Stubbs the Zombie (the game, not the guy) drops you a swastika in the first five minutes of the game, during the initial cutscene. That alone should tell you what kind of game this is. In the city of Punchbowl, a stereotypical 50s retro-futuristic American city, Stubbs (the guy) emerges from the ground with no mission other than to eat and kill everything on his way. That’s the premise and that’s what happens in the gameplay part of the game, you go around eating and killing people. The arsenal which Stubbs makes use of is rather limited. He can punch enemies to weaken and eat them afterwards, but he can also fart so hard that everyone near gets instantly debilitated. There’s also the hand, which can be used to take control of literally any enemy, which means that you can turn the game into a third person shooter when enemies with guns start showing up. You can also use your organs as remotely-detonated grenades and throw your head like an also remotely-detonated bowling ball to kill anyone affected by the explosion and turn them into zombies. Aaaaand… That’s it. I know this is a five hour game about eating brains, but the mechanics don’t seem to evolve at all during the whole game. Apart from being introduced to each one of them individually at the start of the game. You can also drive jeeps and tanks (they control exactly like the jeeps and tanks from Halo: Combat Evolved because it and Stubbs run on the same engine btw), but they appear just a few times and in the last levels, so it’s not like there’s much room for experimentation.
If all you want is being a zombie, this game delivers just that, but don’t expect much else from it. Thankfully it has a lot of charisma and personality which is what actually makes it stand out. Stubbs is, simply put, the coolest mf alive. I don’t care that all he says is just “nggggguuuuuuhhhhh” and “braaaaaaainzz”, listen to his motivational speech and tell me you don’t get pumped up. Every cutscene oozes charisma and this game is, thematically, very interesting to say the least. But the problem here is that the cool parts take place only on the cutscenes. If you don’t care about this, you might have fun, but for a game that is so wacky, being stuck with a tedious gameplay loop that sooner than later turns this wild premise into an uninteresting chore shows some serious untapped potential which would have made this an incredible time. In fact, the best part of the game is the first half, because it inserts new mechanics in interesting ways (it gives you a dedicated button to pee in one level) at a slow pace and you go after various unique characters with their dedicated boss fights and after that half ends, it doesn’t seem to know what to do and ends up feeling unnecessarily stretched. One of the first boss battles in the game is a lengthy Simon Says dance battle (you SHALL listen to this unexpected banger) and the last boss battle is damaging shields until they break and a cutscene plays. Some of the boss battles from the second half are badly designed and it’s never clear what you exactly have to do, but turns out it’s just damaging enemies. Stubbs the Zombie is a game that has charisma and made me laugh, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t bore the fuck out of me most of the time.
If all you want is being a zombie, this game delivers just that, but don’t expect much else from it. Thankfully it has a lot of charisma and personality which is what actually makes it stand out. Stubbs is, simply put, the coolest mf alive. I don’t care that all he says is just “nggggguuuuuuhhhhh” and “braaaaaaainzz”, listen to his motivational speech and tell me you don’t get pumped up. Every cutscene oozes charisma and this game is, thematically, very interesting to say the least. But the problem here is that the cool parts take place only on the cutscenes. If you don’t care about this, you might have fun, but for a game that is so wacky, being stuck with a tedious gameplay loop that sooner than later turns this wild premise into an uninteresting chore shows some serious untapped potential which would have made this an incredible time. In fact, the best part of the game is the first half, because it inserts new mechanics in interesting ways (it gives you a dedicated button to pee in one level) at a slow pace and you go after various unique characters with their dedicated boss fights and after that half ends, it doesn’t seem to know what to do and ends up feeling unnecessarily stretched. One of the first boss battles in the game is a lengthy Simon Says dance battle (you SHALL listen to this unexpected banger) and the last boss battle is damaging shields until they break and a cutscene plays. Some of the boss battles from the second half are badly designed and it’s never clear what you exactly have to do, but turns out it’s just damaging enemies. Stubbs the Zombie is a game that has charisma and made me laugh, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t bore the fuck out of me most of the time.