It’s a zombie movie, it’s a zombie game, it’s an advertisement for a Kiwi pizza chain. But most of all, it’s awesome!

Below is the first scene of a choose-your-own-adventure zombie flick about a pizza delivery guy trying to deliver a pie to a busty blonde who’s trapped by a horde of zombies. It’s up to you to make the decisions.

Enjoy!

I know we really should stay away from politics on this site, as it never ends well. But I consider this to be less about politics and more a “people watching” exercise.

I think Michelle Bachmann is nuts and despite your views politically, you have to admit she’s said some REALLY fucked up shit over the last few years. Give this girl a spotlight long enough and she’ll tell you the spotlight is made up of the tears of angels and children with utmost sincerity.

This gift of hers has made her the target of a lot of folks and given her Democratic rivals a whole heap of ammunition to use against her. Her latest Democratic challenger, Tarryl Clark has created the site Michelle Bachmann Said WHAT? that pokes fun at the Minnesota’s “favorite” Tea Party idol. The site’s pretty damn funny and even has a soundboard. Always good for a laugh.

What’s even more hilarious is how someone can say all this stuff and STILL manage to win every time she’s up for election. I’m betting even money she’ll be right where she is when this election is over as well. Granted, this site’s purely political in nature, but it’s humorously done and at this point, what’s left?

Make no mistake, this girl’s nuts. And what’s more amusing than that? Eh? Here’s one to tide you over:

I was at PAX East over the weekend and good times were had by all. MC Wilson has some delightful pajamas, and I may or may not have made out with some of the L4D2 crew. Conjecture abounds.

All of that aside, there were a number of games and tabletop insanity going on at the Boston Convention Center. Here’s some stuff I played and what I thought about it:

Shank: If I was going to pick a game of show, I think this might be it. You’ve got knives, guns, a chainsaw, and some grenades. Your goal is to make a whole bunch of dudes real real dead. That’s pretty much all you need to know going into the game. The combo system is surprisingly deep, and I really hope the game gives you an opportunity to master it. Also, chainsawing dudes is really, really fun.

Breach: Ok, let’s just pretend that the ten minute speech about how this game is “real warfare” didn’t happen. Breach is a team-based multiplayer shooter with persistent experience rewards, fully splodable environments, and some pretty environments. It’s also coming to XBLA for $15. For that price I’ll definitely go for a moderny 1943.

Monday Night Combat: Hey, remember DOTA (Defense of the Ancients)? What if it had a love child with Unreal Tournament? You’d get this thing. Playtime was limited for me, but it looks like something that I’d enjoy. It has a fantastic cartoony feel and plays crazy arcadey. I’ll be interested to see more stuff about this.

You people are awesome. And by “you people”, I obviously mean the Jews our listeners. Take MSI Magus, for example. Not only did he donate the prize for the new contest (two copies of Nation Red, downloaded from Steam), but he also sent in a review of the game in order to give you a better idea of what the game is all about. And, without further ado, here it is.

Article by: MSI Magus

It seems that the market has been flooded with Zombie games recently. Off the top of my head, we have Plants Vs Zombies, World at Wars- Zombie mode, Zombie Apocalypse, Left 4 Dead (1 and 2), Zombie Driver, Zombie Bowling… You get the idea. With so many zombie games, people might see Nation Red and think, “Who needs another one of thes?” I would argue though that Nation Red is not just another cheap zombie cash in, but a great classic arcade style survival game from a developer who is actively communicating and listening to their fan base.

Nation Red sets you, as a soldier, in a zombie wasteland with the only goal being to survive and score huge points in the process. Think of it as Robotron X or Geometry Wars, but with zombies! The game controls via the keyboard and mouse, or with a dual-stick controller (your 360 controller being an option). The mouse/keyboard combo allows a little better accuracy with your shooting over the twin stick controls, with the trade off being the controller makes it much easier to use the barrel roll dodge. This is a trade off I’ll gladly taken given how important avoiding the mass of zombies will be!

