Nonetheless The Finest Zombie Recreation

It’s 2023 and over the weekend I by accident stayed up far later than I anticipated replaying Undead Nightmare on my Nintendo Swap. Not solely am I having a candy time with the 13-year-old growth, however I’m excited that probably the greatest zombie video games ever made, and certainly one of Rockstar’s best hits, is lastly accessible to extra individuals by way of the newly launched Swap and PS4 ports. It’s only a disgrace they value $50.

Whereas the unique Purple Useless Redemption was a grounded and gritty story of revenge and making an attempt to flee one’s previous, the western’s one and solely single-player growth went a really totally different route. Undead Nightmare, launched on October 26, 2010, was a paid growth that added a complete new mini-campaign for RDR gamers. The creepy growth added spooky creatures and lethal zombies to the huge open world of Purple Useless Redemption. After his household will get contaminated by the undead curse, RDR’s protagonist and former outlaw John Marston grabs a shotgun and a lasso and heads out into the zombie-infested prairies and deserts to save lots of his spouse and son, and presumably the world.

And now the unique sport and its beloved growth are mixed right into a single launch on Swap and PS4. And fortunately, the Swap port is a strong approach to play this zombified western.

Undead Nightmare remains to be completely creepy and enjoyable in 2023

There’s so much to like about Undead Nightmare, however what retains me coming again to it each few years is the ambiance and vibe of its zombie-filled open world. In Undead Nightmare, particularly throughout the early portion of the DLC, you might be outnumbered and consistently susceptible to the undead lurking across the total map. There aren’t any vehicles or huge buildings to cover in. That is the Previous West. Machine weapons are big and impractical, ammo is spare, weapons aren’t correct, and horses present little safety from a horde of hungry contaminated. Exploring the creepy and haunted world of Undead Nightmare feels terrifying and unnerving in a approach most zombie video games fail to seize.

Serving to the vibes of Undead Nightmare so much is the unimaginable music, taking a number of the themes and devices present in the primary RDR soundtrack and twisting them into horror-inspired tunes that add a beautiful bizarre west vibe to the motion.

Additionally serving to the vibes: Your complete world is spooky and harmful. Each character you meet is out of their minds, individuals get eaten by zombies consistently, Bigfoot and the Chupacabra run wild, and even the moon is a pale, sickly inexperienced. As you journey from city to city, serving to push again the horde of undead and securing non permanent protected havens for survivors, you’ll all the time really feel such as you’re enjoying by some grindhouse-era horror movie about cowboys and zombies. It’s great, and the right sport to play throughout Halloween.

In my time with the brand new port on Nintendo’s getting older console, I not often bumped into efficiency points. The one main exception occurred throughout fights with big hordes of zombies and survivors. Right here the sport would begin to chug for a bit, much like the way it performed on the Xbox 360 again within the day. (On a extra optimistic be aware: The PS4 model didn’t buckle practically at throughout comparable massive horde fights.)

It’s disappointing that each one these years later, on a brand new console, this $50 port doesn’t convey something new to the desk like a 60fps mode or enhanced visuals. It’s additionally a disgrace that Undead Nightmare’s on-line zombie horde mode is absent from the Swap and PS4 variations of the sport, as that mode was a ton of enjoyable with pals.

Nonetheless, if you happen to can overlook the lacking on-line modes and the dearth of visible upgrades or tweaks, it is a incredible approach to play Undead Nightmare. I can think about taking the Swap out on a tenting journey into the woods and enjoying this spooky sport at evening round a campfire, leaping at each noise you hear from the darkness round you. It’s simply that the excessive price ticket would possibly understandably hold some of us away till Purple Useless Redemption’s new ports go on sale.