NYCC10: Hands On With Undead Nightmare

I make my feelings for Rockstar no secret; I enjoy and respect their work and the effort they make. Their games are always so full of life and brimming over with content, however the departure from their light-hearted roots concerned me. C'est la vie, you can't please all of the people all of the time, but Rockstar aims to please however many as possible with their games. So is Undead Nightmare a six feet under snooze or a howl at the moon?

Red Dead Redemption was a great game with the Rockstar pedigree of excellence. In retrospect, I feel I may have been too harsh on it, but there's no going back on my initial opinion. Rockstar has done a great job offering DLC to keep the game relevant and entertaining now that everyone has had a chance to explore it's every last tumbleweed. With this year's deluge of awesome games rapidly approaching, Red Dead Redemption attempts to stay abreast with the latest fad in assuring yourself an audience; zombies.

Zombies, who have found their way to World War II, the Vietnam War, Tokyo's Kabukicho district, and even the racetrack, have finally made it to the old west. Of course, Rockstar will do everything in its power to assure that Undead Nightmare isn't just another lifeless add-on. While the game's first three downloadables have been geared toward the multiplayer crowd, the Nightmare is 6-8 hours of brand new single player experience for you to relish.

The 5 or so minutes we were allowed to run through took place in the gloomy grey confines of a church's graveyard. Red Dead Redemption's world was full of color and gorgeous landscapes, much like what we did not see in our time with Undead Nightmare. Though it's not to say the expansive beauty of RDR's campaign will be missing from this downloadable add-on, take a look at any of the screenshots in this post and you'll agree.

Mr. Marston's mission was to use his torch to set the graveyard's coffins ablaze to limit the zombie uprising, at least in this particular location. The torch was also used in close quarters to incinerate your rotting attackers, who rose from the dirt in classic zombie fashion. The ambling assailants didn't seem like much of a threat to the well-armed Johnny boy, but I could see this being a problem as you start to get overwhelmed by numbers. Of course, body shots did damage, but its the headshots that reunite your enemies with their demise the quickest. With Dead Eye, this seems pretty easy, but when you have a swarm of 15 zombies coming at you, your Dead Eye probably won't recharge fast enough.

The plundering Mr. Marston can't keep his hands of a dead man's loot, but what do double-dead men carry? A paltry amount of bullets. And body parts? Whoa, Mr. Marston we don't need to know about your bizarre zombie organ fetish. Though as it turns out, the zombie byproduct is ammo for a new weapon, the Blunderbus, which is sort of like a zombie-chunk-launcher with explosive properties. The end product is a pleasing rain of red mist  and hail of gibs. Sweet.

Interestingly enough, we brought up the topic of the familiar undead faces used in some of the promotional material, as well as Mr. Marston's involvement in it all, aside from his quest to save humanity. Our helpful public relations gal smiled coyly and danced around the question. Zomg, zombie John Marston?!

We got through the cemetery a little quicker than we had hoped, but our hands on was still quite enjoyable. The full release of Undead Nightmare looks to pack in enough bite to make it worth the purchase. I mean, don't you want to hunt undead bears?

Undead Nightmare will be available on October 19th for $9.99 on PSN or 800 Microsoft Points.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare gallery

Comments

[The Proofmeister]

I think I'm buying it... Zombies dude, ZOMBIES!!!

[JNYCE]

I went to school with a guy working on this DLC