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[img width=300 height=425]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-075/bf/U-075-S-06780-A.jpg[/img]
I could consider my freshman year of high school the time in which I really blossomed socially. I lost over 70 pounds which swelled my confidence and lead to my first, real, fun girlfriend. It was also a time where it was easy to go to anybody's house to play any of the 3 big systems of that time. Ah yes, I remember fondly my experiences with my own Playstation 2, and I had a few Xbox friends, and a couple of Gamecube friends.
One gaming experience that dates back to this time of my life is our game today. One of my football and wrestling teammates had this game for his Xbox and bought it when it was still fairly new. I was at his house when he opened the game and we both got to experience it for the first time with each other. Mainly because this game has split screen, hell yes! It does not make full use of the Xbox though and only allows 2 players at maximum. For my current playthrough I'm flying solo, I started on Normal difficulty but it was too easy for me, so I bumped it up to Tough (Hard).
This is one of the few examples of a game that is almost entirely unique and should be experienced by anybody looking to have a diverse gaming resume. About the only things that are not completely new and awesome in Stubbs is the literal Halo 1 ripoff driving, and loading screens. It says right on the box art that the game was built with the Halo engine. Stubbs changes the perspective from first person to third person, letting you watch our main zombie hero shuffle along his way. Stubbs does move fairly slow being a zombie and all, but compared to the zombie horde that he can control Stubbs has the ability to do a sort of sprint after shuffling in a direction long enough for a speed boost.
I can't even complain about the loading screens.
This game's title is no lie, this game takes the normal idea of the zombie game, that of being a survivor trying to escape having your brains munched on by the living dead, and instead lets you be the living dead and build zombie hordes by gorging on warm, delicious human brains. Stubbs also has quite a few nasty, gory, but effective weapons at his disposal. In the order that they are introduced to the player these weapons are Unholy Flatulence, Gut Grenades, Hand Possession, and Sputum Head. So you get an area of effect stun fart, a lethal grenade from Stubbs' giant shotgun wound, the ability to control an enemy, and can use Stubbs' head as an exploding bowling ball.
They may be undead, but they're still Americans dammit!
For style and plot, as you can see from the clip above this game runs with tongue in cheek B-horror movie inspired parodies, along with witty writing and dialogue that you'll hear coming from those pesky not undead people of the fine, futuristic city of Punchbowl, Pennsylvania circa 1959. Punchbowl is made in the style of those old 50's "City of the Future" specials that are infamous for their insane optimism and wild technology speculation.
Like robots and Star Trek technobabble.
In terms of enemies in the game there is a wonderful variety. There are 6 basic enemy types, 5 of these types have 3-5 specific enemies. The unvaried enemy type is just the easy, usually unarmed, but still delicious common citizen. These enemy types are scattered intelligently throughout the game, so you are constantly adapting to new enemies not only at the beginning of a new level, but throughout the level, and later in the game as well.
For my current playthrough of the game I'm able to experience it through an official Xbox component box and through my TV's component jack, and despite its age it looks fantastic in 1080i. The sound design is also stellar for this game. There is not much music that plays in the game outside of vehicles and areas where there are radios or TV screens in sight, or the mall. What really stands out is the quality of the sound effects, and since there is a general lack of music these needed to be high quality. The sound effects more than deliver, you'll come to love some of the pleas of Punchbowl's citizens and defenders while listening to Stubbs or one of the horde crunch down through a fresh skull and chew the softer, delicate brains.
Being asleep underground for so long leads to the most epic leak taking of all time.
Overall Stubbs is an incredibly well designed game and it is obvious to see why this game has become a cult classic, even if the game is quite short. If you have an Xbox still laying around you owe it to the system to hunt this game down and give it a nice playthrough. I got mine complete for $3 at one of my thrift stores, current online prices hover between $20 and $30 for the Xbox version. The PC and MAC versions are considerably cheaper, but the Xbox version is plentiful enough that you should hopefully not have too much trouble finding a copy for a decent price.
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