The concept for Stubbs The Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse is total genius - and really, it's amazing someone didn't think of it sooner! Turning the survival horror genre on its head, you play a lone zombie, setting out on a mission to kill every last person in Punchbowl City, with all the means at your disposal. Comparisons with one of the few other truly anti-hero games, Destroy All Humans, are warranted - but sadly if you do that, you'll find Stubbs coming up short on pretty much every count.

Andrew Monday is a child prodigy and billionaire who's just created Punchbowl - the city of the future. It's the Fifties, and rather than going for traditional American towns, Wideload (the developers of Stubbs, headed by a former member of Bungie) have plumped for a stylised idea of what people living in the Fifties thought cities of the future would be like. So we've got immaculate streets, beautifully kept grounds, hovercars and robot servants for everything - using the telephone, filling up at the gas station, cleaning, repair work and every other menial task you can think of, all with subtle attention to detail in design that really does capture the era perfectly. Throw in the pseudo cartoon look, plus the fact that the whole game, not just the cut scenes, is displayed in a slightly grainy old film style, and you've got something that is visually unique.

Unfortunately, the storyline isn't well conceived and it's not until before the final boss battle right at the end of the game that the true reason behind Stubbs' rampage is revealed. It starts off promisingly enough, with a traditionally voiced film introducing the city, but then, without any explanation, Stubbs bursts out of the ground between a happy couple sitting on the grass. There isn't really any plot to speak of throughout, with cut scenes few and far between and the jump between different locations is jarring and often totally nonsensical. Still, not every game needs a great story to keep your interest, but because this is running on the Halo engine, and because that game had (in my humble opinion) one of the greatest game stories ever, expectations are high.

Anyway, a Guidebot introduces herself, clearly unable to differentiate between the living and the living dead. The first level is a slow moving tutorial that teaches you the basics of being a zombie - namely shambling around attacking people and eating their brains! When you bite into the head of that first unsuspecting victim, blood sprays high into the air and splatters onto the grass, while bits of brain matter are scattered all around - the gore factor is very high and despite the deliberately comical style, this is not a game for kids, or indeed for the faint-hearted. It's kind of like the classic Peter Jackson movie Braindead - at the beginning the gore is shocking, but by the end you're totally desensitised to zombie gore and violence.

A couple of cops turn up and insist that you get into their car, turning their backs and waiting for you to place yourself co-operatively inside, introducing the concept of stealth kills, in that if you attack from behind, you don't need to beat up your victim and can go straight for the grey matter. Then the first of four special attacks is introduced - paralysing flatulence! Stubbs is a bit gassy and when your gas attack bar is filled, you can unleash a big cloud that causes nearby victims to gag and choke, thus allowing you to kill them without a struggle. By the time you've killed half a dozen people, you'll have noticed that your victims, whether you beat them to death or munch on their sweet, juicy brains, revive within a matter of seconds, their skin turning green, standing up to become zombies themselves. Infected by the power of the undead, they join your ranks and you can build up quite a horde to keep you company in some levels.

Sadly, like many parts of the game, your undead army isn't half as cool as it could have been. The zombies aren't intelligent (which I suppose is a given) so they either wander around moaning, or head in the direction of the nearest humans to satiate their craving for brains. You have two ways of controlling them - you can shove them in any direction and watch them stumble away from you, or you can whistle to summon the group over in your direction. However, the number of zombies that follow you inexplicably changes throughout the game; at first it seemed to be limited to six, in some areas it's more, in others it's less, but rarely do all the zombies in your line of sight follow when you call them. If you want to make the most of their numbers (and sometimes you'll need to, as the enemies become tougher as you go), this means a lot of wandering around at the back, shoving zombies in the direction you want them to go, while the ones up front charge towards groups of armed humans and often get gunned down before they can do much damage. Still, it's not a bad system and at those times when you've got a dozen zombies in tow, shambling around attacking people, it really is great fun!

