Zombies vs. Military Game? No?

[falconwind]

I'm looking for a game that pits large hordes of fast zombies against a fully-fledged modern fighting force. I'm not talking a Spec Ops squad all alone in a dark, infested city. More like an infantry platoon with armor support, in broad daylight even. Special boss zombies would be good too.

This would be best described as "Left 4 Dead meets Battlefield".

So, I've been looking around and nothing seems to meet my criteria. Everything is too small scale and/or has no vehicles.

Any ideas?

 

[knut]

all i can think of for large scale teams plus boss zombies is killing floor. no vehicles though.

 

[StarBob]

The world has always lacked good zombie games. That's why Left 4 Dead is so popular. No one really put together the "horde of zombies" feel realy wel before that. Seems like it would be interesting though.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

yea i can only think of killing floor and even then that's probably cos i've just started playing that =/

 

[Lucid]

Zombie mods for Operation Flashpoint or ArmA1/2.

 

[Maestro]

You won't, because having armor support and a platoon with serious firepower would be boring as ****. Zombies are like humans (i.e., soft, slow, and not very strong) minus all the things that make us dangerous (knowledge, ruthlessness, assault rifles). If you want to know what a 'zombie outbreak' today would look like pitted against a modern fighting force, then I suggest you put a piece of steak in a food processor for a basic idea.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I, for one, can't wait for Katanas vs. Grapefruits

 

[Asknoone]

It's what L4D3 should be. Zombies versus military versus survivors.

 

[falconwind]

You won't, because having armor support and a platoon with serious firepower would be boring as ****. Zombies are like humans (i.e., soft, slow, and not very strong) minus all the things that make us dangerous (knowledge, ruthlessness, assault rifles). If you want to know what a 'zombie outbreak' today would look like pitted against a modern fighting force, then I suggest you put a piece of steak in a food processor for a basic idea.

I've thought a lot about this idea ever since L4D first came out. I don't think it would be boring, if done right. Yes, individually, a single zombie is no match for anyone with any kind of weapon, let alone a trained soldier. But lets not forget the specifics here.

• Thousands of fast zombies versus a platoon (roughly 25 to 50 soldiers depending on country/service). The numerical advantage is staggering. Just like in Left 4 Dead, it's an entire infected city versus you.
  
  
• Soldiers have limited ammunition, and are slowed by equipment. A soldier carries about 50 pounds of extra weight into combat; misc equipment, weapons, armor. A platoon of 24, for example, each carrying the usual automatic rifles, plus two LMG and one GPMG would have around 7500 rounds of ammo. That means best case scenario, they can one-shot kill 7500 zombies before they run dry, not including any grenade kills. Resupply might not be available.
  
  
• Consider that the enemy has no fear of death or self-preservation. This can be good and bad. They'll throw themselves at a machine gun, but they also won't stop coming. Soldiers are trained and outfitted to fight other soldiers, not masses of relentless psychotic civilians. Suppressing fire becomes useless when you can't pin down an enemy, and your weapon designed to wound (as the 5.56 round) instead of immediately kill becomes a liability. Retreat is among the many words zombies do not understand.
  
  
• Depending on the type of armor support, effectiveness will vary. Consider that a tank is designed to fight other tanks, and in the open country, not in a city. The M1 Abrams carries only 42 rounds of 120mm ammo. One could argue that they are invulnerable to attack and could simply run over any zombies in their path. However, the Left 4 Dead "Tank", would probably be able to damage and destroy its mechanized counterpart. An infantry fighting vehicle like a Bradley would probably be a better choice anyway. Still, I'm willing to budge on the inclusion of armored vehicles. But humvees would still be viable. Soldiers could be pulled out of them, and they would be damaged and slowed by hitting zombies.
  
  
• Special infected would increased the challenge even further. Snipers dueling with Smokers, Hunters and Boomers ambushing from every direction. Add the L4D2 specials and uncommons for even more fun. Armored zombies anyone?
  
  
• I will say that air support and off-screen artillery would be completely unbalancing, as there would be no suitable countermeasure.

All said, despite thousands, it would only be a matter of time before the soldiers were overrun. Winning by destroying the enemy isn't even an option, the best they can hope for is to survive long enough to complete their objective. It wouldn't be an outright massacre; it would be the Alamo.

 

[bodhi]

Im still surprised Rockstar did a Zombie DLC for Red Dead Redemption and not GTA4. Would've been immense if they put in barricading, scavanging and safehouses.

