OZombie - American McGee's next game

The Wizard of Oz. With zombies.

I'm going to guess he read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and decided "that was a great idea, let's do a video game equivalent".

But Oz has had zombies in it ever since Frank Baum realized he need more money and added more books!

Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!

Zombies are getting old.

Say what you like about Dead Space, but it at least had the balls to get more creative with its zombie designs than most modern games. The concept art for the game looks interesting, but concept art rarely reflects the final product.

edited 21st May '13 3:15:28 PM by Scardoll

I like it a lot. I wanted to play the Alice games but never got around to it.

I was wondering when he'd get to working on the Oz game. I just didn't expect zombies. XD

Nobody ever does.

So... Crossover with the Alice series at some point?

Why does it need zombies? I mean, it's an interesting twist, but Oz is utterly bizarre in a way that not much needs to be changed to make it creepy. Emphasize that death doesn't exist, or how Oz constantly shifts in landscape and history. Oz is the perfect series to show how terrifying retcons could be in-universe.

It's just what American Mc Gee does. He apparently can't make a critically acclaimed game without it featuring a twisted version of a public domain popular fiction world with a badass crazy heroine.

Well, considering that the Oz game was supposed to be a prequel, I'd be surprised if it DID have one.

How are you supposed to pronounce it? Oz-ombi or O-zombi?

Oz-zombie.

...eh, this just sounds like grimdark for its own sake. I don't expect this to have anywhere near the depth of Alice. :/

I dunno, man... this thing has been in development since the release of Alice, from what I recall reading.

I've never read any of the Oz books but according to This Very Wiki the setting is every bit as screwed up as Wonderland ever was. Maybe even more so since it's "real" and not some sort of mental delusion.

...and what they came up with after all that time was 'zombies'?

Oh, it's more than screwed-up enough for an AMG game all on its own.

I believe that this concept has been in development since the 90's, not a reworking of the Oz setting.

And let's be fair to zombies here: they're not just walking corpses. Romero zombies don't encompass their entirety. The Haitan's claim they had the zombie's first, but they go back to the beginning, to the cell that said it was just a cell but was actually a killer with an infectious, mindless kiss. And to be fair to Mc Gee, looks like we're getting a virus in addition to the zombies in addition to the pastiche — for what else is post-modernism but a reality warper, a packet of information intent on self-reproduction and the destabilisation of fictive selves?

Well, it's a lot of other things. But you get the point.

Eruuugh! I am post-modern fiction! Euuurgh!

edited 27th May '13 9:58:07 AM by Nicknacks

...I don't get the point. I don't understand anything you said. :(

I think he's saying O Zombie is post-modern and thus is trying to destroy itself like zombies? I don't know but it's based on absolutely nothing.

First thing that comes to mind:

I don't mind zombies, persay, I mind it when zombies are just people covered in blood because most of the time it looks cheap.

Having taken a look at the Facebook page linked-to above, it looks to me as though they may be interpreting OZ zombies as scarecrows: we have at least one mention of the scarecrow being absent from a group shot since he was interested in finding "brains", and another image of a character who appears to have been transformed into a zombie-scarecrow.

Perhaps the plot is that the Scarecrow from The Wizard of OZ has decided to gain "brains" by taking them from others, turning his victims into scarecrows either in a misguided attempt to "keep them alive" and rationalise his actions as "acceptable" or simply to make servants of them, sending them forth to harvest more brains...

Didn't think of that.

If only it didn't had zombies...