Normally at this point in the week I’d be prepping the latest Roundtable, putting the finishing touches on another installment of Scarred and taking the weekend off, but there’s something I have to share before I leave.

David Z. has posted everything you need to play the Dawn of the Dead board game.

And it is awesome.

Posting will most likely be a little light over the next two weeks, but I hate to let a day go by without something, so here you go.

Before Paul Anderson got his sticky little fingers all over the franchise, George A. Romero was slated to make his zombie comeback in the form of the first Resident Evil film. Though he was eventually kicked off the project, a few years previous to that debacle Romero did manage to shoot one small Japanese commercial for the first sequel to the game.

“We’re partners aren’t we? Let’s work together…”

Some infantile genius has taken apart dialogue from the Resident Evil games and pieced them back together as porno. Doors opening and closing as people accidentally stumble into sticky situations, the moans of the dead substituting for carnal grunts, and gunfire as orgasms.

Sometimes I wonder what my neighbours must think of me.

It was a year ago this month that I picked up a copy of the NES version of Friday the 13th for my coverage of that franchise for my former horror blog. Now it looks like I can save some wear and tear on the old Nintendo.

The Manchester Morgue is offering a fine selection of horror video games from the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Titles include Terminator, Terminator 2, Robocop vs. Terminator, Frankenstein, The Addams Family, Gremlins 2, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Jaws, Predator, A Nightmare on Elm Street and the aforementioned Friday the 13th. It’s almost enough to make me buy a gamepad.

I wasn’t going to post a link to the new M & M movie game because it seemed as if everyone already got there first. However, after taking a closer look and realizing that the style is based on that of Hieronymus Bosch (whose painting The Temptation of St. Anthony I used for the Horror Roundtable image), I couldn’t resist.

The game is a large interactive page full of visual riddles which denote 50 horror and suspense films. Some are ridiculously literal, while others are incredibly complex. It’s a great waste of time and a perfect way to ease into the upcoming season.

X-Entertainment takes a good long look at The Freddy Game.

Being Freddy fucking rules, but it won’t do you any good if you lack the cards to make him stab people. Plus, it isn’t as if the other players are defenseless to Freddy’s inclinations. In fact, it’s just as easy to kill Freddy as it is for him to kill you. Obviously, “The Freddy Game” was based on the last three minutes of every Elm Street flick.

Despite what the person writing the article says, I would love to own this just to have a board game with a player piece that reads “Empty Grave Grandpa.”

Found via The Rue Mortuary.

Dead Rising, Capcom’s latest zombie game, has proven to be incredibly successful in the first two weeks since it’s release. The game involves a photographer willingly entering a zombie-infested mall to get a scoop and using every possible item within to fight his way back out again. Since I don’t own an XBox 360, I can’t vouch for it’s quality, though I’ve had a number of people at work approach me with unsolicited praise which is always a good indicator. Capcom has released a faux-scientific report that details a possible reason for the zombie infection.

Additionally, rats who reached stage 4 were able to consume items that no rodent would normally consider to be appropriate food. We postulate that this mechanism is in place to guarantee a steady supply of nutrients for the parasite.

The entire thing is kind of dry in its presentation, which seems at odds with the kind of person you can imagine them marketing this to. Still, the explanation itself is interesting.

This post cements today as the greatest in The Horror Blog’s short history. A few months ago I was visiting my friends in The Rose City where we were planning on having one of our infrequent roleplaying sessions. I was tired from my trip and wasn’t in the mood to concoct something taxing. My afternoon was spent trying to come up with a quick Coke-and-Doritos game to waste a few hours with. That’s when I remembered the Snakes on a Plane roleplaying game.

The following podcast is the first part of an ongoing serial, recorded off the floor with all the awkward pauses, excessive swearing, racous laughter and potato chip bag crinkling that make up a night of pure geekery. If you’re not familiar with roleplaying, please keep in mind that listening to this podcast will most likely be an excruciating experience. And if you’re a current or former gamer, hopefully you’ll manage a wistful smile through the pain. You have been warned!

Now fasten your motherfucking seatbelt and download Snakes on a Plane - The Roleplaying Game.

Dirt Dragons is a simple Flash shoot ‘em up created in conjunction with Tremors 4: The Legend Begins. In it, you play a gunslinger hired to take out as many worms as you can before they creep up on you and swallow you whole. The worms appear at four different distances, and while it’s easy enough to hit them, the difficult part is in keeping your weapons and ammo straight. While it’s nowhere near difficult, Dirt Dragons does have a certain kind of Duck Hunt charm that kept me playing for much longer then I could afford to. And, hey, it’s Tremors. Everyone loves Tremors.

As an animator, I work in one of the most highly concentrated nerd environments imaginable. For the past year I’ve heard enough about World of Warcraft I could almost believe that I’ve played it myself. A few days ago it all paid off. A co-worker noticed my What Would Jason Do t-shirt and asked me if I was aware that there is a Crystal Lake in World of Warcraft. And upon further investigation, it appears that standing on a dock overlooking Crystal Lake is a fisherman named Jason. And as if that wasn’t enough, near the lake is an inn where players of the game discovered a group of children standing in the form of a pentagram with a ghostly echo playing in the background.

WTF Blizzard. WTF indeed.

Now this brings back memories. Or rather, this brings back memories despite the possibility that I’ve never actually seen this commercial before and it just seems so familiar I have convinced myself otherwise. Whatever.

And was there anything Vincent Price wasn’t great in?

Patrick Curry is a video game designer, known primarily for his excellent work on the recently released Stubbs the Zombie. On his blog, he has been posting a different game idea per week as a mental exercise, a few of which are horror related. One is based around a haunted hotel, while my favourite idea is for a werewolf game.

Game Idea #15: Loup-Garou

Loup-Garou is the game where you play as a werewolf. Actually, you play as a human, who’s been cursed with turning into a werewolf. During the daylight hours you are human, going about your “normal,” everyday life. But once darkness falls, you’re transformed into the legendary werewolf – now everything looks, feels, sounds, and smells different. Try to keep yourself from being found out… and try to keep yourself from destroying everything you hold dear…

This is just the concept. A detailed description can be found at Curry’s site.

For those not familiar with Heroclix, the game involves pitting one team of characters against another using small toys with bases that describe their abilities and current health. Essentially, this allows the players to create cross-company dream teams of pop culture icons and finally settle age old debates such as, who would win in a fight, Juggernaut or Captain Boomerang?

The major characters up to this point have been superheroes, but for the past few months Wizkids, the makers of Heroclix, have been promoting a new line for the game called Horrorclix. So far, their prototypes have been generic characters such as killer clowns, nuns, and werewolves, though they have signed up to make licensed Alien and Predator figures and have already produced a Cthulhu prototype.

The most exciting discovery for me, and the reason I’m telling you all this, is the Evil Leprechaun horrorclix. That’s just badass.