Top Ten Zombie Games

We’re counting down the best Zombie titles out there and you’re invited to pick our braaains. What is our criteria for a good zombie game? Well, for one, there should be a zombie or two in it. Secondly, zombies are reanimated humans, right? No squirrels or anything weird here. And lastly, only 1 title per franchise… we’re trying to make it fair.

 If you still need more ghoulishness, check out our Top Ten Scariest Games. Zpooky!

# 10: Minecraft

ZomBBQ with a little help from Mr. Sun

You’ve spent the whole day digging around for precious metals in the ever-expanding pit you call home. You turn around to head back to your storage lockers to get another full inventory of pick-axes when, WHA? How did this thing get into my house?

Zombies are a constant plague in Minecraft. They’ll sneak up on you under a cloak of darkness and knock you to the depths of whatever carved expanse you’ve created for yourself. The worst part is that you can just turn around and there will be 2 or 3 of them shambling towards you from out of nowhere. Your best friend in this situation is a bow (or sword if you haven’t crafted one yet) to pick off those suckers from afar. ‘Cause there’s no telling what could happen if you decided to go toe-to-toe with them. Actually, you’d probably die, lose all your stuff and have to start over far, far away.

It’s quite a feat to make our list even though the full game hasn’t been released yet. If you’d like to see for yourself what all the fuss is about, check the Minecraft homepage on Halloween to get access to the brand new beta.

# 9 – Plants Vs. Zombies

You would never have thought that these two could ever become mortal enemies. On one side, you got plants; not too threatening, not many brains. On the other, you’ve got mindless zombies; definitely on the lookout for brains with the sheer numbers on their side. How could this make for a good game?

Beware! This tower-defense game is supremely addicting. Defend you house by placing your ever expanding arsenal of undead-slaying plants as a barrier against the ravenous masses of brain-seeking monstrosities such as the Zombie Yeti, Gargantuar, and the dreaded Zomboni.

Plants Vs. Zombies transcends gender, age and maturity. And now, it transcends excuses for not playing it, as it’s been ported to virtually every platform known to man at budget prices. There’s no reason to not blow a solid 2 or 3 days combating the wily, resourceful and silly zombies that just want to snack on your braaaiiins.

#8 – House Of The Dead: Overkill

Never before have we seen a game like this on a Nintendo console. House Of The Dead: Overkill is chock-full of profanity, undead atrocities and cringe-inducing B-movie dialogue. It also relaunched the House Of The Dead franchise which hadn’t seen a proper update in years. And it’s awesome.

Some have complained about the technical flaws in the game, but we think it just adds to the ‘Grindhouse’ horror feel that the game strives for. And even though it’s in a crowded genre on the Wii (lightgun games are a dime a dozen on the platform), HOD:O still manages to climb to the top of the corpse-pile.

House Of The Dead: Overkill is currently the ‘most profane videogame ever’ as pronounced by Guinness World Records, but may soon be toppled by Mafia II for the most f-bombs dropped. That’s just the way we like our zombies: effed up.

#7 – Eternal Darkness

Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube was one of those ‘once a generation’ titles. It was an original IP from an up-and-coming developer that added new twists to the survival horror genre.

You play as 12 different characters in different periods in history, trying to protect humanity from a Lovecraftian darkness hell-bent on destroying the world. Truly unique was the use of the ‘Sanity Meter’ which, if drained completely, caused your character to lose his or her grip on reality. Various fourth-wall breaking effecst include strange sounds effects of women and children shrieking and crying, walls and ceilings bleeding, low volume (then a fake volume bar appears on-screen and the volume shoots up), your head popping off your body, and even making you think that the game had wiped out your save files.

Zombies were the defacto enemies in any given level and using your target-specific weapons allowed you to regain a modicum of sanity every time you blew a sucker’s head clean from his shoulders. A creepy, atmospheric, well-told tale that introduced some great mechanics that still haven’t been duplicated. Play it if you get a chance.

#6 – Fallout 3

Hundreds of hours into Fallout 3 and you can finally say, “Yeah, I think that’s about everything there is to see”.

Fallout 3 is a massive accomplishment. An offline world that still remains persistent, where it seems life really will go on whether you’re there to see it all happen or not. Great characters and an ambitious storyline all set it apart from anything else that had come before it. Fantastic combat that gives you both the RPG deliberateness you need and the visceral action rush you crave.

The zombies in Fallout 3 were actually called Ghouls, and could be a bunch of nice folks if you took the time to get to know them. If they weren’t looking to chomp on your skull or irradiate you, that is. The folks in Tenpenny Tower couldn’t imagine living side-by-side with them until you secretly opened up the back door, like I did. Equal rights for all! I am the great liberator!

