History VideoGame / RoadOfTheDead

* ActionGirl: Diane in the sequel.

* ArcWords: "Maintain current strategy."

* DeathByTransceiver: Oh, rest assured there's ''plenty'' to go around in these games.
* {{Determinator}}: John, and Cocheta and Diane in the sequel.

* ItIsPronouncedTropay: No one in the sequel seems able to decide if Cocheta is pronounced Co-Chase-A or Co-Chet-A.

* TooDumbToLive: The civilians. They keep running in front of your car or in your line of fire. Using your horn helps sometimes, but not always. (Anyhow, why they hear your horn, but not your machine gun, is beyond anyone's guess). They are even too stupid to enter a safehouse if they are right in front of it. You have to stop to get them in your car, and then in the safehouse. The civilian drivers are worst. You might think it is a good idea to stop if a military Humvee firing a roof mounted machine gun crosses your road, but they prefer to ram it.
* TookALevelInBadass: The zombies. In the first game they almost never manage to grapple the car (aside from mutants), even mutants moved at a slow gait, and all zombies died from a single [[BoomHeadshot headshot]]. Notably, John had only a small pistol with a few rounds for the entirety of the game. In the sequel, the soldiers [[StandardFPSGuns are packing a wide array of powerful firearms]], zombies now grapple the car all the time and they require many headshots to dispose of. [[EliteMooks Mutants]], who died to a single headshot before, now take an entire magazine to kill and can easily outrun the Humvee.

* SeriesContinuityError: In the post-credits scene in the sequel John has brown hair, where as in the first game he has black hair.

* RogueAgent: In F.U.B.A.R. Mode, Cocheta and Diane are declared fugitives and thus will be ambushed by other soldiers.

* OutRunningTheFireball: [[spoiler:Your final objective in both games is to escape before a nuclear warhead turns the city into rubble.]]

** [[spoiler: The main character (you) escapes, but the nuke fails to stop the zombies. Not that it should be a surprise given the game's overall tone.]]

* {{Determinator}}: The mechanic, and Cocheta and Diane in the sequel.

* EverythingTryingToKillYou

* NominalHero: John Creasman is a mechanic with a criminal record who'll risk life and limb to get out of the city [[spoiler:before the bomb is dropped]], even if it means unleashing the zombie plague on the rest of the country, or even the world[[note]]Though this is rendered moot at the end, since the virus has already spread beyond the city anyway.[[/note]]. He also doesn't show a whole lot of remorse whenever he accidentally kills a civilian.

* AFatherToHisMen: [[spoiler:In direct opposition to the unnamed military commander, General Sherman seems to care about his troops far more. Ordering them to fall back when positions become overrun whereas the previous commander is more 'stand your ground at all costs'. Even going so far as to as to tell his troops that rescue is on the way, even though there is no way for transports to get to them before the nuke hits. You can hear the emotion in his voice as he does so.]]
** [[spoiler: In the sequel, he puts his own life on the line to save Diane and Cocheta. (Albeit Cocheta had to convince him first.)]]
** ReasonableAuthorityFigure: [[spoiler:As reasonable as one could expect from a horrid situation they're in. Once he finds out that nuking the zombies is ineffective, he ''very'' quickly attempts to contact any remaining personnel, telling the few he gets in touch with to fall back immediately, and rendezvous with his chopper at a more defensible location]].
* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:The nuke kills a lot of civilians in the city, only for it to fail to stop the zombies. Cocheta even points this out to General Sherman when he tells him that he "Sacrificed them all for nothing."]]

* BadassBoast:
** "I'm not stopping! You hear me?! [[DefiantToTheEnd I'M NOT STOPPING]]!"

* BitterSweetEnding: [[spoiler: The main character (you) escapes, but the nuke fails to stop the zombies. Not that it should be a surprise given the game's overall tone.]]

* BoringButPractical: The starting pistol in Road of the Dead 2. It's not much at the beginning of the game, and you'll want the other guns for the damage that they do. But the pistol has infinite ammo, cheap upgrades, and a pretty decent reload time right from the beginning. Dedicate enough grinding towards it, and before long, it'll get you through most situations, all without having to stop for ammo afterwards.

** CarFu: Your main method of dealing damage. While you can acquire a pistol, it's only used to shoot down anything that clings onto the hood.
*** Remains effective in the sequel despite the expanded arsenal available to the player.

