The Walking Dead-The Game

So after reviewing the comic books and tv show of “The Walking Dead” now it is time to mention something about the spanking new computer game by Telltale Games. It is an adventure game set in the zombie apocalypse of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

You get to play as Lee Everett, who’s about to serve his sentence in a Georgia prison outside Atlanta. When the cop hit’s a zombie prison all of a sudden is not a big deal anymore. Now it is time to talk to & rescue people, make the right decisions, smack some zombies in the head with a hammer (or a screwdriver, or an axe, or a car, or….) and solve the occasional puzzle. This will happen over 5 episodes, from which at this time you can play the first straight away. The other four will be available to you on a monthly basis.

So what’s my opinion on this? Hmm, I am not completly satisfied so far, but on the other side it was only the first episode I played. I like the idea of a zombie adventure game and some features were quite nice, but I am expecting more in the next four episodes to make it worth my 25 bucks.

Survival eBook Library

A few weeks ago I blogged about Doomsday Preppers and now I stumbled upon a massive archive of free to download eBooks about the whole survival topic. So from “building your own fallout shelter” to desert survival, from “which wild plants are edible” to military manuals….it is huge! Go check it out here

Disclaimer: I don't take any responsibility for the content provided.

The Day of the Triffids-a movie review

I have been awefully busy in the past few weeks but I experienced some post apocalyptic media during these weeks which I have to share. One of the stuff was a movie called “The Day of the Triffids” (2009) and it was to be honest with you not too bad, but not too good either. In this case I’d still recommend it as a nice Sunday Sober-up Entertainment

In the near future huge farms of so called Triffids have saved the earth from global warming, as the plant’s oil provides a renewable source of energy instead of using fossil fuels. The slight disadvantage of growing millions of Triffids world wide is they are extremely aggressive, poisonous, carnivorous and can move….”Wait a second! They can move?”…yes they can bei somehow “walking” on their roots, oh and they communicate aswell. But don’t worry, they are safely tucked away in heavily guarded greenhouses…oh wait, not that heavily guarded as one day some kind of weird activist gains access to mess around with the plantation.
By pure coincidence a massive solar flare occurs the same day. All those people who look up the sky in excited anticipation of beautiful aurora borealis are blinded by a bright flash. Only a few people who had luck and didn’t look straight into the light are spared from this horrible fait and from now on are called as “sighted”.

One of them is the weird activist. Not among them: the guards in the plantation. Of course the Triffids escape and start feeding on the easiest available prey: blind humans (and sighted ones who are stupid enough to get eaten by giant orchids ). Actually when I write down this stuff it seems like a cheap flick…still I had fun watching it. It has a nice post-apocalyptic setting and marauding gang leaders claiming to be king of the wasteland, a scientist and his crew who try to defeat both threats: the gang and the triffids. See for yourself!

This is the 1962 trailer I still got to see that one. I love these old movies, especially the narrators in the trailers

Oh and FYI: no, the solar storm doesn’t cause a power failure in this scenario!

Horde Mode-Zombie Survival

Who’s been thinking watching a Zombie movie “I could do better than that” when one of the protagonists was overrun by a group of zombies? To be honest I did although I should know better from playing Left 4 Dead…but those are fast zombies, right? What about slow ones? It should be easy when they are of the slow zombie kind…luckily we don’t have to try ourselves. Checkout this YouTube video

Doomsday Preppers

Some folks out there aren’t just interested in post-apocalyptic events for the joy e.g. a great zombie movie brings. There is a growing community of those who prepare (thus named “Preppers” ) for unforseeable events of a devastating scale that might change everything from society to government, from consumerism to self-reliance, from order to anarchy. National Geographic is as always providing us with an interesting show called “Doomsday Preppers”. In each show they present three to four different preppers (or prepping families), their propable doomsday event and their strategy against it. At the end of each chapter “the experts” evaluate their preparations and suggest improvements.

In lots of cases it is quite impressive how creative they tackled the idea of prepping, whether it is concerning storage, producing food, fortification or training. In many cases though I thought (and the doomsday experts too) their chosen doomsday event is unlikely to happen…like ashes of a super vulcano suffocating New York etc. I don’t know for sure, but I always had the impression National Geographic “forced” them to commit to a certain event. I think most of them were prepping for several events and if it’s just the next snow storming threatening to take out the power for 5 days. Well, this is the feeling I get reading survivalist blogs.
I also found some background info which states Nat Geo cut the sequences in a way to make the Preppers look extremly nutty. Well this is television and they want their audience & viewing rate. Everybody knows what they get into messing with commercial tv.

