"You boys get yer pants on! There's evil afoot!! Godless Braineaters from the ninth circle of Hell!!! THE GREAT DAY OF WRATH HAS COOOME!!! <Crazed Hillbilly laugh>"Otis Monday, during the opening of the level "Fall of the House of Otis"-Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
You Know What's really COOL?! Stubbs THE zombie!
Oh, sure, sure! Fighting zombies in games like Left 4 Dead is cool and all! But you know what's really cool? Being the zombie yourself! And today's topic, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse, has the distinction of somehow being one of the few games in history that allows you to control the infamous braineaters as you munch down on the unsuspecting public!
Welcome back, Young and Young-at-Heart Explorers, and today on Something Niche, we will continue to celebrate spooky season by entering a territory that we have not yet explored in great detail here; the original Xbox!
Indeed, during the much edgier days of the early 2000s, the Xbox was truly the little system that could! The first console made in America since Atari's failed Jaguar, the Xbox exploded on the scene in 2001 as a new kid on the block for Nintendo and PlayStation to contend with, replacing Sega as their number one rival in the gaming landscape.
Several different iconic titles were produced to compete alongside the large mountain of classics released for the GameCube and PlayStation 2; both systems I and countless other 2000s kids remember fondly these days. However, with very few exceptions, much of these titles sadly didn't seem to have achieved the same amount of staying power as the titles of those systems, with only Halo seeming to become a long-lasting franchise while many other exclusives were left to the wayside in the following console generations. And this rather foolish decision has certainly seemed to have negatively impacted the Xbox brand in the long run, contributing to the brand's apparent downfall in recent years.
Many titles release for Microsoft's debut console have become underappreciated one-hit wonders in recent years, with Stubbs the Zombie sadly being among them. And of all these now forgotten pieces of gaming history, it seems like Stubbs fate was the most tragic, as it was one of the titles that had the most potential to become a timeless franchise. This is all thanks in no small part to its simple-yet ingenious-concept; playing through a sandbox world as a zombie and using powers such as possession to create an army of the living dead to fight at your side.
Having never owned an Xbox when this game was first unearthed, I was sadly among the many who never got to experience this mad little gem that could've changed the whole industry had it caught on. However, thanks to its 2021 re-release on modern platforms, I was able to join its growing legion of cult minions!
So, prepare to stock up on the essentials, as we head out to cause the apocalypse in Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse!
Welcome to Punchbowl
Stubbs the Zombie was the brainchild of Wideload Games, a small development studio manned by several former employees of Bungie, the studio known for producing the original Halo games. This group of developers included series co-creator Alex Seropian, with the game being even being built on the same engine as the early installments of Halo!
The game takes the form of sandbox action game set across 12 linear levels, each taking place in an alternate 1950s in the retrofutristic city of Punchbowl, Pennsylvania. "Maybe Pennsylvania seemed like a good place to build a retro-futurist city." lead writer Matt Soell explained humorously in an early interview. "They've got all that land, you know."
As the game's title suggests, the player takes control of one of the living dead; a Depression-era salesman named Edward "Stubbs" Stubblefield, who had fallen victim to murder after a one-night stand decades earlier. Stubbs suddenly finds himself revived one morning in Punchbowl and immediately starts his rampage by taking out a local greaser trying to enjoy a hot dog date with his lover. As Stubbs shambles haphazardly through the tutorial, he eventually comes across several posters featuring the town's beautiful co-founder, Maggie Monday. Lovestruck, Stubbs-and by extension, the player-then decides to wreak havoc across the city of Punchbowl in an attempt to find the girl (or, as the game humorously describes it, "ghoul") of his dreams.
Throughout the game's 12 levels, you will encounter a large assortment of quirky 1950s inspired enemies and pedestrians to fight and chow down on, including a legion of gun-toting rednecks dubbed the "Quaker State Irregulars", a group of scientists with Forbidden Planet-inspired laser blasters, and a group of singing security guards dressed in barbershop quartet garb. Locales you will explore in your journey across the city of Punchbowl include the city's police station, a cheese farm run by Stubbs' murderer Otis Monday, a bustling shopping mall, and an enormous city dam.
But it's not just the fact that you control a zombie that makes this game unique! It's how you do so that also matters!
What's in Your Head?
We've already established that this game has a unique concept. But with every good idea, there must be a series of effectively put-together parts in order for it to work. Luckily, Stubbs for the most part manages to have the correct amount of substance in order to support its style!
Pretty much every mechanic and attack pattern you utilize during your experience is befitting a game of this tone with an undead protagonist! Your main method of attack is a simple 3-hit combo that will damage and eventually momentarily stun the Punchbowl citizens you will unleash your wrath upon. But what really drives it home is the final blow you will often land on your enemies; much like any well-known zombie, one button press will allow Stubbs to chomp down on an enemy's brain matter for instant death.
