G-pinions

So, the purchase and subsequent playing through of Stubbs was a bit anticlimactic. Tom and I finished it in one five-hour sitting yesterday, something we rarely, if ever do. With such an imaginative setting (a "futuristic" town from the 50's), hilarious writing and compelling gameplay, it could have easily been stretched a bit farther than it was.

I don't want to give the wrong impression though - however quick and ultimately forgettable the game may be, we had a fairly absolute blast with it. Gameplay consists almost entirely of wandering through various city and vegetative settings, fighting/possessing/recruiting various police forces and locals every step of the way. Stubbs moves with a fairly slow, purposeful gait, picking up a bit if you walk in one direction for more than a few feet. It works though - you're never too slow to accomplish what you want, while you never forget who you are and what type of game this is. You have one basic melee attack, a flailing of the arms, which helps to stun enemies into submission long enough to devour their brains. Once lobotomized (or simply beaten into submission), your foes will rise from their resting place, zombified and ready to follow you into combat. You can shove them around (or kick them, if they're just a torso), or whistle to them if they wander a bit too far away. I'm all for simplicity, but a few more zombie command options would have been nice - you never really amass an army like I had hoped for, but it's still pretty satisfying having a dozen undead buddies get your back.

A few other combat options exist, depending on the enemy. Some arms can be torn off (and held onto for future beatings), you can fart a small group of men into a daze, throw your guts and explode them anytime after they leave your hand, and bowl your head around, also to be exploded at your choosing. And then there's possession, probably the single most entertaining and useful tool available. After tearing off your hand, you can run around from it's point of view, scale any surface, and latch onto the head of almost anyone. Once latched, you can make full use of whatever weapon they have at their disposal, such as handguns, rifles, shoguns, bazookas, sniper rifles or mounted turrets. As long as your body stays safe while possessing, you can make it last a fairly long time. Lastly, as far as combat and locomotion go, there are five or so vehicles you will end up driving, ranging from fairly mundane (military transport jeep) to absurdly entertaining (hovering, sod-shooting farming vehicles with physics somewhere between a Ghost and a Warthog).

As you can probably imagine from what I've described above, the gameplay is simple and fun, but does get repetitive. Especially considering that the cooler levels and activities seem to go by the quickest. So what keeps you going, what kept the experience fresh enough to play all the way through in one go? Well, besides the fact that I was playing it co-op, the awesome sense of humor and hilarious little touches throughout. The voice samples never got old, and we kept hearing new ones right through the end of the game. Lines such as "Ah, zombies!" and "No, not my brains!" can be laugh-out-loud funny with the right intonation. The developers obviously had a great time with it too, as this favorite of ours would indicate: (when tearing off a man's arm) "Ah, my penis! I mean, arm!". I kid you not, these guys are genius, and the cutscenes are just as entertaining for the most part. One particularly memorable and hilarious gameplay diversion is a rhythm-based dance-off with the police chief, set to a soundtrack of indie rock bands covering 50's tunes (which needed to appear more often).

Other negatives, besides the length? Considering it's running on the Halo engine, there weren't enough situations taking advantage of the "ripe for comedy" physics (or Halo references, besides the main menu, for that matter). Level goals or exit points were also incredibly unclear at times (though we really only got stuck once), and I could have used a half dozen more enemy types and a few more bosses. Besides that, I had a great time with the game; it looks great, it plays well, and Alex Seropian was wise to found Wideload on the basis of comedy. I wouldn't mind a little more to do in their next game, but I'm already greatly anticipating it regardless.