Review: Counter-Strike: Source - Zombiemod

I believe a game without zombies is not reaching its potential. CS:Source's Zombiemod, therefore, manifests a significant advantage over inadequate, zombieless titles. There's nothing deplorable about a zombie drought - my conviction is borne simply out of love, of the undead. These recent Splines verdicts may hazard an attempt at explaining my ethos:

IL2-Sturmovik:
"My rusty Russian biplane's landing gear presented not the only disappointing let down - no zombies. 37%"

Supreme Commander:
"Unlike the marvellous Warcraft 3, there's no choice but to command lousy pre-undead types. The framerate has a certain shambling, lurching quality, extra points for that. 38%"

Stubbs The Zombie:
"I hated this game. 50%"

Zombiemod is a rancid carcass of a game - easy to get your teeth into, and full of surprises. There's a simple concept: the round begins with all players warm-blooded, bunched together and knowing that momentarily one of their number will succumb to infection and crave the taste of flesh. The opening seconds consist of panic buying, as humans arm themselves to the teeth before teeth sink deep into their arm; only, with Zombiemod being a ghoulishly modified subsidiary of Counter-Strike, the zombies eschew gnawing for tainted knives - one stab being all that's needed to maintain the spread of undead. There's no AI to be found at this battleground - the living won't die when infected, they simply switch allegiance. The zombies understandably won't settle for anything less than the annihilation of humankind, only by doing so can they win the round. Humans must survive until the timer runs out and the zombies become vegetarian.

Vents make excellent (and claustrophobic) choke-points.

Survival is a grave task. The septic hordes unnervingly wash over terrain like an unclean tsunami, and so the humans' mindset must be one of coordinated defence if they are to stand a chance against their uncharacteristically intelligent foe. Now here's where my gripes begin: as this is a game based on Valve's Source engine, players are able to erect impromptu barricades out of the level's fittings (excellent!), unfortunately this process is frustrating rather than fun - furniture seemingly draped with subtle yet super-strength flypaper, able to stick the burliest survivors dead in their tracks at the slightest collision. Luckily, most servers allow for a teleport command (often !zstuck or !teleport - typed into the chat panel), which can be a life saver.

The maps widely vary in size and quality, it's only through curious experimentation that you'll discover favourites. Each map tends to bias the humans through design - plenty of lofty vantage points and tight gaps favour the wary. It's often through the living's callous acts of bravado that the undead are able to gain the sheer mass necessary to overcome the perils laid down by a map's designer. A winning tactic involves the effective exploitation of a Source's impact modelling - take your position, shotgun in hand, at the ledge of an precipice which you know a zombie must carefully jump across to get at you, then the beauty is in the timing - hold off the blast until your foe has sprung and you'll be rewarded with the panoramic sight of a corpse in flight. Zombiemod may be played on the traditional Counter-Strike maps too - a rancid breath of unlife dictates a significant alteration of gameplay. Maps you thought were comprehensively memorised and due burial will surprise you with their new zest for life.

Sound effects and graphics should be familiar to anyone who's played CS:Source. They are all of a high quality, especially the weapon modelling. There's a scattering of unusual character models which have been designed by the Zombiemod community, although zombie sound effects come directly from Half Life 2. If this game proves itself as successful as I hope it to be, I'd expect plenty more content to arrive over the coming year.

You can find Zombiemod's official website and community forums here. I'm not sure as to who I should thank for the development of this game, although having registered on the forums I received an email from a certain Mr. James Willson - so, thanks James!

Zombiemod can be found by applying a filter for maps named 'zm' in Counter-Strike:Source's server list. And for those of you wondering, the zombies are of the running kind - I know - bah!