The Zombie Apocalypse Survival Flow Chart [Screengrab]

Will you die now, or survive to die in the sequel? The suspense (and zombies) is killing us, as seen on Game Informer. More

The Rock Band Network Goes Live With 100 Plus New Tracks [Harmonix]

In January, Harmonix launched the tools needed for artists to publish their songs on the Rock Band Network . Today, the Rock Band Network Store opens to the public, with more than 100 new songs for fans to purchase and play. The Rock Band Network Store is now online, with new track from artists ranging from 3 Inches of Blood to Zack Wilson now available for download. New tracks will be debuting on the Xbox 360 on a regular basis, with 30 days of exclusivity. A subset of standout tracks from the Xbox 360 will be made available to those playing on the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, which answers a question Totilo had when he previewed the service back in August . “The response to and interest in the Rock Band Network has been even greater than we originally expected,” said Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix Music Systems. “We’re very excited about the number of bands and labels who have geared up to participate in the Rock Band Network, as well as the number of enthusiasts who have signed up to participate in the Peer Review and Playtest processes.” Check out Totilo’s article for a good overview of the process involved in getting your music onto the Rock Band Network Music Store. Below you’ll find the full day-one track listing for the Rock Band Network Music Store. See anything you like? I’m going to be playing Jonathan Coulton and Flogging Molly all day long and you can’t stop me. 3 Inches of Blood – Battles and Brotherhood Alias Unknown – Top Back Amberian Dawn – He Sleeps in a Grove Amberian Dawn – River of Tuoni Andrew Buch – Trippolette Audio Fiction – Race The Hourglass Bif Naked – Sick Blackmarket – Tongue Twister Typo Bojibian – Still There C&O – We Are the Best Chaunce DeLeon and The Fountain of Choof – Tadpole Search and Rescue Children of Nova – The Complexity of Light Color Theory – If Not Now When Dear and the Headlights – Talk About Despised Icon – Day of Mourning DnA’s Evolution – The Heist Error 404 feat. CJ Watson – If Trucks Drank Beer Fake Shark-Real Zombie! – Angel Lust Fake Shark-Real Zombie! – Horses in Heaven Fake Shark-Real Zombie! – Running for the Razors Fake Shark-Real Zombie! – Sestri Levante Five Finger Death Punch – Burn it Down Flogging Molly – Drunken Lullabies (Live) Flogging Molly – Requiem for a Dying Song Foreword – Watch It All Go Down Free Spirit – Far Away from Heaven Full-Source – End Quote Full-Source – It’s Not You, It’s Everyone Full-Source – Red Sky At Morn Furly – Icarus’ Song Gandhi – Arigato Giant Target – In Memories Giant Target – Signs Glass Hammer – Hyperbole Glass Hammer – Sleep On Heaven Ablaze – Parhelia In This Moment – Mechanical Love James William Roy – Paper Valentines Jonathan Coulton – Creepy Doll Jonathan Coulton – Ikea Jonathan Coulton – The Future Soon KMFDM – A Drug Against War KMFDM – Juke Joint Jezebel Kristin Hersh – Fortune Kristin Hersh – Mississippi Kite Lacuna Coil – Survive Lead the Dead – Rip’er Longwave – No Direction Marillion – Whatever Is Wrong With You Matter in the Medium – Persistence of Vision MC Frontalot – Goth Girls Nick Gallant – Inside Out Nick Gallant – Turn Yourself Around Of Last Resort – Fade Away of Montreal – Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse Pink Flag – Nancy Drew Ron Wasserman – Fight Back Rose of Jericho – Buried Cold Scratching The Itch – Lemon Juice Scratching The Itch – The Buddy Disease Scratching The Itch – You’re My Everything Senses Fail – Lady in a Blue Dress Skeletonwitch – Crushed Beyond Dust Skindred – Stand for Something Speck – Grumpytown Speck – VP of Booty Reports Stars of Boulevard – Limousine Stephanie Hatfield and Hot Mess – Can I Stay Steve and Lindley Band – Backyard Buildyard Steve Vai – For the Love of God (Live) Steve Vai – Get the Hell Out of Here Steve Vai – The Attitude Song Stroke 9 – Kick Some Ass ‘09 Stroke 9 – Little Black Backpack ‘09 Suicide Silence – Disengage Surprise Me Mr. Davis – Sissyfuss The Cold Goodnight – Give The Dirty Love Band – Moonboy The Everybody – You Got That The Fisticuffs – Liverpool Judies The Hold Steady – Sequestered in Memphis The Humans – It’s Good The Kimberly Trip – California The Main Drag – Cease and Desist The Main Drag – Don’t Let Me Down (Slowly) The Main Drag – Dove Nets The Main Drag – Homosuperior The Main Drag – How We’d Look On Paper The Main Drag – Love During Wartime The Main Drag – Megatron The Main Drag – Talk Them Down The Main Drag – Teeth, Face, Outerspace The Main Drag – Tricky Girl The Main Drag – What’s Your Favorite Dinosaur? The Shins – Australia The Slip – Children of December The Slip – Even Rats Ultra Saturday – Not My Fault Ultra Saturday – Superhero! WaveGroup Feat. Becca Neun – Liquid Smog (StompBox Remix) Wounded Soul – Rx You Shriek – Lilith in Libra You Shriek – No Heroes Zack Wilson – Another California Song Zack Wilson – Ox The Rock Band Network Music Store Goes Live!!! [Harmonix]

