The end of a console’s lifecycle is an interesting time: Big developers are probably focusing on launch titles for the new platform, which means there’s space for small companies to do weird things. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse–hereinafter, Stubbs–rose from the grave of the original Xbox in October of 2005, about a month before the 360 would make its debut.
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Developer: Aspyr
Price: $20 USD
Platform: PC (reviewed), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X Nintendo Switch
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
Stubbs is emblematic of the end-of-lifecycle game in that it is extremely weird, kind of janky, and beloved by those who happened to pick it up in the game store, which was something we had way back then, because console games hadn’t invented online purchases yet. No, really. It briefly got a Steam release, then laid dormant for many years…
While this was post-28 Days Later, fast zombies hadn’t quite taken over everything yet, and Stubbs is a shambling corpse that can “run” at a fast shuffle at best, hardly the impressive protagonist with muscles like enormous hams that gamers usually value. He doesn’t have much in the way of guts, but that’s probably because he has a giant hole in his torso. He doesn’t have powerful attacks, but he can bat and flail at passersby enough to knock them off guard. But there’s a…special something.
It’s farts. Gag-inducing, absolutely disabling farts.
And there’s also a nasty bite which delivers unto him tasty tasty brains. And that bite also infects others, creating a horde of zombies. They, likewise, are individually weak, but there is power in a swarm, and it is undeniably satisfying to send a swarm of the undead after the cops and robots and scientists and other assorted occupants of poor, doomed Punchbowl.
Ah, yes, Punchbowl, glorious Punchbowl. City of the future. Well, the city of the future as portrayed in the 1950s, so flying cars and robot guides and vicious killer police using overpowered stun tools to attack the innocent. Ha ha! It’s so good THAT didn’t turn out to be the future, right?
The founder of Punchbowl is a billionaire playboy industrialist that claims he picked himself up by his bootstraps and built his utopian city of the future. Thank goodness we can’t think of anyone like that, right? And, of course, the scientific genius behind it all is a reformed Nazi that is now on our side. Truly, video games get away with things you can’t can’t do in real life.
It also needs to be said that the soundtrack is fucking amazing, I can’t believe they kept/got/still had the license. The Raveonettes, Death Cab for Cutie, Cake, The Dandy Warhols, The Flaming Lips, and other “bands you’ve actually heard of” doing covers of 50s pop songs all while a zombie farts and bites his way through 50s style sci-fi dystopia.
Stubbs is the biggest, greenest turd in the Punchbowl (see what I did there?) and the joy of the game is capering through town with your zombie horde, fucking up everything. If you enjoy that the dotcom Captains of Industry ruining our lives from San Francisco have to regularly step around piles of human feces on the sidewalk, then you get the appeal.
Because the truth is, Stubbs is a janky old Xbox The First game running on the Halo engine, meaning the first Halo, no numbers or titles after a colon. Just Halo. There have been a few updates and concessions to modern sensibilities, like Steam Play is enabled so you can play with a friend. Otherwise, it’s exactly as it was, for good and for ill. The vehicle physics is still janky. I frequently have no idea what I’m doing. But is it still a fucking blast to screw around ruining a shiny libertarian technoparadise by being fucking disgusting? Hell yeah, man.
The Final Word
My buggy boyfriend’s back he’s gonna *faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttt*
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