 

[Remus]

wall of text

I love how you impose realism on the human soldiers but not the zombies. Realistically speaking none of the special infected in L4D(including the tank) should be as strong and resilient as they are. One bullet to the head should kill a tank.

 

[falconwind]

I love how you impose realism on the human soldiers but not the zombies. Realistically speaking none of the special infected in L4D(including the tank) should be as strong and resilient as they are. One bullet to the head should kill a tank.

This is true. But come on, we're talking about zombies. And there's nothing wrong with putting realistic people into unrealistic and circumstances.

At some point, realism has to be suspended for the sake of the premise. No game is truly realistic, merely they contain aspects of realism. In this case, the realism is in the soldiers but not the zombies. And this is a conscious decision, and what I meant about being "done right". And actually, the soldiers are not that realistic. All the limitations I mentioned are within the scope of what is typically simulated in a military-oriented shooter.

 

[Viperidae]

Zombie mods for Operation Flashpoint or ArmA1/2.

You've had this answer for a while now. Get out your wallet and be done with it.

 

[ktimekiller]

still waiting for a good modern zombie survival horror rpg that isnt 90% action based

 

[falconwind]

Zombie mods for Operation Flashpoint or ArmA1/2.

The videos on youtube of both of these don't look very good... oh well.

 

[Viperidae]

Oh if you wanted something that looks good, you should have said so. Try watching 28 Days Later.

 

[Vegeta897]

Plus there are lots of different zombies mods for all 3 games, and some are old and most are still in development. And then it's compounded by how good the missions are... You have to understand Arma before you can get excited about its mods.

 

[Raziaar]

Plus there are lots of different zombies mods for all 3 games, and some are old and most are still in development. And then it's compounded by how good the missions are... You have to understand Arma before you can get excited about its mods.

Zombie mods for arma suck dick.

 

[Maestro]

[wall of text]

I want you to tell me how exactly an M2 mounted on an M1 Abrams or Humvee isn't totally unbalancing. They can carry thousands of rounds and when I say a .50 can cut a human in half, I mean it. Not to mention that jet fighters armed with any kind of bombs would devastate swaths of zombies.

Your concept is not a 'realistic military,' it's Killing Floor with tanks and helicopters. A modern, realistic military force would have not thousands, but millions of rounds and thousands of weapons, and hundreds of vehicles. Resources might be an issue, but in that case you might as well just play any number of other games where you have to scavenge weapons and supplies.

A zombie apocalypse by definition means there is no real military left, if you have military then there is a full military.

 

[Vegeta897]

Zombie mods for arma suck dick.

You and me had fun in that one for ArmA, and you are not going to deny that.

 

[falconwind]

I want you to tell me how exactly an M2 mounted on an M1 Abrams or Humvee isn't totally unbalancing. They can carry thousands of rounds and when I say a .50 can cut a human in half, I mean it. Not to mention that jet fighters armed with any kind of bombs would devastate swaths of zombies.

Your concept is not a 'realistic military,' it's Killing Floor with tanks and helicopters. A modern, realistic military force would have not thousands, but millions of rounds and thousands of weapons, and hundreds of vehicles. Resources might be an issue, but in that case you might as well just play any number of other games where you have to scavenge weapons and supplies.

A zombie apocalypse by definition means there is no real military left, if you have military then there is a full military.

I never said "realistic military". The scenario I described is well within the limitations that can be expected in any military-oriented shooter, and a L4D type adversary. A small, and arguabley, ill-prepared force would probably be overrun by an overwhelming number of zombies. I also specifically said air power would be unbalancing.

You are correct, it is not realistic, just as Battlefield is not realistic.

To answer your question, a tank, by virtue of its mass, armor, and armament would probably be unbalancing, but the super strong "Tank" infected from L4D could be employed in an, ironically, Anti-Tank role. An IFV would be better suited, as it is not nearly as tough or heavily armed. A humvee is even more vulnerable, not just to special infected, but to regular zombies as well. Its occupants can be pulled from their vehicle. As well, on both a Humvee and the Abrams, depending on variant, the M2 is mounted externally and fed by a 100 round box, leaving the operator vulnerable, and requiring constant reloading. The Abrams carries 900 rounds of .50 cal ammunition. It also has 2 7.62 M240 machine guns, so you are probably right about it being unbalancing as a whole. But not impossible in the circumstances I provided.

