By Jason Van Horn

I'm a zombie fanatic. I read the comics and novels. I watch the TV shows and movies. Even if the people only have some of the traits of a zombie such as those in 28 Days Later or Quarantine I'm all onboard. Basically, give me a human out of their mind and who wants to eat and kill another person, and you've got one satisfied individual right here. I'm not generally sold on the idea of browser-based MMOs, as there's only so much fun you can have clicking links, but I guess it just took something like World of the Living Dead a survival horror zombie apocalypse themed game to sell me on the potential. If you've ever wondered how you'd fare in such a situation, now is the time to find out.

In World of the Living Dead, you play as a NECRA operative a government employee who was sealed away from the zombie outbreak in hopes that you could help the people in need and somehow find a way to manage and control the plague. The good news? You're alive. The bad news? The original plan failed, there aren't any rescue attempts planned, and you were given only one mission survive. With three survivors at your side, how will you do in this strange, horrendous world? The idea behind World of the Living Dead is simple survive. It's the only main goal of the game, but there are little ones you have to strive for in order to complete the main one.

Players are randomly given three starting characters, which come with individual ID cards detailing things like their name, sex, and occupation. While those things might be important to you for role-playing purposes (you can assign a bio to each character), there are four primary things to worry about and consider regardless of what your survivor's name is. Those four things are: Fear, Fatigue, Thirst, and Hunger.



Fear is what happens when you spend any time passing through a zone that has any z-density (rating to show how infected and dangerous an area is). The more time you spend in one of these areas the more frightened the survivor will become. There are other factors too, such as being able to reduce the gaining of fear by equipping your survivor with some proper protection, and the fact that the death of another survivor on your team will lead to others becoming frightened. The primary way to remove fear is to spend time in a safe house and recover. Fatigue shows how tired your character is by performing tasks such as moving or scavenging an area, plus survivors also accumulate more fatigue depending on how much they're carrying with them. Thirst and hunger are pretty easy to understand you need to drink enough (2 liters) and eat enough (men 2000 calories, women 1000 calories) or else you'll slowly start to wither away. For every day you don't meet these requirements, that survivor will slowly find their meter growing. If a survivor's needs are not met for several days, they'll die from one of the two afflictions. Unlike fear and fatigue, thirst and hunger can't be fixed by merely resting, but instead can only be healed by having the required items.

The primary way in which thirst and hunger are kept in check is by scavenging items. Besides being able to find things like guns and melee weapons, various food and water sources are what you'll find yourself craving more than a good shotgun in your hand. Survivors can only scavenge for items on specially marked areas on the map, which are represented by different icons. A bell is a school. A cross is a church. A flame is a fire department. Etc. Each location has a loot meter (shows how much remaining stuff can be found) and a difficulty meter (how many attempts and how hard it is to find items). Certain locations are also more likely to have specific loot items as well, as a church will only ever contain food and water supplies, while a place like a convenient store will also have the chance of dropping weapons. So, if you find yourself in dire need of something specific, make sure you know where to go.



While each character is pretty similar in the beginning, they can be tweaked, adjusted, and leveled thanks to the game's skill system. As you perform acts such as scavenging, you'll earn Survival Points, which not only help you level up (later things like broadcast message missions, the ability to create factions, and being able to make your own safe house become available) but improve the function of your characters as well. For instance, one of the early weapons you can get is a bat. Having a bat is fine, but having someone know how to really use one and do damage is better. By spending points on a survivor's Skull Crusher skill, you'll make them more deadly when wielding a melee weapon. There is a total of 23 skills spread across seven different categories: Survival, Combat, Movement, Scavenging, Death, Fear, and Fatigue. You can improve skills to do everything from make a character a better scavenger to reducing how much water or food they need. Besides learning skills, players can also give their survivors Infocards, which look like trading cards, but act as immediate support skills.

One of the reasons I enjoy the game so much is because of the map system, as you actually navigate through the real streets of Los Angeles, thanks to the brilliant way in which the game streams Google Maps onto its page and then overlays the map with routes you want to take, locations you can enter, and displaying zombie hot zones as well. You can zoom in and out, scroll around, and even place your own markers on the map so you can remember where a particular sweet scavenging spot was. Much like a real-time strategy game, there is a fog of war in effect, as you can't see what locations are near you (mostly only NECRA sanctioned safe houses) or see the danger zone of an area without being in the vicinity, so you'll actually need to explore and put yourself at risk in order to ultimately survive.

Since the game is still in beta, there are still things being tweaked or included, such as PVP, missions players can take, and rankings for a number of stats, such as who has the most location space, who has been alive the longest, and other such tidbits that people might be interested in checking out.



Beyond the few missing pages and bugs being worked out, World of the Living Dead has so far been an amazing experience, as it's quite unlike any other game out there. There can be a lot to keep up with, but the menu system is easy to use, stats are easily tracked, the map system is beautiful, and even some things are handled for you, so it's not like you're babysitting a character in The Sims (no need to tell these survivors when to drink and eat).

If you're a fan of zombies you owe it to yourself to check this game out. I was somewhat skeptical going into the experience as I'm not overly fond of browser-based games, but World of the Living Dead has been a real gem so far and a blast to play. It doesn't require a huge time commitment either, as you can play it in spurts whenever you have some free time and an Internet connection.

My only advice stay away from the NECRA safe house along Historic U.S 66! I've got a sweet place picked out, lots to scavenge, and I don't need the competition taking away my survival goods. So help me if Alvaro dies of dehydration because you had to come along and get stingy. If push comes to shove I'll gut you and leave you to the zombies to feed on. Hey, that's just how the game of survival is played.

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