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Posted: Feb 04 2011 01:34 am

Quote:

Ask Jeff Strain what ultimate goal of his game studio Undead Labs is and he'll give you a big answer, without a moment's hesitation - Strain wants to create "a cultural phenomenon, rather than make mere games."

The company's vehicle for this has never been a secret: when it announced itself in 2009, its opening statement to the world was direct and to the point. Undead Labs wants to create the definitive, open world, online zombie experience, and it wants to do it on home consoles.

"We want to create the definitive zombie survival experience," Strain told us in an interview. "It hasn't been done yet, and we think that there's a tremendous game there to be made, and we want to be the ones to make it."

"We all go to zombie movies like Zombieland and come out afterwards and have a beer with our friends or significant others and kind of sit around and say, 'What's your plan?'

"'Well, I would try to go to the Costo,' or 'I would go to the cell phone tower on top of the hill and crawl up there and make myself a little fort.' Everyone has their own surivival plan. And what we wanted to do in terms of the game we're creating is to model that, to put the tools in your hands as a gamer to answer the questions. Let you explore, let you figure out if your strategy is a good survival strategy or not."

Strain's dream online zombie game is still quite a ways away, but Undead's small team has been working hard since its inception to make it happen. On Thursday, the team announced that it had partnered with Microsoft Game Studios to release its first title exclusively on the Xbox Live Arcade platform - a single-player, open world zombie survival game that will serve as both a sneak peak and a testbed for what Strain ultimately hopes to accomplish.

"The reason we're doing it that way is because this is a big undertaking that we're launching into here," said Strain. "It's a new market, and a new class of game that has not existed on consoles before, and we'd really like to get players involved in helping guide us in terms of making that full online world experience. "

Codenamed 'Class3,' the Live Arcade title will be a story-driven glimpse at what Undead's eventual MMO will be like. The game will control like a third-person, 3D, open world action game, but will focus more on survival than zombie slaying.

"The idea is to drop you in a world post-zombie apocalypse and give you a lot of freedom about how you want to survive," creative director James Phinney told us. "I think pretty quickly, players are going to realize that they're not going to kill all the zombies."

Gameplay examples Phinney gave included estabishing a base of operations (among many available in the world), rescuing other people to build up your group, managing your resources (will you grow food to improve youf food supply? Try to reestablish power?) and generally trying to reestablish order using the tools around you.

"We're talking about all the stuff that you'd expect in an open world action game," said Phinney. "Driving around, running over a bunch of zombies, booby-trapping a truck so that it will blow up. Grabbing a boombox, finding that the battery is still working. You can turn that on and use it as a lure for zombies, and hopefully you have some plans for dealing with it when they're there.

"Maybe it's a way of attracting them to kill a bunch, maybe it's to attract them so you can sneak past them to get to that food you're trying to collect or the survivors you're trying to rescue. You're going to find a spot and say, this has a supply of guns and ammos that we need back at our base, and bring in a bunch of the survivors you've rescued to pick that up and escort it back through the city. So, very action-oriented, a very organic experience, and at the same time you've got a base to build. How ambitious you want to be about it is up to you."

The game is still too early in development to show, but flip through the following pages to check out some of the concept art and get a feel for the atmosphere the team is trying to create.

http://www.1up.com/news/ultimate-zombie-mmo-xbox?pager.offset=0

pics @ the link.

sounds interesting

2010 SLF Tag Champ Joined: Jun 07 2006 Posts: 12294

oh wow. another guy that thinks gaming should be a cultural phenomenon instead of a source of entertainment. That's a fancy way of saying "I don't really give a shit about games, but I can make a lot of money this way." and hell, it even has the new flavor of the week, zombies!

pass.

Posted: Feb 04 2011 03:42 pm

I agree with FNJ, the guys who set out to make games that "change everything" tend to be significantly better with marketing than actually making videogames. Like the guy who did fable.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Agreed with both of you.

But on the other hand, this will keep the fat, sweaty nerds who sit in their rooms hoping for a zombie apocalypse busy so I don't have to see them in public anymore.

Posted: Feb 04 2011 04:04 pm

I think it might be fun but i agree with all of you , making a game just to make a cultural difference isnt the best idea. I mean look at GTA, Rockstar wasnt trying to change anything culturally they were just trying to make a fun game, it just so happened that they did anyway

Posted: Feb 04 2011 04:05 pm

How will they handle PVP? Because I'm fairly certain that as long as I've got them outgunned or outnumbered, I'm taking anything I want from a survivor in the post-apocalypse, regardless as to whether it's a video game or real life.

Posted: Feb 04 2011 04:30 pm

Gimmie a fuckin' break with the exclusives for X-box 360! Goddamn lemmings get everything!

Childish fanboy shit aside, I'm highly interested in what the in game screen shots will look like.

2010 SLF Tag Champ Joined: Jun 07 2006 Posts: 12294

I love being called a "goddamn lemming." Let's have that war again.

games like this are usually 360 exclusive because the thing is practically a computer anyway, and is therefore easier to develop for. Nobody knows how to make a PS3 game, because the thing is horribly designed. Six fake processors? awesome!