“Hasn't the zombie craze in video game design died off yet?”
That's what I thought to myself as I saw the title “Undead
Nightmare.” Red Dead Redemption's singleplayer expansion came out
in July 2010. When it was first announced, many were slightly
sceptical. There were zombie games all over the place with Dead
Rising and Left 4 Dead, as well as plenty of undead-inspired
mini-games and pieces of DLC such as the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of
Duty. For Rockstar, a company whose wont it is to parody clichés as
opposed to simply running with them them, taking the already
thinly-stretched zombie theme seemed like a bit of a weird decision.
However, Rockstar wouldn't have gathered such universal acclaim if
they hadn't always treated every single subject with the utmost
reverence and care, and this side story in Red Dead is another
testament to that very fact. Resurrection of the dead is often
thought of as a new theme in horror fiction, but it can actually be
traced back to the Egyptians and their mummification of important
people. Still, mingling the Old Western setting with zombies is not
exactly common. And yet that is precisely what they did, and somehow,
a fantastic product came out of it.
As one might expect, Undead Nightmare takes place in an alternate
reality to the original game. Marston is sitting at home with his
family, when Uncle comes home and acts rather strangely. Things turn
ugly quickly and both John's son and wife are bitten. He is thus
forced to tie them up until he has found a cure, and heads off to the
nearby town of Blackwater, where he has hilarious encounters with
some of the greatest characters from Red Dead Redemption's storyline.
What makes this whole zombie outbreak setting work is the sheer
brilliance of the dialogue. Marston has always served as a neutral
factor in the cutscenes. He was his own character, but for the bulk
of the main story, he did little to judge other characters' motifs,
instead simply obeying because he felt he had to. In a similar
fashion, he takes all the craziness that goes down in this dark new
world in stride like it is nothing. His dry commentary on the
outrageous suffering that was everywhere had me a in stitches on
multiple occasions, especially when it was coupled with the baffled
and gullible inhabitants of the New World wondering just what the
hell is going on. Over the course of the four to six hours it took me
to beat Undead Nightmare, I never got tired of the babbling about
curses and the ignorance the characters display. Their motions are
overblown, like this whole thing is almost a Monty Pythonian-esque
play. For this reason alone, Rockstar validates its 20 euros asking
price for the package.
Actually playing Undead Nightmare is a pretty different experience
from playing the full game as well. There are still missions to
receive from quest-givers, as usual, which move you towards the
conclusion of the story. The meat of the gameplay is found in
liberating and defending towns, however. You will travel all over all
three regions of America, and just about every settlement needs to be
released from the terror of the zombies. This boils down to going in
and either giving the survivors who are shooting dudes from the
rooftops the supplies they need and draining your own in the process
or shooting enough walking dead to clear the town. From there, the
town will be safe, though you will get messages that tell you to go
back and help out a village, as it has been overrun once more, which
was more cumbersome than anything.
The zombies in this Nightmare are in the middle between the extremely
slow ypes and the quick ones. There are a couple of variations,
including the regular ol' lumbering generic dudes, acidic green
zombies and the brutes; big dudes with a lot of power. They are
definitely harder to kill than the human outlaws you faced in Red
Dead Redemption, and continue to get up until you've blown off their
head. For this reason, Dead Eye is pretty much the key to every
single battle. If you manage to position yourself properly and line
up enough zombies, battles blow over pretty quickly. Nonetheless, I
grew tired of fighting these things about halfway through. It all
became kind of a grind, especially the freeing of towns. The
shooting in this game is good, but there were times when I just
didn't want to go in there and shoot zombies any more, despite some
of the cool weapons that are included.
Some of the very best Stranger encounters in the entire Red Dead
Redemption package appear in zombieland. They made up some of the
best moments in the real game, and the same can be said here. On top
of that, the four horses of the apocalypse have also come down with
the zombie plague, and they are there to be found and broken by the
players. Riding them is pretty awesome, although they had a very
annoying tendency to die on me—though I can't deny that I should
have been more careful with them around the deadly channel between
New Austin and Mexico. It's a pretty funny inclusion that just goes
to show how Rockstar has dealt with the source material: with just
the right amount of respect and humour.
If you loved any of the characters from Red Dead Redemption, I reckon
Undead Nightmare will be enjoyable to you. It portrays the hilarity
of a zombie outbreak to absolute perfection. The gameplay grew stale
after a while, but that far from ruined the experience. 20 euros is a
pretty steep asking price, but I can still quite easily recommend
this piece of downloadable content. You should get it. Rockstar's
extension of Red Dead's campaign is one of the absolute highlights of
the zombie trend, and if it keeps on giving birth to such gems, I do
not see why it should go away any time soon.