* EliteMooks: The mutated zombies, who will [[InvincibleMinorMinion always cling onto your car]] no matter how hard you hit them. You have to shoot them with your gun in order to get rid of them. This is oh-so-much-more-true in the sequel, where they actively chase after your vehicle, need multiple shots just to fend off (not kill), can grapple the driver or gunner to force them into a QTE, and frequently ''hunt in packs''.

* EliteZombie: The mutated zombies. They're extremely tough and will always cling to your car if you hit them in the first game. In the second game, they're capable of ''running faster than your humvee'', shooting them enough when they cling onto your vehicle only deters them the first time (the second time kills them), and can even grapple a character by entering from the side window, forcing a QTE in order to remove. And then there's the Alpha mutants, which have even more health and have to be 'deterred' ''three'' times to be put down.
** The second game introduced several more zombie types with special abilities. The Ravager, which can move faster than the regular zombies, the Brute, which is a muscular zombie with more health points, the Grub, which lies on the ground and latches onto your car if you hit it, and the zombie soldier, whose body armor protects it from your gunshots.

* EvilVersusEvil: Present off screen, but averted in the original game itself. You hear the military fighting the zombies over the radio, but in the game itself the soldiers and zombies ignore each other and focus only on you.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: A certain Checkpoint reports being swamped by undead moments before you arrive. When you get there, there's only a small smattering of undead, if even that, due to the random placement of enemies and obstacles.

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Diane loses hers early to a zombie attack and goes the whole game without it. Cocheta, however subverts it. As he doesn't take his helmet or mask off until the last cutscene, still his Helmet does seem to be different in design compared to others soldiers.

* LetThemDieHappy: [[spoiler:With the nuclear detonation just two minutes away and troops still left in the city, General Sherman assures them that the choppers will be there to evacuate them soon, and that they have made him proud.]]

* LudicrousGibs: Part of Sickdeathfiend's (the artist) style.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It's heavily implied, though never outright stated, that the main character's breaking through military checkpoints is responsible for the military falling to the zombies (though in all fairness, the military was already losing the battle at the start). In the sequel, however, it appears that the military was overrun days before John began his run.
** The sequel also reveals that [[spoiler: the outbreak is occurring in many other cities at the same time.]]
* NominalHero: John Creasman is a mechanic with a criminal record who'll risk life and limb to get out of the city [[spoiler:before the bomb is dropped]], even if it means unleashing the zombie plague on the rest of the country, or even the world[[note]]Though this is kind of invalid at the end, since the virus has already spread beyond the city anyway.[[/note]]. He also doesn't show a whole lot of remorse whenever he accidentally kills a civilian.
* NukeEm: [[spoiler:The Military is forced to resort to this when the outbreak proves too much for them. Sadly it doesn't work at all.]]
* OhCrap: The driver lets one off when he sees the military starting to become serious, usually in the form of Apache Helicopters.

* OneHitKill:The pistol in the first game.

%%* [[spoiler: OutRunningTheFireball]]
* OutsideRide: If you don't hit somebody, dead or alive, hard enough, they cling onto your hood. (except for Civilians) Soldiers and Zombies try to kill you, obviously.

* POVSequel: The second game takes place from the POV from two soldiers of the Military that John Creasman has to fend off as he escapes.
* PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo: The mechanic from the first game has a brief one in the sequel's story.

* RogueAgent: in F.U.B.A.R. Mode, Cocheta and Diane are declared fugitives and thus will be ambushed by other soldiers.

* ScreamDiscretionShot: If a zombie manages to get into your car before you can shake or shoot it off, the screen turns to black and you hear some very unpleasant screaming, followed by the sounds of a certain something chewing on a certain someone's flesh,however in the sequel the background turns red if you die(unless it's a explosion that kills the person driving then the screen turns black).
* SeriesContinuityError: in the post-credits scene in the sequel John has brown hair, where as in the first game he has black hair.
* TheStinger: A brief one in [=RoTD 2=] showing the mechanic from the first game leaving in his car... Being unknowingly followed by several mutants. [[JumpScare While one jumps at the camera]].

* ShoutOut: In the first game, if Creasman runs over a civilian, he'll call them a [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1990 "bunch of yo-yos"]].

