World Of Warcraft treats death as a mere
slap on the wrist. Urban Dead uses player failure to transform gameplay: The
action happens in Malton, a quarantined town in the midst of a zombie
apocalypse. You start as either a survivor or one of the shambling dead, but
these decisions aren't set in stone. If the living are careless, or merely
unlucky, they'll soon wind up among the ranks of the zombie horde. Brain-eaters
aren't safe either. Prowling hunters hope to slow them down with debilitating
bullets to the skull. Healers armed with an experimental genetic cocktail can
cure members of the undead, starting the cycle anew.
Urban Dead's interface is bare-bones. Navigation
takes place on a map of the town. There are no player avatars, no graphics to
speak of—just text descriptions of ramshackle police stations, weapons
scrounged from the rubble, player speech, and the ever-present moans of the
walking dead. In spite of the stark presentation, the game still manages to
conjure dread and tension. Players spend action points to move, fight, and
interact with the world. Fifty of these deeds go fast, and they accumulate
slowly (one per half-hour) making every action feel like a life-or-death roll
of the dice. A struggle between man and monster can go down to the wire. Even
worse, some conflicts can end prematurely, forcing players to spend an anxious hour
waiting for the juice to finish a fight or run for shelter.