A World On Fire – A Zombie Blog » Archive
Zero Punctuation Gives Dead Rising 2 a Taste of the Flaming Boxing Gloves
Ben “Yahtzee” Crenshaw is at again, taking his wit and his love of hating to the recently released Dead Rising 2. And believe it or not, this is a rare Yahtzee interview indeed, for he readily admits that he liked the game. Mind you, it doesn’t make it through the review without at least getting a bloody nose. Yahtzee nails some low hanging fruit such as the writing of the game. If you haven’t played the game, let’s just say that even during the high points, the writing is pure sludge. While some of the case files are interesting in their own respect, the entire arc of the story is flat and uninspired. The developers could have deleted half of them and nothing important would have … Read entire article »
Filed under: Games (Video Games and Board Games)
Japanese Children Versus a Zombie
In what can be described as an awesome way to introduce children to therapy, this bizarre Japanese show puts three unfortunate kids in the position of repelling a zombie attack. Granted, the kids aren’t taking on an entire horde of flesheasters but when you can just barely tie your shoes, one zombie is more than enough for them. The whole gag is tongue and cheek with the children at one point receiving a letter from the zombie saying that he is coming to get them. The show host seems to be having a pretty good time, doing his best to amp up the tension. And yes, for the kids, this is the real deal. There are moments in the clip where children pass through moments of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Humor, Movies (offline and online)
Netflix’s List of Zombie Flicks
If you don’t have a Netflix account, now might be an awesome excuse to look into setting one up. A few years ago, you could not find a single zombie film in the Netflix vault of streaming movies. Or if you did, it was some movie made on a weekend bender with five bucks to the production’s credit. No joke. I sat through the first half of an hour of such a film that tried to convince me of a zombie apocalypse in downtown St. Louis. I forget the name of the film but let’s just say it was composed almost exclusively of tight shots when filmed outside. Thankfully, Netflix has expanded its zombie collection with a wide range of zombie movies. From … Read entire article »
Filed under: Movies (offline and online)
You Ate My Daddy
Hello Zombie Fans, Ben here with some Zombie video game info. Kotaku got to test out the video game Red Dead Redemption expansion Undead Nightmare and says the game is coming out in late October. The Old West game will have new missions that will include encounters with Zombie people, horses, bears, wolves and more. (I can’t wait until my horse dies and comes back as a Zombie horse.) I have not played much of Red Dead Redemption, but I plan on picking this up on day one. The game will be will be available for download on October 26 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for $10. Undead Nightmare will be separate from the main story game, but you will need to have the full game to play it. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Games (Video Games and Board Games)
You, Me & Zombies
Hello Zombie Fans, Ben here with my first post. Before I get into posting Zombie news I was interested in knowing what type of Zombie stuff you’re interested in. Are you more into Zombie movies, video games, comics, novels, etc? If I know what you’re interested in I might post more news about it. As Brian mentioned my preference is video games. Zombies Ate My Neighbors was probably my first experience with Zombies in video games. Not a scary game, but was fun back in the day. Below is a Wikipedia list of other Zombie games. I’ll be back later armed with Zombie video games news. Zombie games (Wikipedia.org <- new window) … Read entire article »
Filed under: Odds and Ends
George Romero and Tom Savani – Together Again
In a world whereby everything is a remake, reboot, or re-imaging – a world where if it’s not in 3D, it’s not worth the screen time – a world where most Hollywood powerbrokers appear to get their creative visions from their dog’s late night bowel movements – there’s actually some interesting fun news coming down the pipe. Apparently George Romero and Tom Savani – the dynamic duo behind the legendary Dawn of the Dead – are batting their eyes at each other over the prospect of remaking Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. Normally, I’d scoff at the thought of a remake but this actually sounds interesting. For the record, each time I hear of another re-something, I want to stick my head in … Read entire article »
Filed under: George Romero, Movies (offline and online)
The Enemy by Charlie Higson
Imagine if you will, that a new kind of disease has spread over the countryside, causing sufferers to break out in boils and lesions before ultimately destroying any higher thought processes. There is is no cure for it and in a short amount of time, a once functioning society crashes to the rubble. Where there was once ample food, there are now roving packs of infected men and women, looking to eat anything they can get their hands on. Alive or dead. Now imagine that some people did manage to survive the plague except these aren’t ordinary people. These are children, scrambling between the ruins of a dead society in hopes of avoiding the adults. Thus we have the premise of Charlie Higson’s … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
A Big Welcome to A World on Fire’s Latest Contributor, Ben
