The Evolution of a Brain Eater

Romero's original zombies.

So I'm a big zombie fan. This is no secret. One of the things that I've found very interesting about the "zombie" is how the definition zombie has changed. It used to be that a zombie was simple. The reanimated dead. As Romero brought them into mainstream popular culture they were a brain dead bunch who shambled about trying to eat the one thing that didn't seem to reanimate with the rest of their bodies. BRAIIIIIIINNNNNNNSSSS! While Romero brought them into the mainstream consciousness the zombie originates in voodoo. Some of the original zombie-lore exposed to our western world were stories featuring Haitian locales. Zombies in those early stories weren't dead souls reanimated, they were just people that had been brainwashed and bound to do the bidding of the "hexist". 

Romero borrowed influence from these early tales, but rather than have it be a hex put on by a witch doctor, he kept the origin a mystery to his audience and it's never revealed in the film. You could however be "infected" through a bite thus dooming yourself to the same fate. When I was in college I had the opportunity to hear Romero speak about his film and a member of the audience asked him where he got the idea. He cleverly danced around the question, but one thing he DID say was that in his mind there was nothing scarier to him than the thought of having one of your friends turn on you and become your biggest adversary. He said that knowing that he may have to choose between his life or theirs was something he would never be able to face. Hearing where his ideas came from was an interesting experience. I never saw Night of the Living Dead until I was in 8th grade - 30 years after it was released - I loved it. All I can say is "Thanks George!" I've been a fan ever since.

In high school I found Evil Dead. The name of the film sums it up perfectly. There's no zombies here, just evil dead people. It kept the fire burning in the necrotic antagonist, even if they weren't zombies in the traditional sense. Evil Dead served as a fantastic way to keep the fires burning until Resident Evil came out and I finally got the opportunity to "live" my zombie fantasy. Resident Evil took Romero's zombie lore and gave it an origin. Capcom gave us the notoriously evil Umbrella Corporation. They took the fear Romero created in killing or losing your friends/colleagues and gave it a source that seemed all too possible. Genetic modification and experimentation. It was a brilliant idea as the Human Genome Project was also underway in the hopes of giving a greater understanding to how the human body works in the hope of unlocking secrets to disease and having a better understanding of the building blocks that comprise us. It heightened the fear factor of the game significantly because it was something that we were just beginning to understand.

Yes please.

Capcom would go on to evolve the perception of what a zombie could be quite drastically in their series. They have a variety of "classes" in their zombie playbook. They have your traditional grunts that hold with Romero's zombie. Slow, shufflely, and looking for one thing - to smack their chompers around the living. One of the things that Capcom did with the series as it progressed is pass zombification onto animals as well - the dreaded zombie dog. The one thing in Resident Evil 2 that I could never react fast enough to prevent harm to my beloved Claire. Capcom took their initial T-Virus and evolved it into a parasite that can convert you to zombiedom without killing you first as well in RE4 and 5. They have also created a number of mutated creations as well from Nemesis (RE3) to  Jack Krauser and Osmund Saddler (RE4) among countless others. I never expected that Umbrella's evil would become as globe spanning as it is today, but the Resident Evil series is one of the few games that I will rouse myself for a midnight release for. One thing I will say however is that I'd love to see a game that goes back to Raccoon City with the claustrophobic feel of the first Resident Evil as I think the game has gotten a bit too expansive. Also - Jill and Chris would go on to become - in this fanboy's mind - two of the most attractive video game characters of all time. 

In today's market the zombie game is often greeted with groans. The over saturation of luke warm games it is starting to feel like game developers are just cashing in on the wave of popularity of the TV shows like The Walking Dead and the devoted fan base that the zombie genre has at it's core. Games like Lollipop Chainsaw and Dead Island, while beautifully designed are quite boring to play and they lack the scary intensity that games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill (a non zombie game, but unquestionably amazing) pioneered. The zombie game now can often feel like a hack and slash game (Think Dynasty Warriors without the historical component) because the objective seems to be simply to run around and pass out death by the score.

Telltale Games however released a mobile/tablet game that played on The Walking Dead's universe that I just recently played and thought was incredibly well done. It gave me my Romero zombies combined with a compelling story that put me in the driver's seat of my own destiny. One thing that I found very interesting about this game is that I didn't really have much control of the character in the sense that their movements were mapped out already and reacted to my decisions. I think it really helped to enhance the game. My need to control the character being canceled out I had no choice but to focus on the unfolding story. It was an interesting gaming experience for me as I've never been interested in a game on a mobile platform for longer than 3 days time. If you were ever toying with the idea of playing The Walking Dead - I'd say do it. I certainly don't think it'd be something you'd regret.

Very soon I'm excited to jump into Naughty Dog's post apocalyptic world in The Last of Us. In the interest of keeping the plot completely a mystery for those who prefer to play it without knowledge prior to it's release - I will only say this: there are zombie-esque characters. Will Naughty Dog introduce us to a new "class" of zombie? Or will they be a combination of what we already know. Me personally - I'm betting they'll be 28 Days Later zombies. Hungry and crazy fast - the scariest kind. In our next entry - we eat!