This week, I’ll be taking a look at another genre, or subject, near and dear to my own heart. Let me start with a confession: when I list my favorite movies, I inevitably tend to list titles one might classify as “film” or “cinema” or whatever pretentious moniker one wants to assign to it, but I’m kinda lying each time. Frankly, when I’m looking for movies to watch late at night when I want to have a good time, I start scanning OnDemand for George A. Romero’s name. I have no idea when it began or why, but I love zombies. It doesn’t matter how poor the quality of the movie (*ahem* House of the Dead), if there are zombies involved, I want to see it. It doesn’t matter if the zombies are shambling monstrosities with flesh oozing off their bodies or rage-infected, cannibals with sub-4.4 40 times. As long as these creatures need to eat flesh to survive, or, really, if they just like flesh a lot, it’s a movie I want to see.

That goes for games as well. Zombies are almost as ubiquitous an enemy as ghosts or goblins, so I can easily sate my hunger.

Introduction:

Although the origin of the word is debated, the concepts of zombies is well-documented to have arisen from Vodou, an Afro-Caribbean belief system. The simple definition of a zombie is a reanimated corpse. Sorcerers were supposed to be able to raise these corpses and use them as their workers. Over time, the zombie mythos has expanded to include a hunger for the flesh of the living. They are mindless creatures who serve only one base need: their hunger. Depending on which film, book, or game one is enjoying, zombification either occurs after a bite from a zombie or simply upon death. What kills them? They are undead, after all. In some games, you just need to shoot them enough, and they’ll no longer lurch after your character. Others require a bullet to the head or even a zombie barbecue.

It’s a simple genre, and most of the entrants tend toward survival horror, but you’d be surprised by how much humor can be milked from the walking undead. For your elucidation, I’m going to go over a chronological survey of some notable games in the genre:

Doom (1993):

That’s right. Doom. I’ll bet you forgot about those zombies. Between the demons and all of the other mangled, deformed creatures populating the game, it’s easy to forget the inclusion of those simple flesh-hungry monsters. But they were there. While zombies weren’t the focus of Doom, they were an essential part of the ambiance of the game. For many people, it was the very first FPS that they played, and it has a special place in a lot of gamers’ hearts. Doom without zombies would be like pasta without garlic: unholy.

Doom was initially released as a shareware application, and even though it was estimated to have only one million paying users, it was thought to be installed on 10 million computers by 1995. One reason for the success of the game was the ability of users to create custom maps and games using WAD files. To this day, I get nostalgic when I think about all of the random, bizarre WADs I downloaded.

GameSpy declared it to be the most influential game of all time, and they aren’t far from the mark. With the heavy emphasis on customization and multiplayer, it set the stage for id Software’s rise to early PC dominance.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993):

Released on the SNES and Genesis, this game is a send-up of a whole mess of horror movies. Zombies are the core of the game as a teenage duo work to save all of their surviving neighbors from an onslaught of vampires, werewolves, and other black and white movie monsters. Most of the levels have names that riff on popular culture like “Dances with Werewolves” and “Weird Kids on the Block.” The game play is straight forward: shoot the enemies with whatever bizarre weapons you happen to have on you. Water pistols and water balloons are popular options. The tone is playful. I doubt anybody lost any sleep over the zombies in this game. It surprised me to learn that the game was developed by LucasArts, but given the humor, it makes a lot of sense.

I haven’t been able to find any sales figures for the game, but it has been popular enough to be released on the Virtual Console for the Wii. I just found that out while writing this story, which means I’ll be downloading said Virtual Console title tonight.

Resident Evil 2 (1994):

All of the Resident Evil games have zombies. That’s their bread and butter. I chose Resident Evil 2 because it was the first I played in the series, and it is my favorite by far. The Umbrella Corporation did a bad, bad thing and let the T-virus escape from their labs. As a result, the populace of Raccoon City has been transformed into zombies with a few exceptions. Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, the two playable characters in the game, try to survive the ordeal with limited ammunition and only limited save files–confounded typewriter ribbons.

