Yahoo Video Games gave Wideload's Stubbs the Zombie 3.5 stars out of 5 overall. They liked the concept and the humor, but thought the Halo engine "hasn't aged well" and felt the brain-eating mechanic was used too often.
Wired magazine has reviewed Wideload's Stubbs the Zombie; they liked the humor and the soundtrack, as well as finding the game fun to play:
It's quite like the world of Destroy All Humans, but this one is dirty enough to snag a Mature rating. (One scene sees Stubbs infiltrating the "Knobb Cheese Farm.") Running quips from public-address systems and the dying words of your hapless victims ("Now I'll never get into college!") keep the laughs coming at a constant clip.
Metacritic has put up a page for the Xbox version of Stubbs the Zombie; so far, through five reviews the game is pulling a 79 out of 100 on what they call "generally favorable reviews". Of those reviews, 1Up is currently the highest (90) and GamePro the lowest (70).
Wideload's Matt Soell did an interview with GamingNexus about Stubbs, covering the idea behind the game and some of it's features:
Wideloadgames.org's Randall "Bat" Schwebke has put up the first installment of a three-part interview with Aspyr's Glenda Adams about the upcoming Mac and PC ports of Wideload Games' Stubbs the Zombie, out this week for the Xbox.
This first part covers some technical details on the rendering done by Stubbs on the two platforms, as compared to Halo and compared to each other. Both ports are using OpenGL:
The Village Voice gives Stubbs a mention in their feature on Halloween games. They likened it to a combination of Halo's play mechanics with a twist of "Destroy All Humans".
[image:8460 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Matt Soell, ex of Bungie Studios and now the Lead Writer for Stubbs the Zombie, the new Halo engine game for the Xbox by independent developer Wideload Games in Chicago, was kind enough to take time off during the final crunch time just before Stubbs started shipping to answer a few questions about the game and Wideload's development process.
Longtime Bungie fans will recognize the name Matt Soell. For many years Soell was the public face of Bungie, the guy who read (and posted) on the message boards, who wrote the original weekly updates, who gave cryptic hints about wall-hugging hippos in Halo, and whom many strongly suspect was the wit behind the Letters to the Webmaster feature.
Now, Soell is the writer responsible for fleshing out the story of Stubbs the Zombie, the new Xbox title by independent developer Wideload Games in Chicago, founded in Bungie Software's old stomping grounds by none other than Alexander "The Man" Seropian, Bungie co-founder, and including the magic number-- you guessed it, seven-- ex-Bungie employees.
Even while Wideload put the finishing touches on Stubbs for release this week, Soell took time out to answer a few questions for Rampancy.net.
Narcogen: When the founding of Wideload Games was first announced, the focus was placed as much on Wideload's business model, combining a small staff with independent contractors, as on the company's Bungie heritage and new intellectual property (Stubbs the Zombie). With that game nearing completion, how has Wideload's new business model worked for the company? What advantages does it have compared to the previous two situations, and what disadvantages?
Matt Soell: I think it's worked out pretty well. We're still around, we're actually shipping a game, we haven't had to sell our souls to anybody, we've got the same core staff of eleven people we started with, we all still like each other and so on. So yeah - you CAN make a game this way and have fun doing it.
Advantages and disadvantages are pretty much what we expected. You can get a lot done with a small creative team and a lot of contractors - and it's less expensive for sure. The disadvantages are that such an arrangement forces you to have your shit together early in the process and communicate really well with all your contractors. Sometimes that's tough. I'm not just talking about the logistics of synchronizing our Chicago schedule with an art house in Ireland or what have you, although that's part of it. When everyone's in the same room, or at least the same building, it's a lot easier to make sure everyone has the same basic understanding of what we're trying to achieve. It's not an insurmountable problem by any means, but it reared its head more than once during the development of Stubbs.
There's nothing like impending fatherhood to make you hungry... for brains. At least, that's what we think the moral of the story is over at Penny Arcade, where Stubbs the Zombie, out for the Xbox this week, is one of four games Tycho is hankering for:
1Up has put up their a review of Wideload's Stubbs the Zombie. The game pulls a rating of 9.0 out of 10.0 for its humor, style, and solid gameplay.
There are also hints that there may be almost as many things for tricksters to hunt for in Stubbs as in Halo 2. Except instead of skulls, Stubbs has-- well-- hippos.
DailyGame is reconfirming that Stubbs the Zombie, developed by Wideload Games and published by Aspyr, will be released on October 17.
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.
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.