However, what happens next is where this game goes from unique to ingenious! After a while, your fallen enemies will rise again as a fellow zombie, after which they will follow you on your journey. These new allies can be used for a variety of tasks, be they additional hands in taking out other foes, meat shields for enemy fire, or on some occasions, even as a means to knock down barriers in order to reach your goal.
There are also several other methods that will allow you utilize Stubbs' ability to dismember himself in a variety of quirky and unique ways. Stubbs can remove his head and throw it as a makeshift bowling ball, he can toss his internal organs and detonate them like grenades, and he can even unleash a giant gas cloud that'll stun all enemies around him in order to make brain eating a much easier task!
However, perhaps the most unique (and fun) mechanic of this game is its possession mechanic. In an apparent precursor to Super Mario Odyssey's Capture Mechanic, Stubbs can remove his arm, which the player then takes control of in order to latch it onto the heads of nearby enemies, allowing them to take control. Enemies who have access to firearms can still use them, and in a few levels, this mechanic can even be used for stealth, allowing access to certain main goals without risking damage. All of these body parts grow back instantly, of course, but these abilities can only be used a finite number of times before a refill is needed, provided by eating more enemy brains.
Finally, the game even provides a co-op mode, where one player can take control of an identical zombie named Grubbs, allowing even more humorously bloody carnage to pursue!
Brain-Eating Laughs
But it's not just a fun and unique concept that has earned Stubbs its unique identity. No, this might also be one of the few places where one can actually earn a good laugh while playing! Granted, you'd have to be in a certain mindset to find certain jokes to be absolutely hilarious, but still!
Indeed, Stubbs the Zombie is also a game that manages to insert some clever moments of humor into its storytelling, matching its nonsensical premise with nonsensical humor that truly could have only existed in the 2000s!
Almost every cutscene in the game has that one moment that'll provide at least a brief snort for those with a funny bone, and many funny details are even inserted in the level design and NPC dialogue that'll leave you wondering "I can't believe they actually went there!"
Sometimes, it may be a mere moment of slapstick or a curious movie reference. Stubbs has many funny vaudevillian moments throughout the adventure that often end with him being caught in the middle of a moment that'd result in a terrifying death for normal individuals but would only serve as a cartoonish inconvenience for the undead. Throughout each cutscene, we see Stubbs ride a sheep like a horse to the point of exhausting it, rallying a group of undead militiamen with a speech that solely consists of the word "Brains" (a clever tribute to Patton!), and see him become the butt of various explosion-based jokes.
Then comes the moments of laughter during the actual gameplay. Plenty of morbid laughs come from the screeches of pain emitted by enemies as Stubbs dismembers his prey via either devouring their brain matter or tearing off their arms for a makeshift weapon (Oh, yeah! You can do that in this game too!). Most notably, the police station level actually features a prisoner NPC that only appears in that level and who will literally just say "Ok! Ok! I'm dying!" on occasion as they are defeated. Speaking of that level, it even ends with a humorous interactive dance battle against the Chief of Police that set to 2000s alternative covers of classic 50s tunes!
Even the minute details of the level design manage to fit in a couple of funny sight gags. The mall level includes a series of loudspeaker recordings advertising strange products and stores (such as "Lady Bacon") in a vintage tone befitting the games Raygun Gothic aesthetic. The streets of punchbowl are littered with strange shop names, like the one depicted above! And some secret dialogue can also be found in the farm level, such as a brief monologue by Otis where he yammers on about humorous conspiracy-based nonsense that I always try to hear (what the heck does "Penguins interbreeding with leprechauns!" even mean?!)
There are also some jokes that fall in the more risqué or gross-out category, usually involving double-entendres or bodily functions. Notably, at one point in the dam level, you actually control Stubbs as he urinates in the reservoir! Yes, I'm being very honest! Admittedly, these are the jokes in the game that won't be for everyone, especially for the more mature. However, they also segway into my next point about why this game stands out so much to me.
Nostalgia on Two Fronts
I already explained that Stubbs the Zombie is a work set during the Atomic Age of the late 1950s. The sci-fi styled city of Punchbowl is filled to the brim with technology and Americana imagery that were commonplace at the time and have since been immortalized in films such as Grease. Enemy greasers appear that quip 50s slang such as "Stay cool, Daddio!" Cars resemble the ones you may have seen at antique shows or throwback diners. Research rooms in the dam are filled to the brim with early ENIAC computer systems. A soundtrack was even put together with covers of hit songs from the era.
However, much of the tone, design, and humor of Stubbs the Zombie also brings back nostalgia for the era it was made in; the 2000s. This was an era where being edgy or even slightly politically incorrect was practically a trend, with alternative-scene establishments like Hot Topic reigning supreme on the retail market, political satire pertaining to the effects of the Iraq War peppering films and pop music, and everything from kids TV shows to toy lines having a hard rock-attitude to their identities.
