Greetings, gamer guys and girls. I am finally reviewing the game that I’ve been geeking over for the last few weeks. Project Zomboid is an indie game produced by The Indie Stone (get it? GET IT!? ). Unlike other games where you’re the conquering hero ridding the world of the undead, Project Zomboid is the story of how you die. There is no winning, only surviving longer than last time.

The main story of the game is called Til Death Do Us Part. You play as Bob Smith, an everyman just trying to get by. In escaping his last safehouse, his wife Kate injured her leg. You have to make this house (that you apparently broke into) a fortress and keep yourself and your wife safe. Or you can just forget about Kate. I’ve smothered her more times than I can count. Some would call it a mercy kill. I call it being stingy with my painkillers. Semantics.

One of the unique things about this game is the crafting system. While it isn’t creative enough for Chuck Greene’s tastes, it’s a lot more practical. With some wood and nails you can make a barricade or a wall. Tear apart your sheets and make bandages. My favorite is, of course, combining cheese with bread to make a cheese sandwich. If you can’t have a cheese sandwich every once in a while then what’s even the point of playing a zombie game?

Another feature you’ll notice is that there are more things affecting your character’s status than in any other game. Click on the heart icon on the left side of your screen and you’ll get a detailed report on your body right down each limb. On the right side you’ll see little moodlets, appearing when your character is anything from “Peckish” to “Utterly Shitfaced”.

I’ve spent hours on this game and it is one of my favorite zombie games. Sometimes I try to go through like I would in a real zombie apocalypse, others I just screw around. I have a great time every playthrough. I suggest this game to anyone reading this article. Tell your friends. You can pick up the game here. The game’s also been greenlighted for Steam, so be on the lookout for that. The game is still being developed, so you play the game as its being built. This of course leads to a lot of bugs and inconsistent versions, so if that turns you off just wait until you can buy it on Steam (also, anyone who buys the game at all will get it for free on Steam). Now if you excuse me, I have to go hide in the bathroom while zombies eat my wife.

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This weekend Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, spoke at the Y Combinator Startup School. It’s always a great idea for things like his. Zuckerberg made over a billion dollars from a company that started in his dorm room. One of the best ways to be successful is to learn from someone who’s been there. That said, one of his ideas kinda scared me.

Mark Zuckerberg said that in ten years, we’ll be sharing 1,000 times more. Yes. The guy who made Facebook thinks in ten years we’ll be doing a cartoonish amount of sharing on the internet. Just imagine what it takes to: people liveblogging every little thought fragment that comes in their head. People will have their heads buried in their phones nearly ever waking second. You could rob a bank and instead of anyone trying to stop you, everyone will be tweeting about the idiot in the ski mask cutting in line.

You really need to take some of the things that he says with a grain of salt. Remember when he said he wants middle schoolers on Facebook for “educational purposes“?  We all knew that was BS. He sounds like one of those teenage girls who tell their parents they need an iPad for school and just use it for Angry Birds. He’s just saying stuff like this because even though he has all the cash he’ll ever need, he’s still in it for the money. The only reason he pulled the education card is because “I want to sell your children to advertisers” is apparently not a classy thing to say.

I’m not saying he’s a bad person. The Social Network and many of his ex-colleagues have done that already. He has some good insights on entrepreneurship. You just have to remember to charge your BS detector before you leave home.

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Hey folks. If you’ve been out of the house in the last few weeks (I just got out for the first time since May) you’ll notice that it’s October already. Even though I’m in the age group where Halloween is kind of confusing, I still love the season. I’m a bit of a horror junkie. There was even a year or two in middle school when I was pretty much obsessed with slasher films. It’s only natural that my love for the genre spill over to games. Here is what I’ll be playing this month.

Left 4 Dead 2

If you haven’t played Left 4 Dead then you need to stop reading this article and go buy it. For those of you who have never heard of it (I presume you just recently escaped from an Amish chain-gang), Left 4 Dead 2 is a multiplayer FPS taking place during the zombie apocalypse. The multiplayer aspect of the game is what makes it most unique. The game really stresses the need for teamwork. Most of the boss enemies have the ability to incapacitate you so that, unless someone’s watching your back, you’re helpless as a former jock tears out your rib cage. Just like in high school.

I cannot recommend enough that you get the game for PC. There are hundreds of user-created mods available. It only takes a couple minutes to replace members of your team with Batman and Lora Croft. My personal favorite is the Panic in Pallet Town level. Also, any DLC that you would have to pay for on the Xbox is given away free on Steam. In fact, so many levels from the first game have been ported that buying L4D2 is basically two games in one.

SCP: Containment Breach

I’ve already talked about SCP before, so I’ll be brief. I love this game for the atmosphere and immersion. You’re locked in an underground bunker containing all kinds of freaky monsters that you can’t even begin to explain and you’re desperately trying to find your way out. Even the simple game feature where your character has to blink periodically makes me really get into the game.

Project Zomboid

I’ve been playing Project Zomboid for a few days and it’s really shaping up to be one of my favorite zombie games. In a different take from the typical zombie genre, Project Zomboid is the story of how you died. There is no winning. only surviving longer than you did last time. In the main story, you try to protect yourself along with your wife who is bedridden with a broken leg. I don’t want to say too much about the game because I will be writing about it this month here on The Late Night Gamer and on GamerSyndrome. A lot. 

Despite its primitive graphics, Project Zomboid is more realistic than your average horror game. Your character can injure themselves in multiple areas of their body, you can get get food poisoning that lasts several days, even smother your wife because she slept with Shane as a mercy kill. The game just got greenlighted on Steam and I really suggest you check it out.

What are you guys playing this Halloween? Let me know in the comments or on The Late Night Gamer’s Tumblr.

Anybody miss cheat codes and secrets? It used to be that if you had cheat codes your game would be twice as awesome. Unlimited money? Yes please. Weapon spawns? Just what I needed. Secret characters? Who knew Shrek could skateboard? Well, that was before the internet came along and ruined it.

I never had regular internet as a kid. The occasional times I could get to the computer I would bring a sheet of paper and write down the codes for Megaman or Tony Hawk. The majority of the game secrets I found were from reading GameInformer and watching Cheat! on G4 (you know, before the weekly Cops and Cheaters marathons). But eventually I got internet and a decent computer to view it on. But by time this happened, it felt like it all disappeared. Not many of my games had any particularly great secrets. I think the reason that so many games have stopped this is because the internet spoils it all. In the past a secret in a video game was actually something mysterious, something fantastic. If you wanted to find a hidden character in Street Fighter or whatever you didn’t find it on IGN. Your friend heard a rumor about it and told you. Then you went down to the arcade/7-Eleven and had a stupid grin on your face for a week. Now, you just hop on Google and it’s not even exciting.

I really don’t think this is a problem we can fix. Some games give you some cheat code-esque bonuses for earning achievements, but if you actually have to work for them then it kind of takes the fun out of it. It’s just one of those things that  we’re never going to get back. Oh well, at least we have our memories and old magazines.

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