One special attack that helps massively is that you can rip off your hand, controlling it from the POV of said hand as you crawl along floors and walls. You’ll need to use these too as quite quickly you start to encounter police with guns, scientists with ray guns, and soldiers with rocket launchers. It’s not just about commanding hordes though, and there are special attacks you can use as well – these are a lot of fun, especially when you break wind and let out a toxic cloud of fury that confuses several enemies at once. It’s a great effect, even when you consider the limitations on the number of zombies allowed on screen through that old Xbox game. They will eat anyone in their path for you, and at certain times even help with the destruction of walls that may be blocking a path, or are able to be used to unlock some puzzles.

As soon as that is done they die for a second and then come back as a zombie follower, letting you control your zombie horde by whistling for them to follow you. It’s here where things get crazier, for it is left to you to sneak up behind any person and eat their brains. At one point there is a barbershop quartet singing about how they are going to kill our mate Stubbs. The writing is clever though fun with some great characters and brilliant concepts. It’s pure B-movie madness in fact, with a tongue-in-cheek goofiness that is the heart and soul of the game. The story is as bizarre as it sounds pretty much like a bunch of hatters on LSD. Here he meets all manner of crazy scientists, angry policemen, and mad countryfolk. Yet then he watches a bit of TV, spying a woman who he falls in love with before heading out to search for her across the world of Punchbowl. Stubbs is our zombie hero, sprouting up from the ground smoking a cigarette, wearing a hat and a cheap suit before he immediately starts feasting on brains.

Here the world is a mixture of old-school 1950’s design elements with B-movie robots and jet packs. There is a mad story rolling around in the back of Stubbs the Zombie set in the fictional town of Punchbowl in 1959. Until now that is, because Stubbs is back and he’s hungry for a new generation of gaming. Since that time, the developers always wanted to produce a sequel but after the company went bust in 2014 that dream faded away. It did however receive some warm reviews, but wasn’t without controversy, accused of promoting cannibalism. Stubbs first released on the Xbox back in 2005, at a time when social media still consisted of MySpace and the chance to actually meet real people in person.

Stubbs the zombie