Tuesday, April 29, 2008

ZOMBIES!!!

OK, really who doesn't enjoy a good Zombie flick? Hordes of flesh eating undead poised to mindlessly eliminate Humanity. There is without a doubt subtle social/political underpinnings rampant throughout the sub-genre, but oddly enough when the mood for a good Zombie film strikes me I'm really in the mood for some mindless brain-munching (and a bit of good old fashioned, not-too-over-the-top gore).

Recently the Zombie sub-genre has received new life, if you will, with the recent addition of "Diary of the Dead" to Romero's list of canonical Zombie films, Horror legend Vincent Price's "Last Man on Earth" gets a remake with "I am Legend", and even more pseudo zombies in "28 Weeks Later". Beyond that the Zombie walk took home a Rondo Award for Best Fan Event of 2007.

But amongst it all there is one little shop churning out the best zombie products possibly of all time and you may not be aware of. It is Todd and Kerry Breitenstein's Twilight Creations Inc. Their brain (munching) child is first and foremost ZOMBIES!!! the board game. Put away the PS3 or your Xbox and enjoy gaming the way it was meant to be with a set of dice, a deck of cards and 100 little plastic zombies (and some real living human beings for competition and social interaction too). There are even some that glow in the dark! How cool is that!

From the get go you'll see this game is by fans for the fun of it, and not some slick heavily marketed game like Magic. Although the production quality of this game is on par with the best of them IMO, it has a down and dirty-mashed out in the basement over a night of Zombie flicks, poprocks, Jolt Cola and Rum stolen from the folks liquor cabinet- feel. Even the instructions can be a bit blurry at times, but that's OK they heavily promote the idea that "it's your game, play with the rules you like." I tell you no customizable card games were ever this customizable. As a matter of fact one of their latest expansion packs was a set of blank cards for you to make your own with.

Twilight Creations have just recently released Zombies!!!7 which is actually the eighth expansion set. Some sets require the main set others can be played on their own. So depending if you want to go for an all night marathon with a mall, a Military base, and/or a University all attached to the main town site(set) or just a time limited 45 minute romp, there are options.

Product pimping aside this is a good old fashioned hands-on game that is well worth picking up for any zombie fan, even if for nothing else but the horde of little plastic zombies.

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