A preview copy of Stubbs the Zombie landed in GameDaily's post office box today, and they like what they see, at first glance:

The latest edition of Gamasutra's Media Consumption is on Wideload Games' own Lead Writer, Matt Soell.

The Media Consumption feature asks game developerse what music, films, and music have their attention at the time.

The highlight? Soell's reading a book by two writers, one of which used to be a member of a band that ended their career by emptying a gun loaded with blanks on an awards ceremony audience.

eToychest.org is reporting that Stubbs the Zombie has gone Gold Master (at least for the Xbox). Aspyr's Project Status page confirms it.

According to another story at Inside Mac Games late last week, the Macintosh and PC versions of Stubbs have now reached alpha status, while the Xbox version is in beta, according to the Project Status page at Aspyr, which is publishing the Macintosh and PC versions. The game is due out in November for those platforms and in October for the Xbox.

Aspyr is now offering a chance to preorder the Macintosh version of Stubbs the Zombie, coming this November, for $40. The Halo engine game is being published by Aspyr and was developed by Wideload Games, the Chicago-area startup created by ex-Bungie founder Alexander Seropian, along with a core staff comprised of many other ex-Bungie employees. The game will be released for Xbox, Mac, and PC platforms. Thanks MacNN.

Gamasutra today has an interview with Wideload Games' Alexander Seropian. He talks about how Wideload's outsourcing model has worked out, the modifications they made to the original Halo engine, and dealing with the challenges of a cross-platform release:

Having an engine that has already shipped on all three of those platforms certainly helped, as did having a partner in Aspyr Media, a company that has lots of experience with Mac and PC development. We also spent a lot of time early on getting our codebase operational on all three platforms.

GameSpy has put up a preview of Stubbs The Zombie. They liked how the ability to create more zombies that you can make follow you made otherwise straightforward killing far more interesting:

These simple dynamics turn the repetitive combat into a shambling, decomposing chess game, since your inability to singly defeat the large crowds couple with the NPC zombies' natural ineptitude necessitates strategic manipulation of each situation to come out of it in your mostly-intact state. Often I would find myself using zombies as walking shields, hanging back until I could slip in behind the enemies and chomp them, or sending a diversionary swarm towards a machine-gun nest while I hid and send my arm off to possess a shotgun-toting redneck who could take care of the situation.

IGN has a new Stubbs the Zombie video up now-- this one shows split-screen coop play, Stubbs style. Note the extra indicators in the HUD compared to split screen play in Halo; the symbol over the other player's head is a number, rather than just an arrow, and other indicators are placed on the screen for various objects, including vehicles.

Inside Mac Games put up Part 26 of their One on One with Glenda Adams earlier this week. The Mac port of Stubbs the Zombie garners a mention:

Tuncer: Well, first off, can you give us a status update on some of Aspyr's games? I know lots of people are hungry for news of the Mac version of Stubbs The Zombie.

Wideload's Stubbs the Zombie gets the limelight this week in GameCore, the gaming column by William Vitka at CBS News, pointing out the game's humorous angle and nostalgia-driven soundtrack:

With only a few weeks before its expected release, Wideload's first game, Stubbs the Zombie, is making some noise. Of all the non-Quake-engine games shown at QuakeCon 2005, Stubbs the Zombie got the most attention according to GameDaily. There is also another batch of screenshots in our Stubbs gallery for you to peruse. The Stubbs the Zombie soundtrack will be released on October 18.