Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse

Ah yes, I figured it was time for another review after rambling on about my laptop problems. 
Like last time, I'm going back to the original Xbox with another one of my favorite games for the system.  Since the Xbox was a relitively short lived system, and after a few years, hype for the 360 was growing, there were lots of great games that came out late in the Xbox's cycle that were overlooked, and along with Phantom Dust, Stubbs the Zombie was one of them. 

This game, created by a company composed of several members of the original Halo team, and it used the Halo engine, was a unique type of zombie game where instead of fighting off waves of the undead, you actually played as a zombie.

The game takes place in the 1950's in a new 'way of the future' type setting, so there's funny robots and flying cars, but all in 50's design. 

The game starts out where this city was built on top of where you, Edward Stubblefield, was burried.  You are greeted by a funny cutscene followed by a simple tutorial. The game isn't really that complicated, so it's very easy to just pick up and have fun. 

Stubbs can walk around (which turns to running after you gain some speed), jump, and attack.  Later in the game he gets some special attacks such as throwing some guts (grenade), a fart attack that stuns enemies, a bowling ball head grenade, and, probably the coolest, a detachable hand (which I'll get into later).

The core gameplay consists mainly of running around the levels and either killing the enemies (mainly police and scientists, and later the army), or eating their brains.  Eating an enemies brains recharges your special powers, and turns the enemy into a member of your undead force.  There are some simple squad controls like 'attack' or 'follow', but they aren't too important since they'll usually want to kill the people, making your army bigger.

You also have some vehicles at your disposal, such as jeeps, tanks, and the 'sodomobile' which shoots globs of dirt at people.

Later in the game, the gameplay gets a little more varied once you get the detachable hand special power.  This power lets you throw your hand, which you then control.  It can climb on walls and ceilings, giving it some stealth cababilities.  Once you get in range of an enemy, you can attach yourself to it's head and control it.  If you're stuck somewhere, you can take control of a soldier and blast his friends in the back before they know what's going on.  Besides being fun, this ads a huge aspect to the game, and greaty varies the gameplay.

The game also has a co-op mode, where there's simply 2 Stubbs running around.  As with any co-op experience, this only ads to the fun.

Throughout the game, there are many funny one-liners, cutscenes, characters, weapons, and is over all pretty hilarious. I won't spoil the story by going into too much detail, but it's very funny.

The graphics are pretty good.  It's an updated version of the Halo engine, but it looks more like Halo 2 in quality. 

The game is not very long, but that just ads to the replay value since it's not a huge investment to start playing it.  There are several different difficulties, but the main difference between them is the amount of enemies you fight, making the hardest difficulty more fun, since your zombie hoard can be much larger.

The gameplay can get a little repetitive, especially if completed in one sitting, but it's not a huge issue. 

This game can be found online for fairly cheap, and is also on the Xbox Originals on the Xbox 360, so everyone should be able to check it out, and it's definately worth the money, especially when played with a friend.

It is a shame that this game came out so late in the Xbox's life (mid October 2005, and the 360 came out in November 2005), because it is a unique game that just never got the attention it deserved.