Alternatively, just shoot waves of flesh-eating revenants to earn points and win fabulous unlockable widgets and minigames in Arcade Mode.
A Wide-Open Sandbox isometric shooter summed up as a mixture of Silent Hill, Robotron: 2084, Dead Rising and Grand Theft Auto, Survival Crisis Z is a 2004 Windows PC game that puts players square in the middle of a city torn by roving undead, bitterly opposed factions, strange mysteries and bizarre phenomena. It's been freeware since 2007, so get it here
! (Windows Vista and 7 fix available here)
This game contains examples of:
- An Entrepreneur Is You: You can buy and sell commodities at safehouses, and trading them around is a decent way to build up a good cash reserve.
- Ambiguous Situation: Did the Silent Hill-esque transition really happen in-universe, or was the player character insane and/or in the process of being infected? There's no way to know for sure.
- Attack Drone: One of the powerups in arcade mode.
- Badass Bookworm: The Doctor class is a bookish fellow in a lab coat, with glasses and (if you're playing a male) a goatee that makes him the splitting image of a certain other famous zombie-fighting Doctor. No, not that Doctor.
- He/she also happens to be the best starting class for beginners. The Walk It Off ability will let you save your health items and money for when you really need it, and the starting weapon can kill basic zombies in one hit, has (relatively) plentiful ammo, and never becomes entirely worthless. Also, it's awesome.
- Body Horror: Becomes increasingly common as the story goes on.
- Bonus Dungeon: When you enter a building there's a random chance that it will have an entrance to a randomly-generated bonus dungeon where you can find tons of useful gear. The dungeon disappears once you complete it or if you leave the building without entering the dungeon, though. Choose wisely.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Unlike the first two episodes, you're stuck with something like this in the end, as considering the way the game went in the last act, it might signify the protagonist succumbing into infection or trapped in the hell dimension...
- Bottomless Magazines: You never need to reload your weapons, though they do run out of ammo.
- Cat Scare: Certain buildings, if you delve in deeper, often have "screamer" surprises and mutant enemies that look like they were torn from the Otherworld.
- Chainsaw Good: You can purchase a chainsaw as a more useful replacement for the knife.
- Actually subverted, as unless you're on a dirtbike, using the chainsaw is still a very good way to get yourself killed.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: the SWAT wear all blue (duh), the rebels wear red street clothes. Allying in either gets you blue pants or a red bandana, respectively.
- Creepy Child: A green-skinned Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl appears in a hallucination after the second mission, and you meet them for real as enemies during the third act.
- And when you encounter them, the background changes to a bloodstained complex with words written in blood ranging from threats to pleas for help. Fun stuff.
- And it's highly likely you'll meet them long before they're properly introduced in the third chapter. You could just be walking along an alley when BAM POW MOTHERFUCKER GORE EVERYWHERE DEMONIC CHILDREN WITH KNIVES CRIES FOR HELP WRITTEN IN BLOOD.
- And when you encounter them, the background changes to a bloodstained complex with words written in blood ranging from threats to pleas for help. Fun stuff.
- Critical Existence Failure: Averted. You can't move as fast if you're low on health, hunger slows you down, and fatigue distorts your game view. Additionally, it's impossible for a player to die of hunger or suddenly fall asleep.
- Dead Weight: Fat zombies make an appearance. They explode upon death.
- Drugs Are Bad: If you use them yourself. Dealing, on the other hand...
- Easy Logistics: Not entirely easy, as you must eat to keep your strength up and sleep to ward off fatigue.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The sewer complex containing the... thing with chains.
- Emergency Weapon: The knife and chainsaw. Also, in arcade, you have a 9mm pistol with infinite ammo.
- Fragile Speedster: Relative to most zombies, the dogs. Infected are a subversion.
- Friendly Fireproof: Averted for friendly humans not in your party, played straight for party members.
- From Bad to Worse: Act 1 is a standard Zombie Apocalypse. Act 2 has considerably more grotesque Body Horror and is considerably more eerie. Act 3 drops the pleasantries and dives head on into full-on into Silent Hill esque Surreal Horror.
- Giggling Villain: Once a human turns into an Infected, they start giggling insanely, vomiting blood, and attempt to chase down other humans and gobble on their brains.
- Good Is Not Nice: One item lets you summon an angel armed with a Mini-SAW... who does not object in the slightest when you put on a ski mask and begin to torture, maim, extort, etc.
- In addition, because of the way party members behave when talking to each other, it's very possible for said angel to mock and insult party members with weaker weapons than her.
- Gorn: You betcher socks it's present!
- Hell Hound/Raising the Steaks: Zombie dogs are scattered in with the undead. They're fast, but they don't have much health.
- Hell Is That Noise: In spades. Incessent tittering and giggling, demonic white noise that cuts in and out at random, the wailing and screaming of certain enemies...
- Kill It with Fire: The Molotov Cocktail, flamethrower and Flare Gun are all quite handy.
- Kobayashi Mario: Arcade mode.