When something wasn't trying to make a statement, it was definitely doing its best to have mature, edgy humor or aesthetics woven into its narrative. Shows like Invader Zim and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy were dominating the airwaves, often dealing with morbid gags that were still appropriate enough for the kiddies. Anime was starting to make its first big splash in the US, with shows like Hellsing, Cowboy Bebop, and Death Note quickly establishing cult followings in the western world. YouTube was in its Wild West infancy, with mature humor peppering its early videos. And this even extended to video games, or even browser-based games, with the likes of Devil May Cry and Halo becoming hits on the former market, and sites like Miniclip and Addicting Games having titles we probably shouldn't have been playing but loved anyway.
And Stubbs the Zombie fits right in with that grungy, yet strangely inviting mold, one that I initially looked at with aversion during my actual childhood during the era, but now look back at with laughter and strange fondness, especially in an era where everything seems to be sanitized so as to not cause an uproar amongst social media-based moral guardians! It's grungy visuals, morbid sight gags, and even occasional moments of crassness are definitely things that people truly could've only gotten away with back then!
As an added bonus, those 50s covers I mentioned? They were all covered by acts that were contemporary at the time, but have slowly become more and more vintage in recent years. Some personal favorites of mine include a cover of The Wizard of Oz's "If I Only Had a Brain" by the infamously psychedelic Flaming Lips and a cover of "Earth Angel" (which you may recognize from Back to the Future) by the then inescapable (at least for the Emo subculture group) Death Cab for Cutie. Stubbs' design even includes references to the alternative aesthetic of the era, giving his passing resemblance to musicians of the era like Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump!
But more importantly, Stubbs the Zombie represents a time when developers were allowed to have fun in making games and not just rely on spreading a message. Throughout the game, several hippo heads resembling Wideload's logo can be found, and picking them up enables audio commentary tracks from the developers. And these conversations are full of funny quips from the development team that give off the camaraderie and atmosphere of just a few friends getting together to make something funny and have a good time while doing it! Something that I feel is sorely missing in this cynical, algorithm-based world.
"I guess for me, looking back from my current standpoint, I'm happy that I have a lot real good people that I've worked with before that...we all want to work together again." Alex Seropian reflected in a 2013 interview with Polygon. "It just makes for a great work experience, because we've known each other. We trust each other. I think it gives us...maybe a sense of manifest destiny would be a little too bold, but we know what we're capable of. We've done things together that we're proud of."
A Fleeting Moment of Undead Glory
Upon completion, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse rose to walk the earth in the October of 2005. Critical reviews for the game were generally favorable on account of its sharp writing, unique concept, and unique level design. However, the game couldn't escape mild criticism, mainly pertaining to its short length, as well as a couple of noticeable audio glitches. It also had the misfortune of launching around the same time Microsoft had rolled out the then highly anticipated (and now iconic) Xbox 360, which certainly impacted sales.
Furthermore, as was par for the course at the time for a lot of works of fiction, the game received criticism from moral guardian groups over certain themes present in the game. In this case, a few noted politicians accused the game of promoting cannibalism, despite Stubbs not being human. Joe Lieberman, one U.S. politician who had a history of accusing video games of spreading poor morals, went on record saying "It's just the worst kind of message to kids, and furthermore it could harm the entirety of America's youth." It probably didn't help that some enemies would humorously call Stubbs a cannibal upon being eaten, though the game's M rating should've really tipped people off that this game wasn't appropriate for "America's youth"!
Although sales were definitely impacted by the 360's launch, the game was apparently considered enough of a success to warrant a sequel. However, the planned sequel would languish in development hell as the game bounced around from retailers to retailers for the next few years. The game was popular enough to be re-released on PC and Xbox 360, but these versions were later de-listed due to technical difficulties. Eventually, Wideload was brought out by Disney in 2014, and ultimately largely dissolved, seemingly putting an end to any sequel plans.
Despite this, the game managed to amass a huge cult following, and would eventually be re-released on all modern platforms in early 2021, which is how I experienced this game for the first time on my Nintendo Switch. However, this re-release suffered a rather tepid reception, often being bugged by multiple sudden crashes and inconsistent autosaving. These glitches thankfully didn't happen too often during my time playing, but they were rather irritating when they did.
Still Surviving
So, as you can see, Stubbs the Zombie was a game that came in contact with a rather wild history. Ever since its launch, the game has been de-listed and re-released over the course of two decades, and yet, still can't quite seem to catch a break, often falling victim to everything from bugs to licensing issues. And it sadly seems that these roadblocks have kept the game from becoming the beloved franchise it honestly deserves to be.
