So earlier I found some chump trapped in his car on the beach with an gaggle of zombies (think that’s the right collective noun) trying to get all up in his face. What he was doing trying to drive across a cluttered stretch of sand I’ll never know.
Literally, I’ll never know. I have no plans to save him. Pretty busy.
But one of the zombies notices me, and stops banging on the car window. Like a bunch of moronic Bill O’Reilly fans, once one stops making incomprehensible noise long enough to point and screech at something, they all do - within an instant they’re all making their way over to me.
But meh, whatever. I’m even glad they’re attacking as it gives me the chance to hit one of them around the head with my new iron pipe, something my parole officer advises me against doing outside of the blog. One circles around and attacks from behind (a zombie, not a parole officer) so I shove him back against a row of shallets, kick his legs from underneath him then see if my rusty iron pipe works.
The other two zombies also seem keen to make my pipe’s acquaintance, so I introduce everyone. The meeting goes pretty well, I feel.
Since I’ve inadvertently liberated this Haris guy, I guess I might as well signal to him that it’s safe to get out of the car and collect whatever reward he has to give me for saving his ass. I can’t imagine it’ll be much just for killing three zombies, but even if it was just an energy snack to top up the bar of health I lost, that’d make my day.
I know, right? Good job I came right over here to save you otherwise you’d be really screwed right about now.
I’m sorry, but…
… what?
Right, I see. So I take on a mission to save a character, at great risk to myself, and have to go find my own reward once I’ve done it? I’m sorry dickwad, but regardless of whether I saved you on purpose or not, I think you’d better read ‘Basics of Behaving Like an NPC’ before you start running around my game, tricking me into unnecessary sidequests and otherwise acting like a prize clown.
You’re a shame to the Guild of Non-Player Characters, sir. I should have left those bath salt guys chew your hobo face right off.
I carry the burden of annoyance with me until I reach the point where I need to turn off the beach and head up to the lifeguard station. I’m so distracted that I walk straight into the middle of another gaggle of zeds, but they don’t go down without a real fight. Actually, it’s getting damn near fatal for me - before taking out three of them they batter me down to below half-health, and the two speediest ones are still flailing after me as I backpedal in a panic.
Guess which lucky couple just won an all-expenses-paid trip to IronPipeVille? I put them on the express train but they get in some really heavy swings, reducing me to a slither of health. If any more zombies run around that corner, I’m done for. And it looks like I broke my iron pipe in the fight, too, so I’m back down to an embarrassingly useless paddle for defence. Aawwwww.
I can see a small wooden hut ahead of me. There doesn’t appear to be any more zeds, but they could appear at any moment so the hunt is on to find more health as quickly as possible. I guess there can be no harm in pushing open the door of that hut and seeing what’s inside, right?
Not a damn thing looks ominous about this darkened hut.
I pause for a moment. I can’t hear anything on the inside, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The blood’s a really nice design choice and goes well with the paintwork, but it doesn’t fill me with much hope that there’s going to be healthpacks and kittens and rainbows on the other side of this door. Should I really push it open? I have to. This is a very serious situation.
Ten seconds later, and I’m scoffing into a whole load of energy snacks which brings me back up to full health so I guess we can ignore that time I was saying it was a very serious situation.
I eat heartily and look at the map. The lifeguard station is right around the corner. Lifeguard… is there a more comforting word in the English language? Life guard. Let’s make haste.
Walking up the creaky wooden steps leading off the beach, the game practically points and yells at a gas canister. “You can pick this up! And throw it at stuff! Hey, do that!”. Sure, that sounds like it could be quite satisfying? I’ll give that a whirl.
I lug it up to the top of the stairs and find two zombies milling around.
I let ‘er rip. And yes, it was absolutely as satisfying as it sounded. Thanks, game!
It slams straight into the chest of the first zombie with a pleasing thud, bowling him over. The canister then bounds down the walkway, clips the edge of a plant pot and bounces straight up into the face of the second zombie which is just getting up. Sweet! They’re so weakened that it only takes a couple of taps with my crappy paddle to finish them off before heading into the main lifeguard compound. You can bet your bottom dollar I’m taking this badboy canister with me.
The zombies are thrashing at the wire fence. It looks pretty sketchy on the other side. I lob the canister over, trying to hit at least one square on the melon (no such luck) and then open the gates of hell.
The game, seemingly obsessed about my gas canister, informs me that I can kill multiple enemies by making it explode near them. Why don’t I try throwing my weapon at it? Well, probably because I don’t want to do something as utterly fucking stupid and dangerous as that. I knew this kid at school, Alex, who stabbed a can of Axe body spray with a kitchen knife in his back garden and it totally blew up, right in his face! He was off school for months and everyone felt really sorry for him which is understandable because people who think its cool to wear Axe deoderant deserve our pity.
And anyway, I don’t want to throw my only weapon away and doubt whether a wooden stick would ever pierce the thick metal shell of a tank of propane.
Having paddeled and canistered all of the zombies in the parking lot to death, I throw open the main doors of the station to find one more zombie. He seems pretty pissed off, as evidenced by the extraordinary racket he’s making, so I move in to silence his groans and liberate this station once and for all.
Except he hits me so damned hard I fly backwards five feet and land on my ass. In a single swoop, half of my life bar is depleted.
What the hell? Is this some kind of boss or something?
Oh… yeah, it’s some kind of boss (or something). That explains why he had his own introduction cut scene a minute ago.
Let me get this straight - you throw your weapons at canisters to make them explode, right?