One of the main things that makes Nation Red so fun and sets it apart from the flood of zombie and twin stick games on the market is its perks and item drops. As you kill zombies in most of the game modes, you will gain levels that grant you various perks. The simple ones give basic effects such as increased damage, attack speed or armor. Some perks, though, can majorly effect the way you play granting things like the ability to teleport or setting all zombies near you on fire. The zombies you kill, aside from giving experience, have a chance to drop new weapons, such as machetes, uzis, shotguns, and even some rather cool and unique weapons like the steam/nail guns. Zombies can also drop power ups from time to time that will last for a few seconds, giving benefits like a sentry gun that mows down enemies, grants invisibility, or inserts a doppelganger that fights with you, or double experience. All in all, there are dozens of perks, weapons and power ups that keep the game fresh.

There are several different modes you can play, most of which I find a blast. (more…)

TomLovesBacon over on the Twitters sent us this. Thought it was worthy enough to share on a Friday.

The last few months, I have been BioWare’s bitch as Dragon Age Origins and now Mass Effect 2 have completely taken over my gaming minutes.  As such I haven’t had as much time to jump in and kill zombies with my online crew.  Yes Lefty, I know you still find time, but I am sooooo close to nailing this alien chick that I… well, I digress.  

Now this doesn’t dissuade my love for Left 4 Dead 2.  It is perhaps the most fun multiplayer experience out there.  It’s challenging, tough and yet clever and fun.  There are some spoilers coming up, but seriously if you haven’t played this game yet, walk away from the computer now and get to it….NOW, I SAY!!! 

Ok, one of the best story endings in Left for Dead 2 takes place in Dark Carnival where you have to survive a wave of zombies in of all places a county fair rock concert stage.  The band that was supposed to be playing (we’re not really sure if there were eaten, or still in the trailer getting high) was called “Midnight Riders” and they claim to have the loudest and biggest stage show on the planet.  One player will activate the sound check tape from the booth while yet another activates the kick ass pyrotechnics show.  Not only is all of this crazy fun, but the rock and roll really added to the experience.  Simply put, it kicked ass and I could replay that scene all night (If I didn’t have alien chicks to bang). 

I often wondered if I might hear more from the Midnight Riders, perhaps in some DLC or in Left for Dead 3.  Then last week I was watching AOTS and Chris Gore was giving his DVD review.  I sat up and adjusted my eyes as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but Chris Gore had on what appeared to be a Midnight Riders concert t-shirt.  That’s effing awesome I thought and I immediately searched to see if these were actually available or if he just knew somebody.  Turns out, and I may be late to this party but who cares, the Midnight Riders actually have a website complete with audio tracks, a CD (which you can’t order yet) and yes Concert T Shirts!  It’s part of a viral campaign for Left for Dead 2 that I hadn’t heard of until now. 

http://www.midnight-riders.com/

It’s just another sign of just how much Valve loves you.  Not only do they make awesome games that I will keep in my collection forever.  (Seriously, ever play a bad game from Valve?   Think about that…)   But they create an immense back story on something as seemingly insignificant as the band whose music is played at the end of a level.  We read in the blog about how they are gonna keep on touring even though the airports are shutting down.  We have a bus and it works just fine!  I laughed out loud while reading how their late bass player Riggs Donner passed away twenty-four years ago.  There are even You Tube videos of their music that look like they made them themselves.  Don’t expect much from the visual sense, but I dare you not to crack up with their Christmas hit “All I want for Christmas is to Kick Your Ass!”  You’ll want to check out the CD that you can only get on tour, as the song titles are funny as shit.  Hopefully they’ll release “Get Your Friends (I’ll Take Y’all On)” or “Stick it in your Craw” sometime soon…we can only hope.

Much like life, movies with limited release, or those that go straight to DVD, are like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are gonna get.  But occasionally, you can find a straight to DVD gem or two that deserves discussion.  Such is the case with this Sundance Film Festival fan favorite Dead Snow (trailer). 