You can’t get much better in the survival horror genre than this game. The enemies aren’t confined to simple zombies. Oh, no. There are zombie dogs. There are bizarre zombie mutations with exposed brains and giant tongues. There are few moments I’ve found more frightening in gaming than the first pan of the camera up to reveal the licker clinging to the ceiling above. How about the terror of walking back into a room and seeing an empty floor where there was once a zombie corpse? I don’t think before that experience I ever had to pause a game because I was too frightened to continue. In my opinion, this is the pinnacle of the zombie genre.

It rates an 89/100 on Metacritic, and it has sold 4.96 million copies for the PSX version alone. That is success, my friends.

House of the Dead (1996):

My experience with the House of the Dead series is confined entirely to the arcade and my beloved experience with the Uwe Boll movie, but I do know it’s one of the more recognizable light gun games in arcades. It’s right up there with Time Crisis. In terms of game play, it’s pretty much identical to every other light gun game out there except that the enemies are zombies. You point at the enemies and fire your gun, you aim off the screen to reload, and you try to avoid shooting civilians. As an arcade game, the zombie frequency was insane because it was designed to eat your quarters.

I wish I could say more about this series, but there is little data available about the sales of the game in arcades or on consoles. There have been four iterations of the game, so draw your inferences about the success of these zombies from that fact.

Stubbs the Zombie in “Rebel without a Pulse” (2005):

I have never played this game, but the premise sounds amazing. You play as a dead traveling salesman out to seek revenge on the city where you died. You’re a zombie. You eat brains. It doesn’t fit with the whole fear-factor of zombies, since it’s hard to be afraid of a zombie when you are a zombie. Still, the fundamental idea is sound. You eat human brains to regain life and transform those humans into zombies. They become part of your zombie army! A zombie army!

The game rated 6s and 7s for the most part from the gaming press, but sales were not impressive. Certainly the marketing wasn’t there, otherwise I would own this game. I still might go pick it up.

Dead Rising (2006):

The latest play on survival horror, this game takes the basic premise of Dawn of the Dead and allows the player to enjoy sandbox gameplay inside a mall. You play a photojournalist trying to cover the events of a zombie infection inside a suburban mall with only a limited amount of time in which to act. If you choose to follow the story, as I never did, you can save small clusters of humans from zombies and achieve a more satisfactory ending. Frankly, I just used shopping carts to plow into zombies and hit them with giant stuffed teddy bears.

Well-received by critics, it has been on a number of “Best of” lists, including IGN’s “Most Innovative Design for Xbox 360.” It has sold over one million copies so far, and Capcom is planning a franchise around the title. Quite the laurel for the walking undead.

Conclusion:

Even though you might not expect a lot of variety, zombie games really have a rich history. I’m not sure how much more they can do with zombies, but with Resident Evil 5 looming, you can expect that I will be in line to find out. Huh. I guess Capcom really does love zombies.

Long before Pirates of the Caribbean tapped into our collective pirate souls, there was a little game called Sid Meier’s Pirates!. Originally released in 1987 for the Commodore 64, the game was ported to eight different platforms over the ensuing four years. Before Pirates, the bulk of Meier’s games were flight simulators, so this was the first title that really tapped into the Meier-simulation sweet spot. The game put players in charge of a privateer on the high seas of the Caribbean as he captured raided and pillages–as pirates are wont to do. It opened a whole new world to gamers.

Pirates possessed no narrative to speak of. The player could choose to seek out buried treasure, plunder ships, or simply accumulate wealth through a canny understanding of the good market. In addition, the game had no ending in a traditional sense, just as a the life of a pirate–barring death–doesn’t have a neat conclusion. Eventually, as the player’s character gets older, it becomes more and more difficult to recruit crew members until, old and scarred, the player is forced into retirement. Whether that retirement consists of begging for alms or being an adviser to the king depends on how much wealth the player accumulated over the course of his ill-fated journey.

Premiering in 1993 for the Genesis, Pirates! Gold took all of the best attributes of the original game and added complexity to create one of the greatest and most commonly overlooked simulation of its kind.