- Lethal Joke Character: One rare item allows you to summon an AI helper dressed in a devil costume and monocle armed with a flamethrower. He's quite handy.
- Occasionally, one of the zombies is a giant mutant smiley face. There are also swarms of tux-wears in top hats.
- And, as noted in Good Is Not Nice, you can find an item that can summon an angel with a Mini-SAW.
- Lethal Joke Item: One of the powerups in arcade mode is a self-propelled shopping cart that you drive like a car. Seriously. And it smushes zombies like it's nobody's business.
- Molotov Cocktail
- More Dakka: One of the powerups in arcade mode changes whatever projectile weapon you're using into a spread gun version of itself, while still only using one bullet per trigger pull. There's also a rapid-fire powerup in arcade mode that...Well, makes your gun shoot faster, turning even the meager 9mm pistol into a good suppression weapon. Quite handy. The TEC-9 machine pistol and the Mini-SAW are mondo heavy on the dakka just by themselves.)
- Musical Spoiler: Of the "basic beat with more instruments added as the situation worsens" variety. Not too spoiler-y since the music change occurs alongside whatever's happening, but oftentimes the first clue that the quiet, unassuming building you just entered is a zombie-infested death trap is the musical explosion that just deafened you.
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Nintendo Hard: Safehouse takeover past level 5 or so. Anything in the double digits takes it up to eleven. Also, just crossing the street is hard in Act 3, even if you have a crew of people with mini-SA Ws. You'll have to stop at every other building just to make sure they don't run out of ammo. - Nocturnal Mooks: Zombies appear in more varieties and larger numbers at night, as well as... other things.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Arguably, the best early-game weapon
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: The Handcannon.
- Shock and Awe: The Tesla devices. Quite handy during building takeovers. Also, the EMP bombs, which are like one-shot Tesla devices in grenade form.
- Shout-Out: The Broodvich is one of the items you can pick up in the Other World. Eating it doesn't actually send you to the Other World, though, another item does that.
- The Siege: When you try to take over ownership of a building, you will have to fend off squads of militia and police, or hordes of zombies if you're claiming a neutral building.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: You would expect that the game is an open world zombie apocalypse game with added side of two rivalling human factions, but if you follow the neutral/civilian questlines, you will encounter increasingly weird creatures, from a large spider with headless human body for a head, creepy ghost children attacking you as the world suddenly turn into an asylum isolation chamber, and the entire world turning into what look like an abandoned, extremely rusty asylum interior.
- Surreal Horror: Happens as you follow the story mission.
- Survival Horror: Combined with Wide-Open Sandbox.
- Talkative Loons: "Hahaha! Talk! Talk talk talk!". For context, that's the last thing that particular zombie says before its head explodes and spider legs sprout from the neck, which continues to fountain blood as the body chases you around the room.
- Too Dumb to Live: The friendly/neutral human AI is pretty stupid. It gets very annoying when the person your escorting decides to run off and fight all the zombies with a freakin' knife!
- After you've taken over a few houses you'll start getting party members who carry machine guns instead of knives. They're so effective that you'll often find yourself outclassed and often unable to get many kills because of them.
- Except when they intiate dialog, which renders them unable to defend themselves. They will initiate dialog in the middle of a zombie infested strret, during Act 3, at night.
- After you've taken over a few houses you'll start getting party members who carry machine guns instead of knives. They're so effective that you'll often find yourself outclassed and often unable to get many kills because of them.
- Video Game Caring Potential: A player might feel bad when a companion he's had for a while is killed and turns into a zombie. Except when they only have a knife or pistol and attempt to clear an entire street of zombies instead of running.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Punt around severed zombie heads like soccer balls! Destroy buildings with C4 to intimidate uncooperative building owners into ceding control to you! Light zombies and humans alike on fire! Influence people by pushing drugs on them! Run over zombies with a killer shopping cart! Electrically torture people with car batteries! And so on.
- Walk It Off: (Slowly) regenerating health is one of the special skills that can be purchased from NPC merchants. The Doctor class begins the game with it as their starting skill.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: You can loot and shoot, follow the rebel or the police faction to Take Over the City, or follow the civilian quests, which advances the plot and lead the player into rescue.
- Weak Turret Gun: Averted. Sentry turrets and Tesla devices will save your bacon big-time, especially in the 2nd and 3rd acts.
- Zerg Rush: When trying to take leadership in a neutral building the zombies will bumrush you through every available entrance. The strength of the zombies and how long they'll keep pouring in depends on the difficulty of the takeover.
- Sometimes an entire horde of zombies can appear out of nowhere and swarm you.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Of course!
- Zombie Gait: Features both classic slow zombies and sprinting 28 Days Later-style "Infected", the former having been zombified for longer and therefore slower and further along in decay.
- Zombie Infectee: AI buddies who are low on health and have been zombie-bitten will eventually turn into fast-moving Infected if you don't rest them at an Inn or give them medical attention.
- Contrary to the trope, though, is that your buddies usually request you or another AI buddy to kill them before they turn. You can't actually attack them before they turn, but it's good to know you have their consent.