Read more from the original source:
The Rock Band Network Goes Live With 100 Plus New Tracks [Harmonix]

Blacklight: Tango Down is Coming to XBLA in Summer 2010

Ignition and Zombie Studios are developing Blacklight: Tango Down, a near-future first person shooter that will offer AAA-quality military shooter action in a downloadable package; it’s coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade in Summer 2010.

Original post:
Blacklight: Tango Down is Coming to XBLA in Summer 2010

The Crazies Review: Left 4 Dead In a Small Town [Review]

An idyllic American town plunges into murder and mayhem after a toxin finds its way into the water supply, leaving a sheriff, his deputy, his wife and her friend to survive a town now peopled by The Crazies in what looks an awful lot like a zombie apocalypse. Sound familiar? While this is no Left 4 Dead, there’s plenty about the remake of 1973’s The Crazies that will feel familiar to fans of zombie games and movies . Lets see if it’s worth the nearly two hours to check out. Loved Zombie 2.0: How quickly we grow bored of zombies, or at least the way they were created and how they behave. What started as an off-shoot of voodoo rituals and resulted in mindless, ambling, brain-eating undead, has seen quite a few changes over the year. The slow, moving, unthinking zombies of movies like White Zombie and Dawn of the Dead, gave way to faster unthinking zombies in movies like 28 Days Later, Resident Evil: Extinction and Zombieland. The Crazies brings us a kind of zombie that, while slowly decaying and murderous, can still plan out attacks and use tactics. The In Cold Blood: What makes zombies creepy on such a deep level is the fact that they don’t make sense. The dead stay dead, they don’t get up and start eating you. The Crazies magnifies this uncanny effect by setting the entire movie in a tiny isolated Iowa town where everyone knows everyone. It’s frightening not just because of the startles and mayhem you witness, but because deep down you know violence like this isn’t supposed to ever happen in small towns in America’s heartland. The Moral of the Story: The Crazies, as Fahey pointed out on Friday, is a remake of a 1973 movie of the same name. The 70s original was directed by the king of zombies himself: George A. Romero. Like other Romero movies, The Crazies was a film very much tied to the current events surrounding its release. While 1968’s Night of the Living Dead took careful aim at the American society of that decade, The Crazies seems more driven by the politics of its time, landing in the midst of a general distrust of the government driven by Vietnam, the Watergate imbroglio and President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. In the 70s version, the movie worked best as a critique of the moral ambiguity of Nixon and concerns over the war. That version followed a Vietnam veteran turned firefighter, and elements of the story included scenes of Washington politics. In the remake, the movie’s government is faceless and heartless. The only responsible party ever show is a sweaty white guy pulled from a Cadillac Escalade, who asks the hero sheriff “What do you expect of me.” “An apology,” is the reply, driving home, perhaps, the fact that the movie isn’t just talking about zombies, but something more. Scares: Fans of frightening movies should get a kick out of the flick’s skillful navigation around the typical startle moments in a scary movie. The mirror scare, the closet scare, the happy music scare, most of these and other horror cliches get little attention in this film, which instead finds new ways to squeeze our a few screams from its viewers. Tension: Early in, the movie slowly cranks up the emotional tension and it never turns it back down. The pacing delivers a taut tale, an unwavering movie that blasts past you in a single gasp. Tight editing, camera work and plot deliver a film with little wasted moments and no time to relax until the very, sadly expected ending. Hated Throwaway Cast: A sheriff, a nurse, a deputy, a frightened teen, The Crazies isn’t very creative in forming its band of survivors. Even the male to female ratio is dead on. With so little effort put into central characters, it would have been nice to see something interesting happen in terms of emotional development or relationships, but that too falls desperately short. Forgettable: Zombie movies have been done to death, recreating a 70s movie means that you’re starting out decades behind where horror movies have gone since. Unfortunately, The Crazies doesn’t seem to recognize that. The end result is a movie, that while not bad, is certainly forgettable. Maybe that’s worse. Too Safe: The scares, the themes, the gore are all very adult, but the terror of the movie feels watered down. It’s as if the team behind The Crazies were afraid to stray too far from the original, or push too hard against the conventions of zombie apocalypse movies. The Ending: If you’ve seen a zombie infestation movie, you know how this one ends. It’s unfortunate that a movie so smartly written manages to still fall back on the biggest zombie flick cliche of all, undermining all of that build up and subtext. The Crazies has its moments, it’s certainly a tense movie, but ultimately it doesn’t go far enough to deliver the scares or enough of the gore that fans of the genre will be expecting. I was expecting, hoping, for the sorts of moments that these movies are best at delivering: Frightening, unsettling tableaus of horror. The notion of a more meaningful theme in the movie also falls apart in the end with The Crazies ultimately falling back on a trite finale and half-baked conclusion. The Crazies was directed by Breck Eisner and distributed by Overture Films on Feb. 24. Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ .

