OXCGN’s Red Dead Redemption:

Undead Nightmare DLC Review

Best Undead Outing in Years?

by exterminat

©2010 Nicholas Laborde

A prevalent fixation in modern pop-culture is that of zombies.

Zombies. The Undead. The Walking Dead. The Living Dead. Whatever you want to call them, they’ve always been a common feature of video games.

More recently, however, they have become a hackneyed icon.

From the past few years, let’s name a few games that primarily focused on the undead: Dead Rising 1 and 2, Resident Evil 5, Silent Hill Homecoming, Nation Red, Burn Zombie Burn, Dead Space, and Left 4 Dead 1 and 2.

• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Trailer

Bringing this even further, the amount of games that contain a zombie add-on or extra is even heftier: Call of Duty: World at War (the upcoming Black Ops will feature the Zombies mode as well), Borderlands, Half-Life 2, the entire Halo series, and heck, we could even go so far as to include Fallout 3 and the recently released New Vegas as games that contain the undead in some shape or form.

To put it simply, it’s overdone.

And not just overdone because a few games have featured it, but overdone because it’s essentially a fallback for developers.

Want to secure some easy sales? Add zombies! (This is the hook, line and sinker, because ironically it’s the sole reason I’m purchasing Black Ops.)

Contrary to what I have just said, folks, Red Dead Redemption‘s newest add-on, Undead Nightmare, does not fall into the category of overused zombie clichés. In fact, it’s probably the most unique (and, dare I say, lively?) undead outing in the past few years.

So how does Read Dead’s Undead shape up?

Unlike traditional add-ons that just mesh into the single player campaign upon next boot, Undead Nightmare is a separate outing selected from the main menu.

Undead Nightmare starts about 60-70% of the way through the game’s storyline, and follows John Marston through the zombie apocalypse.

A vicious, unknown plague has stricken the Old West, and people are transforming into zombies.

The dead are rising, people are turning on each other, and sanity is at an absolute minimum.

The writing and pacing are brilliantly set (with a few references and hits at other zombie-related games and setups), and it strikes a fine balance between seriousness and satire.

An interesting event that occurred in my playtime led to the discovery of a flaming horse (one of many “Mythical Creatures”). After I broke him, I completed a challenge called “Four Horses of the Apocalypse”, which is a reference to Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer‘s famous painting “The Four Hoursemen of the Apocalypse” (or, if you want to be more technical, it’s actually a reference to the Book of Revelation within the Bible, which is the basis for the painting).

You’ll run into nearly every major character from the main storyline, and you’ll more than likely see each become viciously converted into another member of the autonomous zombie horde.

• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Overrun 2

But that’s no problem for Mr. John Marston, who advocates the philosophy that any problem can be solved with a pull of the trigger… to the head, of course.

One of the many little touches that Rockstar placed in Undead Nightmare is the respect to zombie lore. That being that zombies (not infected) can only be killed by destroying or removing the brain.

You can happily waste ammunition on other parts of their horrendous bodies, but it won’t do anything but prolong the conflict; they’ll simply fall down and get back up.

To aid you in your quest of survival, you get a few new items, such as the Undead Bait which is, unsurprisingly, a creation of Mr. Nigel West Dickens. You throw it, and zombies partake in a mad dash to it (similar to a pipe bomb from the Left 4 Dead series), making for an easy explosion or rapid headshot spree.

But that’s just one in a group of nice new toys we get in Undead Nightmare. I won’t spoil what else you get, but it’s not disappointing.

Apart from the main storyline, you have the usual amount of side-quests to partake in (the “random stranger” events). One of which is a major reference to the famous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas rumor of a Sasquatch (or Big Foot) in the forest.

While this iteration of post-release madness is focused primarily on the single player, we are presented with one multiplayer mode: Undead Overrun.

• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Multiplayer

Undead Overrun is one of the many modes that are “inspired” by Gears of War 2‘s famous Horde mode, in that it is a cooperative wave defense.

Players band together to fight the undead in waves. Each map takes place at or around a graveyard; at the beginning of each round, a coffin spawns. One player must run to it and open it up, while being covered by his teammates (this is merely an aid, and is not the objective). This coffin nearly doubles your ammo count and is essential to surviving the onslaught of insane zombies.

Your primary goal is to kill all of the undead that decide to present themselves to your crosshair. Killing enough of these creatures fills a red meter, and once this meter fills up, any downed teammates will immediately get back up and the remaining enemies must be eliminated in order to advance to the next wave.

Each additional wave increases in difficulty and gets more and more ridiculous as time goes on. It’s an interesting take on the game type, and is a fun way to kill time.

All in all, Undead Nightmare thoroughly surprised me. Rockstar handled this with an air of professionalism that points out all of the clichés in the zombie “genre”, but at the same time, providing an entertaining tale that will be sure to set your expectations high for the fourth downloadable content installment.

“9.5/10

©2010 Nicholas Laborde

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