Now, John tweeted a few weeks ago that this awesome movie would be streaming on Netflix.  Sadly, our friends from Blockbuster video have claimed this movie as an exclusive for the next few weeks.  So you can’t get it from Netflix, RedBox, or any other rental place, only Blockbuster.  I left the wonderful world of Blockbuster rentals a few years ago when they charged me yet again for a late fee on a movie I returned days before.  I vowed to never rent there again, but this being the only way to enjoy Nazi Zombie goodness, I signed up again.  And I will say is, this film was well worth signing my soul away to the devils at Blockbuster.

The story of Dead Snow is not an unfamiliar one; some rather attractive people go to the mountains to spend Easter vacation at a cabin.  One of the campers had goes and meets an untimely demise.  Her worried boyfriend takes off in his snowmobile to look for her, leaving the rest of the campers behind.  The couples drink and pair off when then suddenly a wandering old gentleman interrupts their party.  The old man insults their coffee, smokes cigarettes and provides us with the necessary exposition to move the story forward. He tells them the dark history of the region: during World War II, a force of Einsatzgruppen led by the dreaded Standartenführer (Colonel) Herzog occupied the area. During three long years the Nazis abused and tortured the local people, and near the end of the war, with Germany’s defeat looming, looted all their valuables before starting to withdraw from the area. The citizens managed to stage an uprising and ambushed the Nazis, killing many. The surviving Nazis, including Herzog, were chased into the mountains, and it was assumed that they all froze to death. The hiker says the area still has an evil reputation.

The old guy leaves and wouldn’t you know it, the couples find a box of gold below the floorboards.  Reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, some gold falls on the snow to awake a hoard of killer Nazi zombies.  The zombies attack the campers, killing a couple of them.  Breaking a few horror movie rules, the remaining campers decide to split up; the guys will defend the cabin while the girls try and get back to the SUVs and get some help.  What ensues is a very bloody series of chases and fights in the snowy mountains. 

There is a lot to like about Dead Snow.  First, what could be better than a hoard of killer zombies?  A hoard of killer Nazi zombies, of course!  It’s the perfect combination of evil and I can’t believe we had to wait this long to see it on screen.  You immediately love to hate these dead assholes and that makes the movie a ton of fun.  The best is Standartenführer Herzog who barks zombie orders to his dead minions. 

Next, there is a ton of action, especially at the end of this movie.  The guys who stay back to defend the cabin find a shed loaded with zombie killing tools including a bright red chainsaw.  Surrounded, these two yuppies take out a whole field of zombies in some very cool and unique ways.  Oh, we can’t go wrong with a sub machine gun mounted to a snowmobile…

Finally, the movie is gory as shit and there is a ton of blood.  And blood on the white snow stands out quite well, might I add.  The Nazi’s love to munch on their victims entrails and you get to see a lot of them.  Thankfully, the heroes in this film are not at all likable because their deaths are quite gruesome.  It’s the kind of gruesome that is so over-the-top that it should be shared with a room of people. 

Dead Snow was filmed and produced in Norway, so unless you speak fluent German you will either have to endure subtitles or a decent dubbed version.  I chose the subtitle route as I prefer trying to glean some sense of nuance from the original language.  In either case, the language is not a barrier and this movie won’t be known for an outstanding script as it’s pretty b-rated.  You’re gonna watch Dead Snow for its zombie goodness, fantastic fight scenes, and a very BAD ASS ending!  The Rotten Tomatoes consensus sums up this film quite well, “Though it doesn’t cover new ground, Dead Snow is an entertaining mix of camp, scares, and blood and guts.”

The Holiday Season is well under way, and those of with kids might feel overwhelmed with countless adventures in Toys R’ Us and Wal-Mart.  It wasn’t too long ago that I remember fighting massive crowds of crabby, frustrated parents looking for that last Tickle Me Elmo.  So this year, why not do your kid a favor and prepare them for the Zombie Apocalypse in a fun and education way by purchasing Plume and Robinson’s book “There’s a Zombie in my Treehouse.”  I first heard about this book on “Night of the Living Podcast,” and all I can say is…it’s BAD ASS! 