 

[Vegeta897]

Honestly I'm with falconwind on this. It would make for an interesting game if it was as he described. The Tank from L4D could easily bend the barrel of a tank, rendering the main gun useless. And he could probably tear open the hatch and expose everyone inside to himself or other zombies.

 

[Mogi67]

Hey guys it's 2011, Zombies were a cool fad for a while in 2010, time to move on. I'm still waiting for a Narwhal vs. Unicorn game

 

[Raziaar]

You and me had fun in that one for ArmA, and you are not going to deny that.

I had fun before I realized how shitty it was.

 

[MJ12]

I was playing the Arma 2 zombie missions I posted and it seemed pretty good to me... Don't know how to use it via editor though.

 

[Maestro]

I never said "realistic military". The scenario I described is well within the limitations that can be expected in any military-oriented shooter, and a L4D type adversary. A small, and arguabley, ill-prepared force would probably be overrun by an overwhelming number of zombies. I also specifically said air power would be unbalancing.

You are correct, it is not realistic, just as Battlefield is not realistic.

To answer your question, a tank, by virtue of its mass, armor, and armament would probably be unbalancing, but the super strong "Tank" infected from L4D could be employed in an, ironically, Anti-Tank role. An IFV would be better suited, as it is not nearly as tough or heavily armed. A humvee is even more vulnerable, not just to special infected, but to regular zombies as well. Its occupants can be pulled from their vehicle. As well, on both a Humvee and the Abrams, depending on variant, the M2 is mounted externally and fed by a 100 round box, leaving the operator vulnerable, and requiring constant reloading. The Abrams carries 900 rounds of .50 cal ammunition. It also has 2 7.62 M240 machine guns, so you are probably right about it being unbalancing as a whole. But not impossible in the circumstances I provided.

OK, so it's not really a military shooter, it's a militia with some recommissioned equipment shooter. Keep in mind the US DoD has aircraft, zombies don't. Aircraft do very unpleasant things to very, very large groups of people (Vietnam anybody?). I could see military-style working out, but an actual regular military unit vs. zombies will be a highly one-sided affair.

 

[TwwIX]

You mean, something akin to Earth Defense Force? Games like that are fun for a short duration but they get very repetitive. When i think of Zombie games or movies, i think of survival and limited resources. You know, "Against all odds" type of scenarios. Tanks, Helicopters etc. vs. Walking Hunks of Meat just wouldn't be very balanced imo. Well, unless it was an extremely arcadey game where you'd be able to spam all kinds of crap at the Zombies. The fun factor would last for about 5 minutes though.

How about Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City? It may not be the game that you are wishing for but it's step up from L4D in terms of scale and weaponry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stu5btuLN7Q

 

[falconwind]

Yeah, that looks pretty cool. But as I don't own a console, I've never really been able to appreciate Resident Evil fully.

Moving away from my original post, an actual Left 4 Dead/Left 4 Dead 2 expansion that swaps the survivors for a spec ops team during the pandemic would be awesome. You'd "revisit" the original locales as the infection spreads. Imagine the desperation as you evac civilians and defend checkpoints as the world around your crumbles. In such a game, the rest of the military would be done mainly through events and scripted sequences, although at some point fighting a "tank" with a tank, would be cool.

Oh, btw, Omnicide for BF2 looks like it might be close-ish to what I was looking for.

OK, so it's not really a military shooter, it's a militia with some recommissioned equipment shooter. Keep in mind the US DoD has aircraft, zombies don't. Aircraft do very unpleasant things to very, very large groups of people (Vietnam anybody?). I could see military-style working out, but an actual regular military unit vs. zombies will be a highly one-sided affair.

Yeah, "fully-fledged" was a poor choice of words on my part. I agree with you that any military force would have to be shamefully handicapped.
But a plausible scenario is that military resources would be stretched thin in a global zombie apocalypse. Imagine that the city is not an isolated incident. That this isn't the first, but one of many cities that have fallen/about to fall. That similar operations are being played out not just throughout the country, but the world. Those soldiers who weren't infected at the beginning would surely be reduced even further by attrition. Entire military bases and their stockpiles might be overrun and inaccessible. The National Guard decimated early on as streets under martial law explode into a zombie pandemic.

Also, this isn't completely pointless, as I'm currently designing a table-top war game with the aforementioned premise. So your thoughts and opinions are quite helpful.