It begins by allowing the player to choose a special skill: fencing, navigation, gunnery, wit and charm, or medicine. This small choice shapes the game for the player. If he has chosen to be a master of gunnery, he is far less likely in to close with another ship and engage the enemy captain in melee combat. Instead, he’s likely to tack and adjust his ship based on the wind trying to minimize the amount of his ship that is exposed to the enemy as he fires volleys of cannons at his opponent. And if he chose a player with enhanced fencing skills, he’s far more likely to simply close with the enemy ship as fast as possible–likely with a smaller, more maneuverable ship–and duel the enemy captain.

Another differentiator, and this was the primary reason I fell head over heels for the game years ago, is that the player is confronted with a choice between different eras to play in:

1560 – The Silver Empire
1600 – Merchants and Smugglers
1620 – The New Colonists
1640 – War for Profit
1660 – The Buccaneer Heroes
1680 – Pirate’s Sunset

The main difference between each of these periods are the factions the player is able to play and which factions possess the most ports. In the Silver Empire, the Spanish colonies are at their most powerful, and they are flush with silver. If a player wants a real challenge, he can choose to play as a Spanish Renegade and slowly build up his reputation with the French until they offer him a letter of marque. Each era provides a different flavor of encounters. Or he can try to one up Sir Francis Drake and take San Juan. The game is that open.

In addition to money, the player also tries to build up his prestige (largely a function of how much money he has earned) to earn the right to woo one of the daughters of the governors of the ports. It might be misogynistic, but the prettier the wife, the greater the reputation of the player.

Unlike its predecessor, Pirates! Gold has the barest semblance of a plot. In addition to the usual marauding, the player is trying to seek out all four missing members of his family, each of whom has a piece of a map to the greatest score in the game: Incan gold. And this is where the game really becomes a classic.

If the game only had other ships to attack and fleets to manage, it would be a solid, serviceable step in gaming. But the fact that it has small touchstones of pirate lore in the game give the game a sense of authenticity. Of course, all pirate games are idealized, but Pirates! Gold manages to make the player feel enmeshed in that idealization. The player may slowly age and become less agile and adept, but over the years, he can capture the Spanish treasure fleet and the silver train and uncover Incan gold.

When I first rented the game, I played the game through at least five pirate lives before I put down the gamepad. I became so invested in the achievements of that pirate, far more invested than I ever became with any of my stats in Final Fantasy games, that I absolutely had to keep trying for one last big score to fame and the love of the prettiest woman in all of the Caribbean.

Since 1993, the game has been updated with a fairly well-reviewed PC game that has just recently been ported over to Xbox Live Arcade. I think it might be time to get out my old peg-leg and fake parrot and download some nostalgia.

Introduction:

As with many genres, the exact origin and nature of steampunk is open to debate. It is believed that the term was coined by author K. W. Jeter as a way to describe his own oeuvre as well as that of Tim Powers and James Blaylock. In general, the term refers to a subset of fantastical and science fiction characterized by a determined anachronism. Jeter chose the moniker steampunk in deference to the example set by cyberpunk. Where cyberpunk is primarily set in the near future and displays heavy dystopian themes, steampunk is generally set in the past or in an alternate history in which steam is still the main source of power.

If steam usage were the only requirement for the genre, then much literature written during the heyday of steam would classified as steampunk, but that is not the only component of steam punk. Steam power is used to create technology far beyond the scope of technology of the period, be they airships or computers. In this way, it shares the focus on technology with cyberpunk. The difference, of course, is that the technology is often simply the technology of our own time occurring a century earlier.

The other frequent component of the steampunk genre is a Victorian setting. The rigid social mores allow the authors to contrast cultural stagnation with technological evolution. Complex mechanical devices belching vapor and smog provide the background as prim ladies in hoop skirts walk down broad avenues with parasols. Imagine Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte crossed with something by H.R. Geiger, and you’ll have a rough idea of the environment. (Given that Geiger is often associated with cyberpunk and steampunk’s relationship with cyberpunk, this comparison seems apropos.)

With those requirements in mind, there are large variety of video games that fit into this genre. The first that comes to mind, for me, is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001):

Arcanum is a computer RPG with open-ended gameplay in the style of the great BioWare games. In addition to the steampunk elements, there is a heavy dose of fantasy with the presence of magick and alternate races (orcs, elves, etc.). There’s an incredible amount of character customization, which features a dialectic between magick and technology. As a character advances down the path of magick, they become less adept with technology and vice versa.

