Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse"

Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", or simply Stubbs the Zombie, is a third-person zombie game developed by Wideload Games, published by Aspyr Media, and built on the Halo engine. The title is a play on Rebel Without a Cause. It was released on October 18, 2005 for the Xbox, and was released for Windows and Mac OS X in November that same year. The game was released on February 10, 2006 in Europe. Later, the Valve Corporation made the game available for purchase via Steam on May 17, 2007. This title became available on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace as an Xbox Originals for 1200... (More) Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", or simply Stubbs the Zombie, is a third-person zombie game developed by Wideload Games, published by Aspyr Media, and built on the Halo engine. The title is a play on Rebel Without a Cause. It was released on October 18, 2005 for the Xbox, and was released for Windows and Mac OS X in November that same year. The game was released on February 10, 2006 in Europe. Later, the Valve Corporation made the game available for purchase via Steam on May 17, 2007. This title became available on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace as an Xbox Originals for 1200 pts. ($15USD) on May 19, 2008.

Stubbs the Zombie was Wideload Games' first game after its foundation. The company's founder, Alex Seropian had previously co-founded and worked with Bungie and used the production as an experiment to determine how he would run an independent studio. The game's development began with a team of twelve, but Seropian decided to use contractors which raised the number to sixty. This decision brought difficulties when the hiring process wasn't properly overseen, leaving the team with a shortage of producers and lack of cohesion. A game development model was developed, with 12 full time employees overseeing pre and post production phases, while independent contractors worked with the remaining content. Using the Halo engine provided some problem in the early stages. The engine was completely developed by Bungie and it lacked notes from them or peer reviews that would emphasize possible programming problems. Due to this, an excessive amount of time was spent determining which contractors would require training to use the engine, as well as how long they would receive instruction.

Stubbs gameplay is unusual because the player plays as a zombie, rather than a human, and the primary goal is therefore to kill and eat the brains of humans. Eating brains gives back a certain amount of lost health to the player as well as converting humans into zombies, causing them to fight alongside the player. The player also has the option of beating an enemy to death with melee strikes to transform them into zombies.

Stubbs' zombie state prevents him from wielding any conventional hand held weapons, and instead wields a variety of improvised weaponry and combat techniques, most of which are done using an specific body part as explosives or makeshift devices. (Less) Developer: Wideload Games - Released: 2005, Oct 18 - Genre: Action - Platform: Xbox,OS X,PC