Lumbering.
Soulless.
An empty, terrifying shell, existing only to devour your brain.
It also has zombies in it.
It's Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green.
So back in 2005, the man who basically invented the zombie movie...released another zombie
movie, in Land of the Dead.
A few months later, this came out.
And I guess, in a way, it's actually kind of fitting.
It's fitting that this game, which looks like rotten man flesh and moves a lot like a dead
guy...would be the Land of the Dead game.
This is like the corpse of a video game...brought back to life.
So on the one hand, it makes sense.
And the other hand fell off, and stinks like sh*t.
Anyway, Road to Fiddler's Green is based on Land of the Dead, but...it's not one of those
games that just retells the movie.
It's actually its own story, which sort of happens parallel to the movie.
That's the one thing this game does right.
We see this strange man, standing motionless in a farmer's backyard.
That man's a zombie.
You're the farmer.
And when the zombie notices you, you're sent into this panic.
I mean, the game tells you to grab your rifle, but...
The rifle's in the barn.
And...the barn's locked.
And oh, sh*t, the key's in the basement.
So the game actually gets off to an interesting start.
You're running around the farm, trying to find anything you can to fend off these...things.
That's kind of cool.
And at least for a while, the game stays cool.
You decide to head to your neighbor's house, but...there's a cornfield in the way.
Awesome setting for a zombie game.
You can hear them...walking through the corn, lumbering toward you.
But you can't see a damn thing.
So at least for a while, the game seems to have some promise.
For a while, there at least seems to be a vibe.
And by "for a while," I mean for, like...10 minutes, max.
No, the promise of a vibe is very quickly broken.
Then the settings stop being so cool, and the gameplay takes a shovel to the face, and
the game reveals itself for what it really is.
One of the worst shooters ever released for the Xbox.
Road to Fiddler's Green is bad on a scale that's so thoroughly comprehensive, it's actually
kind of impressive.
After that brief flash of promise, there's not a single enjoyable moment in this entire
experience.
I mean, at least some bad games have fun moments.
The best moment in this game is when you finally turn if off.
I mean, I don't think there's a single element of this game's design that isn't to some degree
broken.
The levels?
Absolutely horrendous.
Somehow, they pulled off 1990s level design in the year 2005.
Must've hit their heads on a toilet when they were developing this, because clearly, they
figured out how to make time travel possible.
And while they were there, they must've grabbed some texture packs...for these godawful environments.
This game looks like 1997 sh*t its pants.
But obviously, the biggest problem here is the gameplay.
That's the reason playing this game feels like your brain is being chewed on.
Not even eaten, because at least that would be a quick death.
Playing this is, like...a zombie with no teeth has you.
He's just gnawing you to death, like an old man with an Oh, Henry!
bar.
The zombies just stand there; the hit zones are so random, you never know what's gonna
happen; and the combat is so boring, I would seriously rather read about killing zombies,
than actually do it in this game.
Like, that takes seriously bad game design, to make me want to read.
I literally have a baseball bat, in my hands...and this game has me, like, "Eh."
"I'd rather have The Bell Jar."
There are all kinds of bad games.
Some games have great ideas, but terrible execution.
Some have the opposite.
They're really well made, but their design is terrible.
But this?
This is the bad game of bad games.
The graphics, the sound, the music, the gameplay...like, it's so bad, even the zombies don't want to
be here.
Zombies can't even think.
And even they know better.
It's Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green.
Some things are worse than death.