Go here to see the original:
The Crazies Review: Left 4 Dead In a Small Town [Review]

Borderlands DLC Getting Retail Release [Gearbox Studios]

Borderlands, Gearbox Studios’ surprise hit shooter of 2009, will soon be bundling its downloadable content into a single package, which will be released in a box for retail shelves. The game has so far had three pieces of DLC: The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot and the Secret Armory of General Knoxx. They’ve differed in quality, but since these kind of packs are normally big on savings (thogh pricing is still TBA), that shouldn’t be too big a problem. It’ll be out in the UK next month on 360 and PC, with a US release date (and PS3 edition) unconfirmed at this time. Borderlands DLC to get disc release [Eurogamer]

Excerpt from:
Borderlands DLC Getting Retail Release [Gearbox Studios]

Where Have All The Zombies Gone? [The Crazies]

The Infected. Los Ganados. Majini. Parasite hosts. Some of the biggest “zombie” games in recent years don’t feature the undead. Why can’t we call a spade a spade, burying it in the neck of a good old-fashioned undead zombie? This is a conversation we’ve been having fairly often lately at Kotaku Tower, mainly due to the release of the film The Crazies, which we’ll be reviewing here next week. The Crazies (seen above) features a small town plagued by a mysterious toxin, which turns humans into violent maniacs before eventually killing them. While the Crazies aren’t technically zombies, they do share traits similar to other zombie-alikes found in recent games. What’s interesting here is that the 2010 film The Crazies is a remake of 1973’s The Crazies, written and directed by one George Romero, five years after the release of Night of the Living Dead. So if Romero, the king of zombie horror himself, strayed from the zombie formula so soon after Night of the Living Dead, perhaps it’s no wonder that our video game maker’s opt for other explanations for why people are shambling about eating each other. Take for instance: Resident Evil Didn’t Resident Evil originally have zombies in it? Sure, they were really just humans infected with various viruses, but I’m pretty sure they were still called zombies, up to a certain point. In Resident Evil 4 the zombies were no more, replaced with Los Ganados, Spanish for The Cattle. These non-zombies (nombies?) were faster and more intelligent than those in previous games in the series. In Resident Evil 5 they became the Majini, which is Swahili for not-zombies, or more accurately, evil spirit. They were smarter, faster, and still not zombies. Boo. Dead Rising Frank West has covered wars, you know, and he’s also covered hordes of non-zombies invading a mall in a small town. While the shambling hordes in Dead Rising were indeed dead, they weren’t really undead, their bodies controlled by a parasitic insect nesting in their brains, taking control after killing the hosts. Left 4 Dead Despite looking the part, the creatures in Valve’s Left 4 Dead series are victims of a rabies-like virus that causes psychosis. Perhaps they are more like the people in The Crazies than any other video game zombie-alikes. Dead Space No, not space zombies, as amazingly cool as that would be. Just Necromorphs, which sounds to me like the worst Power Ranger spinoff ever. So what qualifies as traditional zombies? In our eyes, there are two main types. Voodoo zombies, which have been seen in games like Akuji the Heartless and Shadow Man, and the mysterious, unexplained zombies. The latter are the sort of zombies you’d see in a George Romero film, the product of some mysterious plague that brings corpses back to life, or perhaps hell overflowing. The key is that we either don’t know why the zombies are back, or they are the product of voodoo. They also have to actually be the dead, brought back to life. None of this rabies, virus, iPhone app made them crazy nonsense. There are a few games that have done it right lately. For example: Call of Duty: World at War While it’s hardly a zombie video game, the zombies in Call of Duty: World at War’s zombie maps are never really explained. The dead have risen, you have to kill them, end of story. Considering it takes place in the middle of World War II, I’m going to assume hell is overflowing. War does that. Plants Vs. Zombies Indie developers don’t seem all that hesitant to throw about the word ‘zombies’ whenever possible. Perhaps they feel they are below the radar from the imaginary zombie police, or maybe you don’t really need to know where the undead in Plants Vs. Zombies come from in order to have a good time with it. With those criteria in mind, what are your favorite zombie video games, and do they actually contain zombies? Be wary! Even the most convincing shambling, brain-munching creature might simply be a guy with a really, really bad cold.