Critically successful, the game received an 8.7 from IGN as well as an Editor’s Choice Award. PC Gamer gave the title 90 out of 100. Although its sales were a disappointment to many, it was still the best-selling title from Troika Games:

Arcanum was the company’s best selling game, and it only managed to sell 234K units and generate sales of $8.8 million, according to the NPD Group.

For a niche gaming type released on the PC by a smaller company, Arcana sold admirably.

Thief: The Dark Project (1998):

The Dark Project is the first in the Thief series, all of which exist in a steampunk universe. It is a stealth-focused first person shooter in which shadows play an extremely vital role. Although the setting seems medieval, with armor and swords the weapons of choice, the cobbled streets of town are lit by electric streetlights. The environment is urban and often reminiscent of depictions of England out of a Charles Dickens novel.

Another critical success for the steampunk genre, The Dark Project is now considered to be one of the greatest games of all time, at least according to Gamespot. I know that my friends and I spent hours playing the demo in anticipation of the game’s release. As is typical with successful Eidos titles, it was re-released with added content as Thief Gold. Although I haven’t been able to find any exact sales figures, I did find this anecdote from a Looking Glass postmortem:

Thief appeared in late 1998 and was a major hit, eventually making millions of dollars for Looking Glass. Had Thief not been a big hit, Looking Glass would almost certainly have folded. Instead, Thief appeared to revitalize the company. Thief Gold sold well, and System Shock II sales were passable. Thief II is currently on the way to being an even bigger hit than Thief I.

The game has a rabid following, and some gamers are still hopeful for a fourth entry in the series.

Final Fantasy VI (1994):

Although one could make the argument that many more of the Final Fantasy games fit into the steampunk genre with the admixture of fantastic and technology, FF VI most clearly embodies the genre. Steam is not the driving force behind the technology present in the game; instead it is magicite, a crystalized form of magic. Magitek armor is the main shock troop employed by Kefka and the Imperial army. Railroads and coal mining dominate the industrial landscape with the occasional pastoral interlude. Squaresoft drew on the culture of the Victorian period with an recurring elements of opera and painting. Edgar, the inventor king of Figaro (hint, hint), creates chainsaws and other weapons to fight alongside sword-wielding warriors. (I’m sure I’ll do a Retrospective of this game in the future, but for now, let me just say that I think the opera sequence is the most astonishing and wonderful scenes in all of gaming history.)

In short, one of the greatest RPGs of the SNES is squarely in the realm of steampunk. The character art of Yoshitaka Amano even possesses an element of Victorian elegance.

There is simply no way for me to adequately explain all the acclaim that has been showered on this title, but others have done just that. It has been re-released on both the PlayStation and Gameboy Advance. The original version on the SNES sold 2.55 million copies in Japan alone. I have, for the record, bought all three versions of the game. And if Square Enix releases another one, I’ll probably that too. I have a book of Amano’s art on my bookshelf. I’m not ashamed. Oh, no.

Wild ARMs (1997):

This was the title I played after I completed Final Fantasy VII. There was no way it could compete in my heart, but I still remember this console RPG fondly. The game is set in a pseudo-Wild West environment in which characters recover ARMs (Ancient Relic Machines) that provide the advanced technology characteristic of the genre. The usual band of misfits globe trots and tries to save the world, but they do so with action and puzzle elements that made Wild ARMs unique.

As with the other titles mentioned here, the game was successful critically, boasting an 83% on the much-maligned (by me) Game Rankings. The game has been popular enough for Sony to release it on the PlayStation network, and, in addition to the sequels, there is an anime set in the universe of the game.

Conclusion:

The steampunk genre, though not nearly as ubiquitous as medieval fantasy, has been present in video games for many years, and has been quite successful. It’s still very much healthy and alive with games like Damnation, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, and Edge of Twilight on the horizon. Which is great news for gamers because, as a genre, steampunk provides some welcome relief from trite swords and sorcery worlds.