So if you wonder now “Should I prep???” here is my opinion on the whole topic (and here the CDC’s opinion). I personally think being prepared is a good thing in general, but you always have to decide to which extend you feel happy with it. I don’t prep, but after digging into this topic and thinking back to events that happend in the past (my area had a snowstorm and power failiure for 5 days a few years ago), I do take care that I have supplies for two weeks in my flat (food, meds, tools, water, candles) and I am happy with it. Once you have this stockpile it is easy to maintain and if something happens you are prepared (am I a Prepper or what? ), but I think letting my whole life rotate around a scenario that is not too likely to happen would be too much. I enjoy seeing friends, going out and being self-employed takes a lot of my creativity & energy and I enjoy that Now enough with this philosophical talk…enjoy the trailer!

Prisoners of Katrina-trapped in the hurricane

I only started researching on the whole Katrina situation and the anarchy that followed in the wake of the hurricane, but found a documentary already worth sharing. Since this is my first post on a real event I would like to remind everybody (including me)…this is real! People got injured or died, lost their homes or loved ones. No fiction. I don’t wish any of that to happen or to be disrespectful. On the contrary as you will see watching the BBC documentary about prisoners left behind locked up in New Orleans’ prisons.

While everybody tries to get out of the city New Orleans prisoners aren’t part of any evacuation plan. Some don’t even know a hurricane is about to hit New Orleans with full force. Soon enough the water levels are rising and the ground floors are flooded. In a haste prison guards lock up up to 8 inmates in cells laid-out for two. With failing electricity and backup generators obtaining control over the paniced prisoners and providing supplies becomes impossible. Some electric doors jam and seal off some cells permanently, meaning no fresh water or any food, no hygiene, medication or knowledge of rescue for several days. Other prisoners can free themselves and start to riot, revive gang wars or simply to breakout from the deathtrap.

On the outside civilians seek shelter near or at the prisons on elevated & reinforced structures. In one case it is virtually one remaining door seperating rioting prisoners from shelter seeking people, which luckily hold.

Some people might even say (like one prison warden): “They are criminals, it is their fault they were in prison the time Katrina hit New Orelans”. Please remember no one is guilty unless proven so. Many of the prisoners were either just arrested or there to serve a short sentence in New Orleans parish prison. a) In my point no one deserves to live through an event like this and b) the nightmare didn’t end after final evacuation. Since evidence, IDs or charges were destroyed some were imprisoned over 200 instead of 7 days, although not in water flooded prisons but in prisons flooded with inmates (5000 instead of 2000).

This documentary is a shocking account of one certain aspect of Katrina’s aftermath.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7801085471711396755&hl=de&fs=true

There is also a book of the same name, “Prisoners of Katrina”, which I haven’t read yet…but it’s ordered already.

The Nerdist Channel

I am really looking forward to the second of April…”what’s gonna happen then?” you may ask…”the end of the world?”… Maybe, I don’t know, but what I know is a new YouTube channel will come to life. It is called The Nerdist and although not all topics will probably be Post-apocalyptic this little teaser looks promising

An interview with the Walking Dead

Oh well, Tony Moore doesn’t look that bad and he’s not dead but the co-creator of the comic The Walking Dead. One of my earlier blogposts was about the plot and characters of both the tv show and the comic series and just now I found this interview of Tony Moore which is definately worth checking out.

 

Wasteland 2 – help to make a sequel

So while we are at promoting stuff here is another great project which doesn’t only need publicity but your direct help…only if you want to of course and there is something in it for you aswell. In the 1980′s Wasteland was a revolutionary game, set in a post-apocalyptic south-west America. It set new standards for the whole RPG genre which are still important today e.g. choices you make will present you as good or bad to NPCs etc. To be honest with you I haven’t played Wasteland yet, but it always popped up and was out there as the foundation of Fallout and many other great games. So without hesitation I backed the project to produce a sequel. Please at least checkout the info on kickstarter and spread the word. I want this game and if you feel the same, throw in 15 bucks and get a downloadable copy of the game.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

Ruin – a great post-apocalyptic Short

Although many of you have seen this animated short already, I would say it is never too late to promote this awesome film. Enjoy a highspeed race through the ruins of a post-apocalyptic universe.