Stubbs the Zombie is a fantastic video game which was released by Wideload Games in 2005 for both the Xbox and the PC. The avatar and anti-hero is Stubbs the zombie; initially a traveling salesman, Stubbs was brutally murdered by his girlfriends father after their union was unexpectedly blessed with fruit. Now, 26 years later, Stubbs has risen from the grave driven by a thirst for revenge and brains.

The Meat

Stubbs digs himself up in the city of Punchbowl during its opening ceremony in 1959. Punchbowl is a fictional retro-futuristic 1950’s city with lazers, hovercars, robots and a hell of a lot of civilians, police and military - ripe for the biting.

Whenever you kill somone with Stubbs they has a chance of returning to life as a zombie under your control. These zombies, when not specifically given an order, will lurch around and bite any humans they encounter - turning them into zombies as well; like some sort of cannibalistic pyramid scheme.

In order to facilitate the creation of your own zombie horde, Stubbs has many inventive and fun options to choose from when killing the humans who get in his way. Stubbs can: Tear off people’s arms and beat them to death with them, Fart so corrosively that nearby enemies are stunned with sheer horror, throw organs pulled from his own ribcage that explode with damp furiousity, possess enemies with his left hand that detaches and runs around by itself and even bowl his own head at the enemy.

Stubbs weapons are slowly revealed to him throughout the story where they are necessary to get him out of more and more sticky situations and game itself is filled with lots of dark humor which makes it very entertaining and funny.

The Bones

Because Stubbs is a zombie he is unable to speak, except for saying the word “Brains”. This is wholly sensible behavior for a zombie and is to be expected, but, it makes it very difficult to understand the reason Stubbs does things when he literally doesn’t tell you. Wideload games did their best and Stubbs is a very emotive character but every so often Stubbs does something that is not well explained that left me lost and trying to understand why I was in this particular situation and what i needed to do to get out of it.

The Taste

Luckily, if you missed this gem of a game the first time - it is available on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace! For approximatly $20 you get all the brain eating, organ throwing, head bowling action you can possibly handle.

Get and play this game, if you haven’t already. Its offbeat humor, engaging retro-futuristic environments and the fact that you actually play a zombie controlling hordes of undead makes this game a must-play if you are any sort of a zombie fan.