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10 Tips From Games For Surviving A Zombie Holocaust (part 2)

5.Look After Your Weapons And They’ll Look After You

Picture the scene; you stand in the middle of a street where there are four or five groaning zombies shuffling their way towards you, their only motivation the desire to eat the flesh from your bones. In your hand is hefty axe; a sharpened blade fixed to a thick wooden handle just waiting to be swung. Given our society’s insistence that any zombie can be stopped with a hefty blow to the brain this would seem to be the perfect weapon to get you out of this situation, so you walk towards the horde already swinging and waiting to hear the damage.

What if, though, the axe’s blade is not properly secured to the blade as the bolts and screws have rusted away after years of neglect. The first time you make contact with the rotten skull of an approaching zombie the blade is ripped from the handle and remains lodged in that skull. You could still fight on with just a thick wooden club for protection, but this will be far more difficult and will most likely be unsuccessful and leave you helpless.

Now imagine you’d taken the time to properly inspect your chosen weapon first, or perhaps even brought two of them along. The initial problem would not be so crucial and you would still have a fighting chance despite the setback. Take the time to care for your equipment and you’ll find it will care for you when you need it most. Zombie games remind us that nothing is indestructible, so always have a back up ready for when you can’t prolong the life of your first choice weapon any longer…

4. Remember That Kids Are The Future

Made mistakes in your life before the zombie holocaust? Were you in the wrong place at the wrong time but really are innocent? Well the attack of the undead may actually offer you a chance to redeem yourself. We already talked about how everybody will need saving when zombies take to the earth, but this is doubly true for kids. They will be more easily frightened and less sure of how to protect themselves and so you may quickly find yourself as the protector for a helpless youngster. Though this may seem a drain on your energy and resources, there are positives to being relied upon by them. Other survivors will be more inclined to help you out if you have a child to take care of as well and so the potential to acquire more aid and resources from kind strangers is significantly higher.

Also, if like protagonist Lee from Telltale’s ‘Walking Dead’ video game you have somewhat of a chequered past, the trust and companionship of a child may be just enough to convince others that you’re not such a bad guy after all. Everybody wants to survive a zombie holocaust, but if you’ve got a shady past that it’s not likely everybody will want you to survive. Convince them you’re looking out for the youngsters and your reputation will be golden.

3. Pursue Hobbies To Keep Your Spirits Up

Happiness is important at the best and worst of times. The phrase “laughter is the best medicine” comes from the suggestion that people are better equipped to fight of various illnesses and problems when they are in good spirits. In the face of a zombie holocaust it would be easy for one to slip into despair. Such a move would seriously affect your chances of successfully fighting off the undead hordes whilst looking for a safe place to settle down. But is it possible to combat this? ‘Red Dead Redemption’s’ expansion ‘Undead Nightmare’ shows us that it is in fact possible to keep your spirits up even in the face of such a terrifying onslaught.

In this game, prospector Seth is able to find entertainment by engaging in various card games with the zombified remains of an old accomplice. The games are perhaps a little less lively than those that could be had between to living participants, but the distraction is nonetheless effective. Just bear in mind that Seth has securely chained this undead friend up before beginning the game. Trying to attract twenty-one zombies for a game of jumpers-for-goalposts football would prove just a little too dangerous, I think.

2. Know That Absolutely Anything Can Be Useful

As you’re scavenging through derelict houses and abandoned cars it will be easy to overlook some things that may prove to be far more useful than they first appear. Before discarding things that initially appear useless, take a second look and try to reconsider their worth. The likelihood of stumbling across a military grade armoury in your quest for survival is on a par with the chances of winning the lottery, and so your survival will be dependent on the everyday items you can fashion into weapons or protective devices. In episode one of Telltale’s ‘Walking Dead’ video game, for example, players will at one stage notice a simple pillow in the middle of a motel parking lot.

Most players will have simply scoffed at this seemingly pointless item at first, as I myself admittedly did. This pillow is, however, crucial to ensuring you are able to dispatch one particular zombie without alerting the others to your presence. Players are able to press the pillow to the groaning zombie’s skull, allowing it to act as a silencer for the gun used by one of your companions. Without the silencing effects of the pillow the gunshot would have alerted the other undead walkers to the players’ presence, and so the risk would have been too great and advancement towards the motel could be impossible. So always be mindful of the things you disregard as useless, as they could be far more crucial as they first appear.

1. Don’t Bother Fighting It

The first nine of these tips for surviving the zombie holocaust are all based on the assumption that you are attached to your lively human form and intend to fight very hard to keep it. If, however, this all seems like a lot of work for very little gain then there is one final option that may just appeal to you more; give up. At the end of Rockstar’s ‘Undead Nightmare’ expansion to ‘Red Dead Redemption’, players are able to continue exploring the landscape as an undead version of protagonist John Marston.

Although for the sake of making the game interesting Rockstar decided to have the rest of the game’s roaming zombies continue to attack players, we know that zombies would in fact not attack each other as the rotten and broken flesh is not appealing to them. So it’s very clear that the easiest and most reliable way to survive the zombie holocaust is technically not to survive. After the initial bother of being dead you will quickly become undead and will be able to simply roam the lands, stopping for a quick bite of human flesh every so often. Basically, if you can’t beat ‘em; join ‘em.

Hopefully by now you’re feeling far better equipped to deal with the zombie apocalypse that we’ve all had to consider at one time or another, but if you feel like you need a bit of practice then simply boot up a console and start playing some zombie-based games. And if you come across any other crucial survival tips along the way then take to the comments and share them with the rest of us; you know you need to help us all out!!

~http://whatculture.com/