UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

2 thoughts on “538 – Astute Paranoia”

  1. darius404

    Well that’s a pretty damn good question! Another reminder that Chuck isn’t stupid.

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Corpo sponsored snuff films … no surprise there. I wonder what voice over model they use – dispassionate wildlife commentator or enthusiastic conservationist. Or maybe Nascar ?

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538 – Astute Paranoia
Posted on December 11, 2024 by Dawn

Oscar was probably hoping Chuck would talk him down from his suspicions, not escalate them.

We're close to the end of this episode/issue, just a matter of figuring whether the final page will be next Wednesday the 18th or we'll put it up for Xmas. We'll try to drop a notice here and on Facebook once we figure that out, but we definitely want to post it before the New Year.

Okay, okay, zombie talk… zombie games!

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Clint
“Get back on topic!” said the handful of readers of this blog. Maybe. So to assuage this no doubt nonexistent controversy, I’m going to mention a few zombie video games in development. One I’ve played a demo of, the others are just pure conjecture from trailers, etc. I guess let’s start with the one I actually played, courtesy of a free demo period on Steam which at the time you read this will have ended the previous day. We are timely as ever! I did post about it on our ZR Facebook page over the weekend, so maybe some of you saw that. Anyhow: The Last Stand: Aftermath This one’s an interesting concept. Instead of guiding a single character or group of recruits through a zombie apocalypse scenario, you have “volunteers” that you control through the game world one at a time, sneaking through zed-infested neighborhoods seeking gas for your car and supplies for your compound. Oh also doses of anti-viral, since you’ve been infected by a new strain of virus and don’t have long to live. The anti-viral only temporarily slows the progress of the disease, so you’re basically doomed no matter what. “You” is a temporary concept by design, though. The car you travel in, gas up, and (most importantly?) load supplies into has a beacon in it and will get recovered by the compound when you meet your untimely end, one way or another. Then the next day you pick from one of three new volunteers who have shown up back at home base and start off again. Same car, different fodder. Life is cheap I suppose, while working cars are not. The supplies your last run picked up can be used to help out the new guy (or gal) and hopefully they’ll get further along. It’s sort of similar to Hades except instead of being an immortal who keeps reincarnating when defeated, you’re guiding a never-ending(?) stream of different folks who know they’re going out but basically want to do some good for the tribe before they die. I was a little muddled on the objective but I believe it’s to get beyond “The Wall” and then…? But it’s not like I got very far, only a few neighborhoods before I stirred up one too many zeds… when they get riled enough to start running after you it seems to be game over for that particular survivor, or at least I couldn’t find any way to get out of that. In fact I couldn’t even seem to traverse obstacles that I’d jumped over or through just a minute before and which I would have dearly loved to put between me and them. That and an unfortunate problem of not being able to see your character or zombies at times because of an imperfect isometric viewpoint is a frustrating bit because some of the other activities like sneaking and distraction and such are fairly intuitive and, dare I say, cool. But since the game is still in pre-release there might be time to smooth out the kinks, so worth keeping an eye on, especially if you’re a fan of rogue-like (or “rogue-lite”) games. It definitely preserves the high body count a zombie movie often involves!