Stubbs is a former life insurance salesman who met his fate one day when a prospective customer introduced a shotgun to his belly. Left to rot in an unmarked grave, Stubbs awakens some 20 years later in an alternate 1950's Pennsylvanian city called Punchbowl, where robots do all the manual labor and cars hover, but horny teenagers still make out (and take shelter from zombies) at the mall. As stubbs, your only motivation to escaping from Nazi scientists, plowing through militia and ripping the arms from average citizens is the pursuit of a zombie's nectar of the gods: brains.
There's no necessarily cohesive storyline, just like most living dead flics, but Stubbs finds several unique methods of causing chaos at his decomposing fingertips. Off the bat, an undead fart is available to stun your opponents long enough to easily walk in and take a bit out of their skulls. Each victim you eviscerate becomes a zombie himself, one in which you have limited control over. They will in turn attack the living or help to slow your aggresors down. As you progress, you'll be granted to ability to toss lethal body-part grenades, tear off your own hand to possess opponents and decapitate yourself to use your head as an exploding bowling ball. These abilities each have energy meters that only refill after you've snacked on some gray matter. Ripping your hand off lets your fingers do the walkin until you've found someone among the living you'd like to take over. If that's a cop, you have a gun and an arm stunner at your disposal. If it's a militia man, you can get a shotgun or muzzle loaded rifle. If they've got it, you can get it. Lasers, crowbars, rocket launchers, even the vehicles they drive.
Please note, this game is rated M for mature and for a VERY good reason. There is a lot, repeat A LOT of blood in this. Blood, guts, dismemberment, language and content found in this title scream KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. That being said, the title has some great adult humor, constantly taking shots at cornball 50's horror movies. Cut scenes and in game dialogue from non-playable characters bring out the one-liners and should force out a few laughs to the non-prudish.
The game controls well, being built on Bungie's Halo engine so frame rate and responsiveness are top notch, however the visuals are "grained-up" to make it look like you're playing a 50's B-movie. This is more distracting than stylistic and tends to keep things very dark and on the blurred side, especiialy during times when the visuals go to black and white (rolling your head, using your hand to possess others). Co-op play is also an option, splitting the screen for Stubbs and a friend to play through the story together, but the gameplay doesn't lend itself to any specific teamwork tactics and becomes more of a nuisance not having the entire screen to play in. There are a few Vs. Challenge modes, but we didn't find them to be of much interest.
Overall, the game handles very well, throws in some good humor and has an excellent soundtrack using new artists covering classic 50's rock fare, but there is a lot of tedium in the wide open levels that makes it hard to come back for more. Definately worth a play for it's uniqueness, but a rental might be the way to go.