* TooDumbToLive: The civilians. They keep running in front of your car or in your line of fire. Using your horn helps sometimes, but not always. (Anyhow, why they hear your horn, but not your machine gun, is beyond anyone's guess). They are even to stupid to enter a safehouse if they are right in front of it. You have to stop to get them in your car, and then in the safehouse. The civilan drivers are worst. You might think it is a good idea to stop if a military Humvee firing a roof mounted machine gun crosses your road, but they prefer to ram it.

* TimedMission: Both [=RoTD=] and its sequel feature a Challenge Mode that pits the player against the clock, tasking him to rack up points to extend the given time. [[spoiler:Also nearing the end of [=RoTD=] Story Mode, the clock will start ticking as you try to [[OutrunTheFireball escape the nuke]].]]

* VideoGameCaringPotential: The player may choose to actually use and upgrade his car's horn, reducing civilian fatalities.

* WeaponizedCar: It doesn't have missiles or machine guns, but in the end after you've upgraded all your equipment, it's basically a tank that goes over a 100 MPH
** In Road of The Dead 2, however, ''you do''. Except you can only have one at a time. And you have to repurchase it every time you run out of ammo.

* ActionDuo: The core mechanic of the sequel, with the player controlling one soldier with the keyboard and another with the mouse simultaneously. Cocheta Solomon is more emotional and volatile, and clumsier to handle, as he has superior firepower but reload times that've birthed many a game over. Diane Rosewood is more reasonable and controlled. They remark on significant events, which adds up to yelling at each other about every 10 seconds, and it's a honestly intriguing bit of game design that this adds to the atmosphere rather than being a complete PITA.

* ActionDuo: The core mechanic of the sequel, with the player controlling one soldier with the keyboard and another with the mouse simultaneously. Cocheta Solomon is the more emotional and volatile of the pair, and clumsier to handle, as he has superior firepower but reload times that've birthed many a game over. Diane Rosewood is more reasonable and controlled. They remark on significant events, which adds up to yelling at each other about every 10 seconds, and it's a honestly intriguing bit of game design that this adds to the atmosphere rather than being a complete PITA.

* ActionDuo: The core mechanic of the sequel, with the player controlling one soldier with the keyboard and another with the mouse simultaneously. Cocheta Solomon is the more emotional and volatile of the pair, and clumsier to handle, as he has superior firepower but reload times that've birthed many a game over. Diane Rosewood is more reasonable and controlled. They remark to each other on significant events, which adds up to yelling at each other about every 10 seconds, and it's a honestly intriguing bit of game design that this adds to the atmosphere rather than being a complete PITA.

* ActionGirl: Diane in the sequel

* SequelDifficultyDrop: The extra upgrades make it easier to fend off the zombies and survive crashing into objects, though there are more powerful zombies to compensate.
* SequelDifficultySpike: Longer distance between checkpoints, far more resilient enemies, more stuff to purchase, and you are only allowed to buy upgrades while in the car ''at a complete standstill'', as the driver hops out to tune the engine/repair the bumper/scrounge for ammunition/gather supplies.

* NominalHero: John Creasman is a mechanic with a criminal record who'll risk life and limb to get out of the city [[spoiler:before the bomb is dropped]], even if it means unleashing the zombie plague on the rest of the country, or even the world[[labelnote:note]]Though this is kind of invalid at the end, since the virus has already spread beyond the city anyway.[[/note]]]]. He also doesn't show a whole lot of remorse whenever he accidentally kills a civilian.

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:The nuke kills alot of civilians in the city, only for it to fail to stop the zombies. Cocheta even points this out to General Sherman when he tells him that he "Sacrificed them all for nothing."]]

* EliteMooks: The mutated zombies, who will [[InvincibleMinorMinion always cling onto your car]] no matter how hard you hit them. You have to shoot them with your gun in order to get rid of them. This is oh-so-much-more-true in the sequel, where they actively chase after your vehicle, need multiple shots just to fend off (not kill), can grapple the drivero r gunner to force them into a QTE, and frequently ''hunt in packs''.

