I just want ONE AR zombie survival game

So a little while ago a friend of mine brought to my attention a game called mobile called The Walking Dead: Our World.  The game looked, at first glace, like a sort of Pokemon Go-esque thing where you go around killing zombies and it looked pretty cool.  However when I got home I found out that going around killing zombies with your phone camera seems to be the ONLY thing you do.  Granted I haven't played it yet and I'm such a sucker for TWD I'll at least give it a try but my disappointment is pretty high.

Ever since the success of Pokemon Go I've had this fantasy about an AR zombie survival game that would involve running around your local area to find supplies and fight for survival.  At the start of the game you'd register a location as your "base", it could be your home or place of work or wherever the hell you like.  You'd build up a base and gather survivors and every so often on the map little caches of supplies would pop up around the area your in.  You'd be tasked with going off and gathering supplies and keeping your camp alive but when you went out you'd be chased about by zombies (or whatever else) and if they caught you, you'd game over.  Maybe if you had a survivor in your camp it could act as an extra life or there could be some perma death system, I don't know, but I just want that kind of game to exist.

I got the same pangs of disappointment when I played Zombies Run, a sort of fitness app for mobile.  I thought it would be just that where I'd have to jog about collecting supplies but from the little I experienced of it, it's basically just a podcast you listen to while you go for a jog and the "fun" comes from the fact it asks you to run a bit faster every so often.  Not a bad app by any stretch but just not the zombie mobile survival game of my dreams.

So if you're a game developer and you stumble on this post, please go and make that above idea a reality.  I'm not a game dev so tweak it and make it actually good but at least give me a credit as "Blog Prick" or something like that.  I know zombies are an over saturated genre but I seriously feel like there's a lot of untapped potential in the world of zombie AR, someone needs to get on it.

The Walking Dead

Once again I've gone through a bit of a dry period with the blog.  Usually when this happens it's because I get incredibly busy and then by the time I have any free time I'm too exhausted/lazy to write stuff.  This time however, the reason is a lot less legitimate, I've just had all my post-work time gobbled up by The Walking Dead.  I was given a series 1-6 box set and it's basically consumed my life up to now.

It's a series I've ignored for a long time mainly because, and this is a bad habit of mine, the fan base being made up of a herd of wankers.  It's one of those shows that everyone was absolutely creaming their pants over to which I just rolled my eyes and was like "It's a fucking zombie show, it can't be THAT good...".  But, I have to throw my hands up on this one, I was wrong, it IS that good.  What's funny is that I feel like it's all going full circle because people have been saying that it's been slowly getting worse but I'm enjoying it more and more with every season I watch.

Story wise it's a pretty typical zombie affair.  There's an outbreak and then a group of survivors have to get together to help each other not die.  They look for a place to stay and then some other group will come along and fuck things up because of course the big twist is that the real enemies are not the zombies but other people. We've all seen it in things like Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days, Dead Rising and basically any zombie thing ever.  But what makes The Walking Dead so compelling is the drama between the characters and the characters themselves.  Despite the cast being so large the show does a good job about making you care about most of them and when one of them does get chomped on or takes a bullet to the head it is genuinely gut wrenching.  Also when the bad guys do get their just deserts it's always some kind of awesome sequence of events that fills you with that warm sense of satisfaction that a real asshole died that day.

Of course, I have some complaints about things the group does or the insane logics that certain characters decide to follow sometimes.  There's also mad inconstancy with general zombie strength and ability.  Like one moment the zombies will be clawing at a dude for minutes and said dude will take no damage and other moments a zombie will rip open some guys stomach like it's a fucking bag of potato chips.  Also it's a good job the characters are as good as they are because the premise for each couple of seasons is more formulaic than fucking One Piece.  My other final big complaint is that some fucking GENIUS decided to make a box set that ends at season 6.  Season 6 is the absolute DUMBEST place to end anything because the final episode ends with the entire squad getting caught, a new villain turning up, murdering a major character POV so we don't know who it is and then just cutting to credits.  Also Season 2 is dogshit, but there's plenty of videos on YouTube about that.

There's also a bunch of games based on this series that I'm now interested to try.  Well I say "games" but really there's only the Telltale (RIP) one that seems like it's worth a shit.  There's some other FPS one that I don't remember the name of that I remember everyone said was garbage and there's another called Overkills' The Walking Dead but that just looks like a really boring version of Left4Dead so I won't be buying that in a hurry.

If you've not seen it, go watch it, it's REALLY fucking good.  If the posts stop coming again it's because I caved and signed up for Netflix to see seasons 7+, so sorry in advance if that happens.  Also don't worry about spoilers, I had everything spoiled and it only seemed to make it more interesting, jump in!



 

The Walking Dead Arcade Game [Video]

Silver Ball Planet Osaka

I realize that content has been a bit thin on the ground recently, job stress, large backlog and a packed schedule has made it hard to find time to write stuff for the blog.  One of those things taking time away from me was a trip to Osaka where I checked out a place called Silver Ball Planet, a huge pinball hall somewhere in the middle of what my friend called the "American village"

I know that strictly speaking Pinball isn't video games but its always been one of those things I've enjoyed.  Granted, my experience playing on actual tables like this is extremely limited but I've always enjoyed the odd stint on a pinball video game and when I do get a chance to play on actual tables it's always an absolute blast.

The place itself is this huge sort of warehouse looking place filled with all sorts of Pinball machines.  Some are insanely old while others are surprisingly modern.  The one that struck me the most was a machine based on The Walking Dead.  I didn't snap a pic myself but here's a image of the layout I got off Google

I mean, I've not looked too deeply into its production but my guess is that it must have been made and released at somewhat recently with the rise in popularity of the comic and TV show.  I find it cool that despite pinball being a somewhat niche thing, they are still making new tables in the modern day, that fact makes me kind of happy.

On the flip side there are machines made from the god knows when old times but the fun thing about these machines is that they were 10 yen per play

Most of the machines were priced, as one would expect, at 100 yen per play but if you were running out of coins then there were a few machines like this priced at 10 and 50 yen per go.  There was one machine that was 100 yen for 4 plays for some reason and if, unlike me, you're good at pinball then one coin can last you a long time.

One of the more video game related things that surprised me a little bit was that sitting next to the Tron pinball table was the goddamn Tron arcade game

It felt a little out of place surrounded on all sides by pinball tables and I was a little busy so didn't have a chance to try the thing but it was cool to actually see an arcade cabinet this old in the flesh.  I'm already planning my return trip to Osaka to play more pinball so this will probably be the first thing I try on my return trip before I start playing any actual pinball.

It doesn't matter if you're a pinball wizard or a piece of shit who just smashes the flippers and hopes for the best, Silver Ball Planet is a fun and cheap day out that I think anyone could get at least some degree of enjoyment out of.  Pinball is one of those games that's easy to get into but has qualities that make it hard to master.  There was an advert in the place for a beginners tournament which made me curse the fact I don't live in Osaka because I would have loved to check that out.  Anyway, to round out this post here are two pictures of the Super Mario tables.

The small shitty looking one

The bigger, more impressive table.  Notice the Space Invaders table off to the right too!