The story is pretty simple, our hero, Johnny, has an amazing tree house where he spends many happy days pretending to be a knight in shining armor, a cowboy, or other heroic figure.  But then one day we seem Johnny sulking on the curb.  When asked why he isn’t playing in the treehouse he explains, “Because there is a zombie in my treehouse.”  Several people try to console the young boy, explaining that the zombie is all in his imagination.  So one by one they ascend into the treehouse (and this is the BEST part) never to be seen again.  There are no gory scenes, no explanation, they just simply disappear.    

The story is cute, easy to read, and has some great artwork from Len Peralta.  Perhaps I am a horrible Father, but I wish I could have read this book to Tiny when he was younger instead of “Goodnight Moon” for the 100^th time.  So if you want a unique gift for a zombie loving parent, visit http://www.zombieinmytreehouse.com and pick up a copy of this book!

Part Two: Recording From Afar

Sadly, I live in a different place to John, Moe and Hilden. Very different, over 4,000 miles away different actually. I really wanted to keep an active involvement with the ZomBOOsical after heading home and we’d already tried musical collaboration over the internet before with the Shmopera and it worked surprisingly well.

So how does it work? Well more often than not I’d get a mail or something from Hilden with an mp3 of a rough track that they were working on with some vague ideas of what they need on the guitar and what bpm the track would be set to. As luck would have it, Hilden and I both use Logic Pro on the Mac so our process for recording and mixing is very similar, which made the process a little smoother. On top of the direct emails, I’d be chatting with John on a pretty much daily basis via Skype, MSN, Email and Facebook chat to keep up to date with what’s going on and input the occasional idea here and there.

My thought process for recording was to provide Hilden with as dry and raw a sound file as I could so that he could easily edit and mix later on to fit with the other things he had. This can be quite a difficult thing to achieve, you want to provide enough EQ to give direction to how you think it should sound but not enough that it limits or forces the mix in a particular direction. Electric guitar is also fun given that you’re generally talking about adding a truck load of different effects to get ‘that sound’ so another balance to hit for example was ‘how much delay and reverb’.

The way I approached these issues was to create a rough mix with all instruments included as a reference point to a) where my parts should be time-wise and b) a rough idea of how I’d mix it. That’s mainly where things sit in the stereo mix, how much effects I’d go with a rough EQ pass. Following that file I’d send each separate audio track with a small amount of EQ, minimal effects and no stereo mix.

One of the things that I wanted to make sure that I captured with the actual performances when recording was the ‘recorded on the spot with minimal thought process’ feel that we had from the first session. Thankfully, the way I approach recording guitar melody/lead work is to set the section I’m working on into a loop, hit record and improvise for a few runs. From there I’ll either find one of the performances that I already love or listen through them all and pick out the bits that I think worked and record what I call a Frankenstein Track, all the bits I like stitched together.

As a treat, here’s some of the guitar work that I did that didn’t make it into the final tracks…

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A while ago I put together a little ditty about the hunter.

Promises of more were made. And not kept.

I lie about stuff. A lot.

However, I have decided the new infected are too good to pass up, so based on the lovely demo (which B Nerdy from..somewhere…graced me with), I bring you these…

…creations.

Enjoy!

The Spitter (To the theme of “Oops, I did it Again”)

Oops!
… I did it again.
I spit acid on you
Face lost in the drain.
Oh, melted baby.
Oops!
… You think I’ll explode
That I’m just a boomer
but I’m gonna spit acid on you

The Smoker (To the theme of “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”)

You don’t know how you got it
You just that you’re caught
Oh Lordy you’re a-runnin’
From the horde and you got caught
In the intestines
All stretched out
You’ve been smoked!

Oh no, don’t be shy
You don’t have to go hide
I’ll hold you, choke you, lick you, kill you

The Boomer (To the theme of “Baby Got Back”)

I like to puke and I cannot lie.
Just love to see that bile fly.
When a survivor sneaks in with a clean mug
and an itty bitty gun I get BLEEARGLBLPTHH *explode*

The Charger (To the theme of “Hold My Hand”)

Hold my arm
Want you to die right now
Hold my arm
I’ll slam you down you’ll see
Hold my arm
You don’t have a choice when I come
‘Cuz I’m going to pound you down into that trash can
(more…)