Because you can't kick ass when you're dead.
The world is no longer what it used to be. Men died, corps rises, most living men have lost their faith. Except him...
Not Dying Today is a zombie-themed Beat 'em Up action game made by Forever Entertainment, and a massive homage to zombie-themed video games throughout the ages.
In the year 2030, after a zombie infection has spread through most of the United States, turning most of the population into shambling undead, it's up to one man, Captain Aiden of the United States Armed Forces, to protect the last pockets of human population.
The game allows co-op for up to 4 players, where Captain Aiden can recruit up to three partners to assist him to clear the country of undead.
Not Dying Today contain examples of:
- Abandoned Hospital: The first stage has Aiden fighting zombies in an empty hospital, devoid of human life but swarming with zombie enemies. It's here that he encounters the syringe-throwing zombie nurses for the first time.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The last stage is set inside one of these, infested with zombies and mutants.
- Action Bomb: One of the less recurring enemies, zombies with entire bundles of dynamites strapped to their waists who will try to hug Aiden while blowing themselves out. They'll blow themselves into chunks for nothing if Aiden dodges in time, but it's still easy to get hit thanks to Splash Damage.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: One level is a furious chase in the city streets which has Aiden in a truck being pursued by a massive thresher vehicle (piloted by some unknown enemy, the driver isn't seen onscreen for the duration of the chase). The pursuing vehicle cannot be harmed, Aiden needs to dash like crazy ahead while avoiding obstacles, though he can run over zombies on the streets, the chase ending when Aiden enters a tunnel too low for the bulldozer to pass, causing it to crash and explode.
- Automatic Crossbows: Aiden can collect one rather late in the game, which can kill zombies — even stronger ones — with a single bolt.
- Batter Up!: The first melee weapon Aiden can get is a nail bat, which works wonders on smashing zombie skulls. But there are gangsta zombies wielding similar weapons as well.
- Battleaxe Nurse: Zombie nurses are a recurring enemy type, armed with either scalpels or syringes. There's also a Super-Zombie Nurse Queen Mook called "B.G. Nurse" as one of the bosses, who throws three syringes at a time in a wide arc, before turning into a fiercely deformed One-Winged Angel form when her health is halved.
- Bloody Hilarious: Pretty much every instance of onscreen gorn can result in these, thanks to the violence — combined with the cartoonish animation — being too over-the-top to be taken seriously.
- The Butcher: The game's very first boss is a giant hulking zombie (that towers absolutely over Aiden) wielding an ax, simply named "Butcher".
- Chainsaw Good: Pretty much a requirement for all zombie media, and the chainsaw Aiden collects late in the game simply chews up one zombie after another with the expectedly gory (and awesome) effects.
- Clown-Car Base: The Tanker zombie drives an armored vehicle who consistently dispenses zombie mooks until it's destroyed.
- Crosshair Aware: Falling objects and obstacles above Aiden is depicted as red markers around him, which he'll need to run quickly to avoid getting crushed. Notably the dropped projectiles from Tanker, booby traps in the laboratory, and when the Giant Spider boss pounces onto the ceiling and prepares to drop on Aiden from above.
- Dead Weight: Some of the larger zombie bosses, like the Butcher and the Warden, are extremely overweight with their guts poking out, but it doesn't stop them from being quite Acrofatic.
- Down in the Dumps: The third stage is an extensive fight in a junkyard filled with undead.
- Elite Zombie: Oversized but fast zombie quarterbacks, insect-human zombies who can easily grab Aiden thanks to their long constricting tongues, flamethrower zombies, screamer zombies whose shrieks can stun and hurt Aiden, the nurse zombies whose syringes can momentarily paralyze him...
- Energy Weapon: One of Aiden's best weapons is a powerful laser cannon he picked up in Dr. Brain's laboratory, whose energy bolt can penetrate multiple zombies at once.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: So many of the zombie bosses; the "Butcher" zombie wears a butcher's apron alongside assorted scary-looking tools, the Tanker drives an armoured vehicle dispensing extra zombies, the Mad Scientist Dr. Brain has a gigantic exposed brain (and later becomes a Brain in a Jar monster!), Spider is a Giant Spider, and of course the Final Boss, a powerful undead lord called Z-Lord (go on, guess what the "Z" stands for).
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: There are Hazmat Suit zombies which wields flamethrowers, capable of incinerating Aiden if he's not careful. Aiden himself can obtain a flamethrower near the end of the game.
- Flunky Boss: All the zombie bosses can summon lower-tier zombie enemies to attack Aiden, with one of them, Tanker, actually driving an armoured vehicle whose back hatch dispenses extra zombies regularly!
- Frankenstein's Monster: The Final Boss, Z-Lord, is a massive zombie behemoth made from stitching dozens and dozens of zombies together, with obvious stitching on his face and exposed skin.
- Gatling Good: Aiden's last firearm weapon is a friggin' minigun, which levels any unfortunate low-level zombies who got in its way into a carpet of guts.
- Giant Mook: Tall quarterback zombies and overweight fat zombies, the former can perform a fast, hard-to-avoid Deadly Lunge which knocks Aiden off his feet, while the latter can throw tires capable of dealing quite a lot of damage.
- Giant Spider: The sewer level has larger-than-average spiders. Then the stage ends with Aiden facing its boss, a behemoth giant arachnid towering above Aiden (which the game simply calls... "spider").