#5 – Dead Rising 2

The original Dead Rising made up for any of its shortcomings by giving us the chance to mow down hundreds of zombies at one time. The enclosed-crowd mechanics really allowed the game to establish itself among the packed genre of zombie-killin’ games.

But number 2 really allowed you to flex your creative muscles when it came to handing out punishment to the undead masses. Pick up a new weapon recipe,  grab your ingredients, and start mowing down zombies in style (literally). Creative combo weapons include such time honoured favourites as the brain-drill bucket-hat, the fully-automatic wheelchair and the ever present double-chainsaw kayak paddle. This game really lets loose with the carnage and gives you the full experience of tearing into a full mob of those brain-chewers.

Chuck Greene may be out to clear his name, but all we want is to leave piles of severed limbs in our wake.

# 4 – TIE! Halo 3 and Dead Space

Believe me… this one caused some controversy between Crew members. Are the Flood zombies? Those things in Dead Space are zombies? Really? Let me tell you why…

The Flood may be an alien race, but that doesn’t remove them from our criteria at all. They reanimate dead UNSC commandos (and Spartans if you’re not careful) and attack Master Chief with a hive-brain mentality.

We couldn’t include the Flood in the list and not have Dead Space’s Necromorphs represented as well. Another sentient alien species, the Necromorphs savagely killed the inhabitants of the planet-cracking spaceship Ishimura after humans inadvertently awoke their slumber. The newly reanimated crew tries to stop our engineer hero, Issac Clark, from shutting down the ship and the planet entirely.

You may or may not agree that these two top-shelf games have the zombie skills to pay their zombie bills… It’s our list! Comment away!

# 3 – Half-Life 2 Including Episodes 1 & 2

Myyy EYES!

You’ll never forget the sounds that a head-crabbed zombie makes as it rises for its daily helping of Gordon Freeman. They used to be just regular folks living in City 17 but now they’re target practice.

These zombies don’t really run at you or have any special powers at all. Their greatest ability is to scare the living crap out of you as you walk by, thinking that they’re just dead on the side of the road, another victim of the invasion. They then drag their shattered frames for a little bit of Gordo-munchin’ fun-time.

Zombies come in all kinds of different forms. Lurkers, fast zombies and even well, we’ll let Alyx explain the newest kind…

# 2 – Resident Evil 2

We said just one entry per franchise, and this one has to be it for the Resident Evil series. R.E. 4 was a contender, but it didn’t quite match our criteria for a zombie game (not quite reanimated enough for us).

As the granddaddy of the survivor horror genre, Resident Evil 2 ushered in a new age for horror gameplay on modern day game consoles. Health and ammo were in short supply, adding to the tension. Controls didn’t allow for quick movement, which added to the tension. Fixed camera angles added to the tension. And the great catalogue of enemies were as diverse as the environments they populated; spiders, crows, alligators, lickers, zombies-a-plenty and one big guy named Tyrant were all trying to make sure that you weren’t moving on from Raccoon City anytime soon.

A great game with plenty of extras and secrets to keep you interested in the zombie head-splattering action. We just wish we could have given it the top spot, but there’s one more out there that ‘out-zombie’s even Resident Evil 2…

# 1 – Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2 encapsulates everything involved in the nightmarish dream of a worldwide zombie Armageddon. 1) Zombies are everywhere, 2) Help is nowhere to be found and 3) It’s up to you and a ragtag group of survivors to make it out of this mess alive. That pretty much sums up L4D2, just like it does for the original Night Of The Living Dead, which is a pretty good pedigree.

We picked the second entry in the ongoing franchise (some say cash-grabbing franchise), because it expands on everything that was done perfectly in the original. That’s not to say that there isn’t any room for new ideas, because there are. The characters are spot on and do a great job of telling a story with absolutely zero narrative. The weapons are every fanboys dream of what to bring to a zombie fight, especially the newly included melee weapons. There’s nothing quite like decapitating the undead with a six-string guitar or frying pan. And an expanded enemy roster just keeps adding more gorier, sickening delights for us to plow through.

This is one of the very few games out there that teaches you that teamwork is important, and that’s really a testament to how we should really behave if (sorry Natalie… when) World War Z finally does break out. We all know that one guy in the group is the douche, one girl is the sexpot, and that one guy you hate is going to make it all the way to the end… and then gets it worse than anybody else.

For making us quake in our boots and giving us all the Zombie love we can handle, Left 4 Dead 2 is truly the best zombie game out there. Accept no substitutes. Or nine others… if you prefer.

If you liked this article and still need more ghoulishness, check out our Top Ten Scariest Games. Zpooky!