However, even if it's seemingly being doomed to being a one hit wonder, the few who have played Stubbs the Zombie via either its original launch or its 2021 re-release still remember it fondly as it turns 20 this year. And from what I just explained alone, it's certainly not hard to see why!
Sure, some of the humor might not land for certain people, but Stubbs the Zombie is still a game that's never boring in the slightest thanks to its sly wit and kooky mechanics. Also, despite it being set in the 1950s with retrofuturistic aesthetics, it's tone and slight hints of political incorrectness ooze the 2000s era it was made in, and has kept many an individual who grew up in this Wild West era coming back; perhaps even more so now as the first decade of the New Millenium slowly starts to join the 80s and 90s as a vintage picture of the nostalgic past!
I'd even go as far to consider this game as something that was ahead of the curve in terms of pop culture trends. In past couple of decades, works such as Zombieland and The Walking Dead have caused the zombie subgenre to become bigger than ever, with all of its cliches becoming common knowledge to the general masses at this point. With this in mind, perhaps Stubbs the Zombie came back at the right time; when we were starting to get all too familiar with the idea of the zombie in order to add a nice narrative spin on the subgenre. As explained above, it even provided early examples of mechanics that would become more well-known to the mainstream audience in recent years!
But above all else, Stubbs the Zombie was a project made with genuine passion by a team of underdogs who, while they may not have completely succeeded at first, have managed to amass a cult following who still admire them to this day! It was the dream project of a tightly-knit group of friends who just wanted to have fun and create something original, and it shows with every pixel!
Alex Seropian himself stated that Wideload was founded on four major commandments that would help them stand out from the masses;
- We shall establish our games' creative direction
- We shall own our intellectual property
- We shall not let a third party determine our success
- We shall have a small manageable team
These commandments definitely shine through in Stubbs the Zombie, and its truly a shame that a group of people who were willing to take risks didn't get the success and admiration it rightfully deserved. However, it would seem that not all was lost, as many of today's indie developers have adapted a similar mission statement; so that's another thing we can thank this metaphorical piece of forbidden fruit for!
Can't keep a Good Zombie Down!
So, in the end, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse is certainly a unique hidden gem that's worth at least a casual playthrough. While it's probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea, it's still a unique game with a heartwarming backstory that's worth digging up from the grave. It manages to create visuals and a tone that are both distinctively retro and nostalgically timeless, allowing the game to give off vibes that only a few others can even come close to. And it even provides a unique spin on a now slowly fading cultural trend that injects some fresh blood into its formula. It's probably one of the few games on the market where it's good to be bad!
Honestly, it's a shame this game never became a franchise in my opinion, as this old bag of bones still has a lot of soul left in it to keep it alive and kicking! Perhaps if a sequel were to still happen (unlikely as it may be), perhaps we could see Stubbs and a now undead Maggie Monday (BTW spoiler!) venturing through a retrofuturistic 1980s, peppered with neon, glam rock covers, and humorous references to slasher films. Of course, the sequel could also be a great opportunity to fix the bugs that were never squished with the re-release, especially the unreliable save system and audio malfunctions. Perhaps Stubbs could make guest appearances in other IPs; including has a playable killer in Dead by Daylight! I'd even settle for merch from Spirit Halloween, or a house or scarezone at Universal's Halloween Horror Nights! Hey, a guy can dream, can't he!
But what about you? Are you familiar with the unique experience that is Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse? Did you play it back when it was first released or re-discover it through the recent re-release like I did? Do you look back fondly on it? Do you think it deserves a sequel? Would you like to make newer generations more familiar with it after hearing me gush about it? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Thanks for joining us today, and don't forget these immortal words from Edward Stubblefield...
BRRRAAAAIIIINSSSS!!!!!
Sources:
Hindmarch, Thomas. “‘Stubbs the Zombie’ Is Back, but Nothing Has Changed.” Lifewire, Lifewire, 22 Mar. 2021, www.lifewire.com/stubbs-the-zombie-is-back-but-nothing-has-changed-5116967.
Pitts, Russ. “Bungie Co-Founder Alex Seropian: The Polygon Interview.” Polygon, Polygon.com, 31 July 2013, www.polygon.com/features/2013/7/31/4513284/alex-seropian-interview/.
Press, Associated. “Video Game Critics Take Aim at Cannibalism.” NBCNews.Com, NBCUniversal News Group, 30 Nov. 2005, www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna10257524.
Seropian, Alexander. “Postmortem: Wideload Games’ Stubbs the Zombie.” Game Developer, Game Developer, 11 Aug. 2006, www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-wideload-games-i-stubbs-the-zombie-i-.
Staff, GN. “Stubbs the Zombie Interview.” Gaming Nexus, 17 Oct. 2005, www.gamingnexus.com/Article/911/Stubbs-the-Zombie-Interview.
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