See the original post here:
Where Have All The Zombies Gone? [The Crazies]

Where Have All The Zombies Gone? [The Crazies]

The Infected. Los Ganados. Majini. Parasite hosts. Some of the biggest “zombie” games in recent years don’t feature the undead. Why can’t we call a spade a spade, burying it in the neck of a good old-fashioned undead zombie? This is a conversation we’ve been having fairly often lately at Kotaku Tower, mainly due to the release of the film The Crazies, which we’ll be reviewing here next week. The Crazies (seen above) features a small town plagued by a mysterious toxin, which turns humans into violent maniacs before eventually killing them. While the Crazies aren’t technically zombies, they do share traits similar to other zombie-alikes found in recent games. What’s interesting here is that the 2010 film The Crazies is a remake of 1973’s The Crazies, written and directed by one George Romero, five years after the release of Night of the Living Dead. So if Romero, the king of zombie horror himself, strayed from the zombie formula so soon after Night of the Living Dead, perhaps it’s no wonder that our video game maker’s opt for other explanations for why people are shambling about eating each other. Take for instance: Resident Evil Didn’t Resident Evil originally have zombies in it? Sure, they were really just humans infected with various viruses, but I’m pretty sure they were still called zombies, up to a certain point. In Resident Evil 4 the zombies were no more, replaced with Los Ganados, Spanish for The Cattle. These non-zombies (nombies?) were faster and more intelligent than those in previous games in the series. In Resident Evil 5 they became the Majini, which is Swahili for not-zombies, or more accurately, evil spirit. They were smarter, faster, and still not zombies. Boo. Dead Rising Frank West has covered wars, you know, and he’s also covered hordes of non-zombies invading a mall in a small town. While the shambling hordes in Dead Rising were indeed dead, they weren’t really undead, their bodies controlled by a parasitic insect nesting in their brains, taking control after killing the hosts. Left 4 Dead Despite looking the part, the creatures in Valve’s Left 4 Dead series are victims of a rabies-like virus that causes psychosis. Perhaps they are more like the people in The Crazies than any other video game zombie-alikes. Dead Space No, not space zombies, as amazingly cool as that would be. Just Necromorphs, which sounds to me like the worst Power Ranger spinoff ever. So what qualifies as traditional zombies? In our eyes, there are two main types. Voodoo zombies, which have been seen in games like Akuji the Heartless and Shadow Man, and the mysterious, unexplained zombies. The latter are the sort of zombies you’d see in a George Romero film, the product of some mysterious plague that brings corpses back to life, or perhaps hell overflowing. The key is that we either don’t know why the zombies are back, or they are the product of voodoo. They also have to actually be the dead, brought back to life. None of this rabies, virus, iPhone app made them crazy nonsense. There are a few games that have done it right lately. For example: Call of Duty: World at War While it’s hardly a zombie video game, the zombies in Call of Duty: World at War’s zombie maps are never really explained. The dead have risen, you have to kill them, end of story. Considering it takes place in the middle of World War II, I’m going to assume hell is overflowing. War does that. Plants Vs. Zombies Indie developers don’t seem all that hesitant to throw about the word ‘zombies’ whenever possible. Perhaps they feel they are below the radar from the imaginary zombie police, or maybe you don’t really need to know where the undead in Plants Vs. Zombies come from in order to have a good time with it. With those criteria in mind, what are your favorite zombie video games, and do they actually contain zombies? Be wary! Even the most convincing shambling, brain-munching creature might simply be a guy with a really, really bad cold.