- Gorn: The game is loaded with copious amounts of onscreen gore, and owing to the cartoonish animation, looks more hilarious than actually violent.
- Impossible Item Drop: Killing zombies will actually yield all kinds of edible food, including a fresh, juicy, delicious cheeseburger which can boost Aiden's health. And also stacks and stacks of cash, somehow.
- Improbable Weapon User: The Warden zombie, a hulking giant of an undead, uses a traffic light ripped off the ground as his weapon.
- Katanas Are Just Better: The katana is one of the game's last unlockable weapon, and is as fast and as efficient in dealing additional damage as it appears.
- Kukris Are Kool: The kukri sabre can be obtained as a weapon against the undead.
- Made of Plasticine: Zombies will repeatedly fall apart at the slightest provocation, and when hit with melee weapons they become a pile of Ludicrous Gibs.
- My Brain Is Big: Dr. Brain, the boss of the laboratory stage, who's a human who injected himself with mutation DNA to give himself control over the zombies, at the cost of his brains growing out of his cranium which he then encases in a dome. Taken a step further when you damage him enough — Dr. Brain then goes One-Winged Angel to turn into a gigantic Brain in a Jar monster!
- Never Bareheaded: Aiden's sheriff hat stays on regardless of what happens to him, even when he's being swarmed or ripped apart by zombies or running all over the place.
- Obstructive Foreground: Tends to show up from place-to-place, where foreground scenery like wreckage, billboards and destroyed vehicles will block Aiden from view just as he's fighting zombies everywhere. Gets really bad in the subway stage, where all you can see of Aiden when he's surrounded by legions of undead are through the windows and glass doors of the train.
- Off with His Head!: Aiden can easily remove craniums from zombies when he's armed with an edged, melee weapon.
- One-Hit Polykill: This tends to happen when zombies are closely packed together, and when Aiden is wielding a powerful firearm. With the bonuses ranging from "Double Kill", "Triple Kill" and all the way to "Penta Kill" and "Hexa Kill"!
- Our Zombies Are Different: There's the common shambling undead and some slightly stronger zombie gangstas, but there's also nurse zombies armed with syringes, flamethrower zombies, insect-headed zombies, gigantic quarterback zombies, not to mention several zombies capable of firing guns and piloting vehicles...
- Overly-Long Tongue: Insect-zombie hybrids (basically humanoid zombies, with insect-like heads) have prehensile tongues which they'll use to lash out at Aiden, either slapping him or grabbing and then dragging Aiden closer to their jaws so they can chew at him from up close.
- Pipe Pain: The prison stage has zombie prisoners in orange jumpsuits, all of them armed with pipes seemingly ripped from the prison's toilets. They tend to fling their pipes at Aiden from a distance too if he's out of range (and then pull out a new pipe from out of nowhere).
- Scenery Gorn: Thanks to the infestation, the streets are simply loaded with spilled guts and blood of devoured victims, dead bodies of civilains, skeletons or piles of bones as leftovers from zombie feasts, assorted kinds of gore, and Aiden can add to the scenery with the massive amounts of zombies he massacred.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Zombified SWAT officers are still carrying their riot shields, alongside their batons, frequently using their shields to block Aiden's attacks.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Of course. The shotgun is in fact the first firearm upgrade available, and can blast lone zombies into a carpet of guts. It's easier to get multiple kills with one hit as well.
- Shout-Out: To basically every zombie-related game ever made.
- The zombie Doberman enemies looks exactly the same as those from the Resident Evil series, having their skulls and ribcages exposed thanks to exposure to the zombie virus, but capable of moving faster than human zombies.
- There's also an insect-human hybrid zombie mook which resembles Plagas-infected victims from Resident Evil 4.
- Meanwhile, the Final Boss, Z-Lord, wearing a thick green trench coat with a balding deformed head, seems to take design inspirations from the T-00 of Resident Evil 2 fame.
- Zombie nurses being a recurring enemy bring Silent Hill to mind.
- And then there's the towering zombie quarterbacks, ala Plants vs. Zombies.
- The Super-Zombie Nurse boss, "B.G. Nurse", has an attack where she pukes a pillar of toxic blood that covers a big portion of the screen, much like the zombified heroes from Metal Slug.
- In-between gameplay, the cutscenes (and opening cinematics) are portrayed as comic-book pages using artwork similar to the The Walking Dead graphic novels.
- Sinister Subway: After the sewer level, Aiden then activates a train and boards its back, only to find out the entire train is filled with undead. Cue Aiden spending a whole stage fighting enemies in a train as it goes through a subway.
- Spin Attack: The zombie warden can spin around in circles while covering a large portion of the arena to attack Aiden, causing massive damage if he score any hits.
- Super-Scream: Screamer zombies have loudspeakers strapped on their heads, and instead of clawing or biting they attack by shrieking, with their vocal waves powerful enough to drain Aiden's energy if he's in range.
- Taking You with Me: After inflicting a killing blow on Z-Lord, the boss suddenly reveals that it has the ability to speak... before triggering a set of hidden explosives on its body. The game ends on a Bolivian Army Ending that's debatable on whether Aiden actually survived the blast or not.
- Timed Mission: After killing Dr. Brain, Aiden has around 300 seconds to flee from the laboratory as it begins a self-destruct countdown. There are zombies in his way trying to slow him down as well.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The game takes place after one of these, and Aiden's one of the last humans around as he goes around killing zombie mooks.