I just thought I’d give Ben, resident zombie taunter and Dead Rising expert, a warm welcome to A World on Fire. Ben’s a big fan of video games and enjoys killing zombies in a variety of interesting ways. From running them over in a golf cart to taking them out in boxing gloves, digital zombies just don’t stand a chance when Ben is on the scene. In between Dead Rising 2 and Left 4 Dead sessions, Ben has also been following developments on The Walking Dead like a hawk. He’s also keenly interested in providing zombie Halloween coverage. In short, there’s going to be a whole lot of zombie news coming down the pipe. Welcome to the apocalypse, Ben. Now give ‘em hell :) … Read entire article »
Filed under: Site Updates
A World on Fire: Rage – Chapter 1 – 2
Here’s the second installment of the A World on Fire series. Quick synopsis of this section – Allison wakes from a horrible dream where she learns of a new truth, she realizes that living can be more painful than dying . Thanks again for everyone who has been so supportive of this site. In time, I’ll be adding a dedicated page to house all of the A World on Fire updates, but for now, I’m linking them all at the bottom of the post. I’m trying to release a new section each Monday and once I complete an entire chapter, I’ll combine all the sections into a full length chapter download. … Read entire article »
Filed under: A World on Fire - Book One - Rage
We’re Alive Scores One Million Downloads
KC Wayland and Shane Salk, co-creators and producers of the most excellent audio series We’re Alive, sent me a press release the other day which dropped my jaw to the floor, prompting my dog to eat it like a Snausage. This most excellent audio series has managed to be downloaded over a million times. A million downloads! Pretty ‘effin cool. But the accolades don’t stop there. The series was recently featured as Zune’s best drama podcast, getting a nice big fat center welcome to a series that has been in the works for over a year and a half. Son of a bitch – this podcast kicks ass in a take no kinds of prisoners way. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Audio Productions and Music, Projects
Left 4 Dead News-a-Palooza
This past week has brought us a ginormous amount of updates on the popular zombie, cough, infected killing video game, Left 4 Dead. The first big item was the release of The Sacrifice which lets players decide who gets to live and who gets to die. Normally, this choice is a rather easy one for my team. Too far ahead? Too bad. Too far behind. Tough luck. Off to the side and hidden by some shrubbery. Tough titties. Now that there is a achievement to be earned, I imagine there will be epic gunfights to determine who gets to commit suicide. I gave the campaign a spin this morning and found it to be adequate. Is it worth the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Games (Video Games and Board Games)
A World on Fire: Rage – Chapter 1 – 1
At long last indeed, I’m proud to announce that the very first part from a very long line of parts for the “A World on Fire” series is now released and available to download at your leisure. This first book titled Rage tells of the downfall of humanity and how a small group of survivors manages to claw their way from the ruins of Boston. With the world on fire and everything they know burning around them, the small group travels the post-apocalyptic landscape in hopes of finding an answert to the zombie apocalypse. Each week, I’ll be releasing new recorded parts of the book for free download in an mp3 format. Feel free to listen and distribute to your friends. Just note, I tried my best … Read entire article »
Filed under: A World on Fire - Book One - Rage
Dead Rising 2 Impressions
It’s been almost a week since I’ve had my grubby little mitts on Dead Rising 2 and having killed a multitude of zombies with boxing gloves, dumbells, sledgehammers, and even some gemstones, I thought I might share some of my initial impressions. While not a review by any point, just a random collection of thoughts about the game that has occurred to me while I wandered the streets of Fortune City. Cutscenes Galore WOW … this game loves its cutscenes. At one point, I would move a couple feet only to prompt another cutscene. Sometimes, cutscene follows cutscene, making the game feel like an awkward movie with long drawn out pauses between scenes. Granted, it gets better as the game starts to move along but at the start … Read entire article »
Filed under: Games (Video Games and Board Games)
Night of the Living Trekkies
Last February, a woman from Quirk Books contacted me in hopes that I would do a review of the soon to be released book, Dawn of the Dreadfuls. It sounded like a fun assignment and when I received my review copy, I immediately started reading it. Problem was … I couldn’t finish it. I was a good fifty pages into the book when I noticed I kept checking my pages and soon found myself making reading goals … “gotta make it to page 115 tonight”. Ultimately, I found myself avoiding the book like an unwelcome guest at party who, at the end of the night, doesn’t want to go home. The book, in a word, was bad. While it was technically well written, the plot, the characters, the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
The Sacrifice Proves to be an Excellent Online Zombie Comic
By the time you read this, hopefully we’ll be in the best month of the year … you know … the time of year when you can cover yourself in bloody entrails and walk down the street without worrying about the cops pounding on your door. You can put severed heads on your lawn and instead of having of the swat team lining outside your house, children from all around the block will be excited to visit you. Oh yes … the month of Hallow-effing-ween. The great time of year when zombies go mainstream. What better way to get your zombie blood pumping than by reading the excellent comic book adaption of Left 4 Dead. I gotta say, it’s nice to see comic inspired from a video … Read entire article »
Filed under: Comic Books and Anime, Games (Video Games and Board Games)