Read the original here:
Where Have All The Zombies Gone? [The Crazies]

Libraries vs. Zombies [Note]

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: But… How Does He Know? Yeah, kids say the darnedest things. They also check out the darnedest things from the library. Tristan is 8, so he’s well, well into the reading phase. Trish takes him to the library once a week to peruse and select titles from their children’s section. Yesterday he came home with a book on Hummingbirds and another one on Zombies. Both were non-fiction. That’s right our library’s children’s section has books on the history and legends of and the practical methods for making zombies. Seriously. Yes, I think that’s awesome. In fact, last night I read it going to bed. Who knew there was such a thing as a Zombie Cucumber.. and that it has nothing to do with Plants vs. Zombies? What you missed: Alpha Protocol Slips Into Stores on June 1 Why We Play Games, And Why We Grumble About Them Mile Marker 14: Shank Super Mario Galaxy 2: Yoshi’s Back…and He Brought a Drill! Heavy Rain Explores Player Depression With Freezes And Glitches Unreal Modders Win Awards, Don’t All Clone Gears of War The Wii’s Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Is Not a Ported Prince The Difference Between A Pinata Kill And A Hang Kill To-Do In Boston: Kotaku’s Very Own PAX East Panel Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies Verrückt Micro-Review: Solo Fun That Halo Reach Script Must Be Intense

Go here to see the original:
Libraries vs. Zombies [Note]

The Tester: Episode 2: The "Communication Breakdown" Liveblog: Barmy of None [Liveblog]

PlayStation Network reality show The Tester enters its second week, with just nine contestants vying for a Sony Computer Entertainment America QA testing job and no hope for cancellation. The newest episode “Communication Breakdown” is now live. Let’s watch! For those who may have missed last week’s debut episode, two contestants were eliminated, the bevested Barmy, booted for his low score and evil vibe detected by judge Hal Sparks, and the mysterious Roni, who may have simply been too tender for such a vicious competition. Who will be eliminated this week? And what profanity from guest judge David Jaffe will be bleeped? Follow along in our liveblog, download the episode (they’re free!) and make sure you’ve set your personal preferences to Reality Show Mode. Just watch your words. There are a couple of Testers in the Kotaku comments ready to give you a piece of their mind. The Tester #2 Update: Well that certainly was exciting. If you didn’t catch our liveblog of all the quality assurance job hunting drama, we’re now down to eight contestants minus one “Goof,” plus one sure to fail alliance headed by Doc. Doc replaces Barmy as the villain, of sorts, at least until Zombie Barmy returns thanks to some magical voodoo vest falling into the wrong hands. Here’s hoping that we get to see a little more David Jaffe in the next episode and at least one drunken brawl. The amount of Tester on Tester violence is intolerably low right now! Just kidding, play safe, kids!

Excerpt from:
The Tester: Episode 2: The "Communication Breakdown" Liveblog: Barmy of None [Liveblog]

The Tester: Episode 2: The "Communication Breakdown" Liveblog: Barmy of None [Liveblog]

PlayStation Network reality show The Tester enters its second week, with just nine contestants vying for a Sony Computer Entertainment America QA testing job and no hope for cancellation. The newest episode “Communication Breakdown” is now live. Let’s watch! For those who may have missed last week’s debut episode, two contestants were eliminated, the bevested Barmy, booted for his low score and evil vibe detected by judge Hal Sparks, and the mysterious Roni, who may have simply been too tender for such a vicious competition. Who will be eliminated this week? And what profanity from guest judge David Jaffe will be bleeped? Follow along in our liveblog, download the episode (they’re free!) and make sure you’ve set your personal preferences to Reality Show Mode. Just watch your words. There are a couple of Testers in the Kotaku comments ready to give you a piece of their mind. The Tester #2 Update: Well that certainly was exciting. If you didn’t catch our liveblog of all the quality assurance job hunting drama, we’re now down to eight contestants minus one “Goof,” plus one sure to fail alliance headed by Doc. Doc replaces Barmy as the villain, of sorts, at least until Zombie Barmy returns thanks to some magical voodoo vest falling into the wrong hands. Here’s hoping that we get to see a little more David Jaffe in the next episode and at least one drunken brawl. The amount of Tester on Tester violence is intolerably low right now! Just kidding, play safe, kids!

Continued here:
The Tester: Episode 2: The "Communication Breakdown" Liveblog: Barmy of None [Liveblog]

Next Page »