 1950’s complete with robot helpers, hovercars, and laser guns. This setting and the great characters all combine to make this a truly hilarious game. Things such as Stubbs giving a Patton-style speech to his zombie buddies are common and there is a sequence early in the game involving a robot at a gas station that is probably the funniest scene to ever appear in a videogame.

Gameplay

The gameplay in Stubbs the Zombie is incredibly well paced and you are given new abilities at a regular basis and always fighting new and different enemies which keeps the game feeling fresh. You are a Romero-style slow, stumbling, mumbling type zombie that can turn any humans you kill into zombies. You start off with just being able to melee attack and bite enemies, but you quickly learn new abilities. You can stun enemies with a gaseous cloud, throw gut grenades, tear off your hand and use it to control humans, and use your head like a bowling ball to knock over groups of enemies. These abilities are all very useful and really add a lot of variety to the game. Being able to control humans is particularly fun because you can control cops and rednecks and other characters that have weapons and then the game becomes a third-person shooter. And like I said, all of the humans you kill come back as zombies and it is an absolute thrill to have an army of 25-30 zombies following you around and doing your bidding. This game is flat out fun for zombie fans and really lets you do pretty much everything you ever wanted.

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