* NominalHero: John Creasman is a mechanic with a criminal record who'll risk life and limb to get out of the city [[spoiler:before the bomb is dropped]], even if it means unleashing the zombie plague on the rest of the country, or even the world[[labelnote:note]]Though this is kind of invalid at the end, since the virus has already spread beyond the city anyway.]]. He also doesn't show a whole lot of remorse whenever he accidentally kills a civilian.
* NukeEm: [[spoiler:The Military is forced to resort to this when the outrbreak proves too much for them. Sadly it doesn't work at all.]]

%%* [[spoiler: OutrunningTheFireball]]

* NominalHero: John Creasman is a mechanic with a criminal record who'll risk life and limb to get out of the city [[spoiler:before the bomb is dropped]], even if it means unleashing the zombie plague on the rest of the country, or even the world. Mitigated when it's revealed that [[spoiler:the infection has already spread to other cities before the game's events.]]

* FridgeHorror: All the civilians in the second game that you dropped off at safehouses in the sequel? [[spoiler: They're all doomed to die when the nuke goes off. Only the ones you bring with you in your car are guaranteed to make it.]]

** CarFu: You have a pistol, too, but that's only for swatting zombies off the hood of your car.

* EliteMooks: The mutated zombies, who will [[InvincibleMinorMinion always cling onto your car]] no matter how hard you hit them. You have to shoot them with your gun in order to get rid of them. This is oh-so-much-more-true in the sequel, where they actively chase after your vehicle. And more often than not, ''they hunt in packs''.
** If you think the mutated zombies are a pain in the ass in the sequel, just wait until you meet the ''Alpha'' mutants.
* EliteZombie: The mutated zombies. They're extremely tough and will always cling to your car if you hit them in the first game. In the second game, they're capable of ''running faster than your truck'', shooting them enough when they cling onto your vehicle only deters them the first time (the second time kills them), and can even interrupt a character by entering from the side window. And then there's the Alpha mutants, which have even more health and have to be 'deterred' ''three'' times to be put down.

* EveryCarIsAPinto: Downplayed. It needs multiple collisions or massive firepower to blow up a car. Played straight with fuel trucks, which explode at the slightest touch.

* EvolutionaryLevels: The mutated zombie's suggested to be this as well.
* FridgeHorror: All the civilians in the second game that you dropped off at safehouses? [[spoiler: They're all doomed to die when the nuke goes off. Only the ones you bring with you in your car are guaranteed to make it.]]

* LudicrousGibs: Art by Sickdeathfiend, enough said.
* MadeOfIron: The player characters can survive being shot a few times by M-16s and ''the main weapon of the AH-64 Apache''. For the record, that weapon is a ''30mm chaingun''. Even with the armor, John Creasman has it's still impressive.

** The achievement for getting rid of the helicopter the first time is [[Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarriorRoad Warrior]].

* EliteZombie: The mutated zombies. They're extremely tough and will cling to your car if you hit them in the first game. In the second game, they're capable of ''running faster than your truck'', shooting them enough when they cling onto your vehicle only deters them the first time (the second time kills them), and can even interrupt a character by entering from the side window. And then there's the Alpha mutants, which have even more health and have to be 'deterred' ''three'' times to be put down.

* AllForNothing: The nuke kills alot of civilians in the city, only for it to fail to stop the zombies. Cocheta even points this out to General Sherman when he tells him that he "Sacrificed them all for nothing."

* BitterSweetEnding: [[spoiler: The main character (you) escapes, but the nuke fails to stop the zombies. Not that that should be a surprise given the game's overall tone.]]

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Diane loses hers early to a zombie attack and goes the whole game without it. Cocheta, however, doesn't take his helmet or mask off until the last cutscene.

* MadeOfIron: The player character can survive being shot a few times by M-16s and ''the main weapon of the AH-64 Apache''. For the record, that weapon is a ''30mm chaingun''.

%%*NukeEm

* OutsideRide: If you don't hit somebody, dead or alive, hard enough, they cling onto your hood. Soldiers and Zombies try to kill you, obviously.

* POVSequel

* SeriesContinuityError: in the post-credits scene in the sequel john has brown hair, where as in the first game he has black hair.

* {{One-hit kill}}:The pistol in the first game.

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: The player may choose to intentionally hit civilians ([[VideogameCrueltyPunishment you lose cash for doing that]]).

* SeriesContinuityError: at the end at the sequel john has black hair, where as in the first game he has black hair.

* SeriesContinuityError: at the end at the sequel john has black hair, where as in the first game he has black hair.