City of the Dead

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From Gamespot

 

Toronto, CANADA – May 11, 2005 - Hip Games today announced that they have signed horror icon Tom Savini to appear in the previously unnamed "City of the Dead" video game. Developed by Kuju Entertainment and set in the George A. Romero universe, "City of the Dead" will be released on the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system, the Xbox video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PC CD-ROM in spring 2006.

 

Tom Savini, star of "From Dusk Till Dawn" and a noted horror makeup artist, is cast in a pivotal role in "City of the Dead." Savini will bring his instantly recognizable voice and likeness to William "Red" McLean, a battle-worn ex-law enforcement officer who is a survivor to the core. Savini's character will initially provide fire support in the game then be playable, allowing gamers to experience the game through the eyes of "Red."

 

"We are incredibly pleased that Mr. Savini has agreed to lend his talent to our upcoming release, 'City of the Dead,'" said Arindra Singh, President & Chief Executive Officer of Hip Interactive Corp. "His legendary make-up artistry and theatrical roles have securely embedded him in the Romero Universe. We are honored to have him on board!"

 

"I feel like an assassin. I load up my car with my essentials and go off to strange places and kill people, and things...in movies," said Tom Savini from his Pittsburgh home. "It makes sense for me now to do it in a new strange place....a video game. My first video game and a whole new arena to fulfill my reputation, my legend, as the king of splatter in the bloodiest gore fest in gaming... 'City of the Dead.'"

 

"City of the Dead" begins as four desperate survivors escape a ravaged zombie infested city by helicopter. After making it to the remote island of Isla Mortal, an accident destroys their only means of escape. Unbeknown to them the island is home to a top secret military installation, overrun by the walking dead. Armed with an arsenal of traditional and futuristic weaponry, players must battle the living dead from dusk 'till dawn in series of abandoned locales. With split-screen co-op missions, party mode, and four-player online feature, "City of the Dead" also promises a range of multiplayer features that allow gamers to play as human or zombie.

 

Hip will unveil the first build of "City of the Dead" featuring William "Red" McLean behind closed doors next week during E3. Hip Interactive is located in the Concourse Hall at booth 5013.

 

Screenshots!

[NoCalMike 0]

I like what I see.

[Ripper 0]

This will be different from the house of the dead series how?

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This will be different from the house of the dead series how?

Well, I believe this game has more of a Doom/Halo engine rather than the "can't stop moving" type of game that HotD is.

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More from Gamespot via E3:

 

When you hear the name Romero, chances are, you think of one of two things: Doom or zombie movies. For the purposes of this story, try to think of the latter. At E3 2005, publisher Hip Games has a new zombie action game on display that has been developed under the tutelage of zombie film god George Romero. George Romero's City of the Dead is its name, and its goal is singular in focus: kill zombies. No weird non-zombie creatures to muck up the atmosphere and no puzzle-solving or any of that nonsense. Just pure, unadulterated zombie blasting. We got an in-depth look at the game at Hip's E3 booth and came away covered in zombie gunk.

 

City of the Dead isn't based on any specific Romero films, but it is based within the larger Dead universe. In it, you play as one of five different characters, all of which are just trying to survive in a city that has been overrun with the walking dead. In an ultimate "squeal with girly glee" moment, we were stoked to learn that special effects wizard and zombie film mainstay Tom Savini not only is in the game, but is one of the playable characters. He's also supervising some of the gore effects in the game, so you can expect an awful lot of zombie blood and guts flying all over the place.

 

The game itself is a first-person shooter, and it really doesn't aspire to be anything more than a fast-paced arcade shooter. You'll find a number of different weapon types, including pistols, machine guns, grenades, and shotguns. There were a couple of unique aspects of the weapons we saw. For instance, the shotgun is fully pump-action, meaning each time you fire, you'll have to manually reload it using the left trigger button. While that might seem a little cumbersome at first, it actually wasn't, and it seemed to add to the intensity of the action. Another cool thing is the way you can kind of jury-rig other things onto your weapons to make them more effective in melee combat. For example, you can tie a shovel to the BUTT of the shotgun, making it much easier to explode a zombie's head. The same can be done to your pistols, by taping brass knuckles to them.

 

But hey, the real star of the show here will be the zombies, and from what we saw, there ought to be a pretty good number of them. Zombies tend to travel in groups, and they come in different varieties. Obviously, there's the usual lumbering, biting, angry zombie, but we also saw a cop zombie, who, despite his condition, continually fired a shotgun at us at random intervals (not on purpose, but because it was a remembered action from when he was alive), and a leaper zombie, a creepy little guy who crawls around on the ground and then jumps at you. Zombies cannot be killed unless you destroy the brain, but you can knock them backward or even blow off body parts if you hit them elsewhere.

 

There will be 14 to 16 story missions in the game, though the story here is barely the focus. The developers used Burnout as an example of how they are really looking to make a super-arcadey, over-the-top kind of game. So a lot of the mission objectives will be appropriately focused on killing as many zombies as you can, without much worry about anything else. Once you complete the story mode, you'll also have arcade and multiplayer modes to check out. The arcade mode works similarly to Soul Calibur's weapon master mode. You'll be given a series of available challenges, each with semi-arbitrary rules, like you can only use melee combat, or you have to kill a certain number of a specific type of zombie. The multiplayer will be online for up to four players and features competitive and cooperative play. The cooperative mode sounds especially cool, as during the mode, your friends can be infected. Here, you can opt to just kill your partner immediately, sparing him the change of death, or you can keep him alive long enough to help you kill some more zombies. You'll have to be careful, however, because once they turn, they'll come after you.

 

The one area of the game we have to admit we weren't exactly enamored with at this point was the presentation. Mainly, the graphics in the game don't look that great at this stage of development. However, the game isn't due out until 2006, so hopefully the developers will use that time to polish up the visuals a bit more. Otherwise, we like everything we've seen of the game thus far, and it seems like it could provide some big, dumb fun for fans of zombie killing, in all its forms. City of the Dead is due out for the PS2, Xbox, and PC, and we'll bring you more on the game soon.

 

Tons more screens, too.

[Guest NaturalBornThriller4:20]

Everything was great up until...

 

Release Date: 03/31/2006