The main advantage to having other zombies in tow is the fact that they provide an excellent distraction, allowing you to flank groups of enemies and sneak up from behind, or you can stay behind your zombies and use them as cannon fodder until you get close enough to make your move. Civilians, even when armed with shovels or axes, can be killed very easily, but cops are armed with guns and they can do a fair bit of damage if there're more than a couple of them around. As you progress, you'll come up against scientists with laser guns, SWAT-like troops armed with riot shields and batons, the military (who use machine guns, and later on sniper rifles and rocket launchers) and barbershop quartet singers, some of who fly around using jetpacks! There are also shotgun and rifle wielding hillbillies, as well as the larger varieties that have chainsaws and can wipe you out with a couple of attacks if you don't keep your distance and time your own attacks carefully. Every enemy can be weakened by attacking with a volley of punches and kicks, then when they're stunned, move in for the killing blow. Some enemies wear helmets and you can't eat their brains; instead you can rip their arm off and then beat several other enemies to death with it - nice!!

You'll need more than comical flatulence to get you through, and this is where your other attacks come into play. Making use of your astonishing powers of regeneration, you can throw your own guts like grenades and detonate them at will. One of the best features allows you to send your hand and wrist off (running around like Thing from The Addams Family) on its own, then jump up and grab someone's head to possess them. Not all enemies can be possessed (anyone wearing a helmet is impervious) but once you've taken control, you can either walk around and pretend to be normal, then strangle unsuspecting people from behind, or you can go in shooting and blast everyone in sight. Focusing on the head gets some gory headshots (blood gushing from the neck as the head falls to the ground, rather than exploding!) or shoot off arms, which results in death after a few seconds of the victim running around screaming! The catch is, anyone you kill with a host is not infected and thus doesn't come back to life as a zombie - so you have to factor this in, if you think you need more zombies on your side.

I found the best tactic was to possess someone with a great weapon (rocket launchers are the most fun, while sniper rifles are superbly useful for killing from a relatively safe distance) and take out the harder enemies, then convert the survivors. Since you need to eat brains to refill the various meters for your special attacks, you might as well pick off the helmet-wearers with a gun and then eat the rest to replenish your arsenal. The final attack allows you to bowl your own head, which the camera follows rolling along the ground, and detonate it with a massive and lethal explosion in a crowd of enemies - you can't say this game doesn't have imagination!! Speaking of which, vehicles are included, and they're not used that often so when they do come along, they're fun. Some are just for transport, like the hover truck and the jeep, while others have guns - and later on you'll get to lay waste to enemies with a tank, which is very satisfying! They don't handle quite as nicely as the Halo vehicles, but they're not far off.

Graphically, everything looks pretty good - Stubbs himself is very well animated and shuffles around with a limp, arms outstretched in a half-contorted fashion, as he lumbers through the environment. The human animations aren't quite as good, but the way they turn into zombies looks brilliant and all your zombie buddies move as convincingly as you do, making for scenes that do at times call up images of Dawn of the Dead (the original, rather than the admittedly superb remake). The ragdoll physics are great - and when you use explosive weapons, bodies are sent flying into the air, smacking into walls or falling back down with a crump. Sadly, the environment is not at all interactive - yes, Halo wasn't either (bullet holes could be seen but you couldn't really blow anything up) and for a game like this it's a crying shame - you can't even kick over a cup of coffee on the table at the police station! We expect more these days, and with full on zombie mayhem, destructible scenery beyond the occasional barricaded door really should have been in here.

The environments you come across can be a little plain at times, but there's generally enough variety and detail to keep your interest. A hydroponics dome, a police station, the city streets, a dam, various laboratories, cornfields in the countryside, each level has a distinctive look and although the later levels recycle what has come before, they're looking so war-torn and damaged by this point that it's nice to have come full circle and see the carnage that you've caused! One of the best levels is set in a big farmhouse, where you really do feel like you're acting out scenes from a Romero movie.

On the audio front, what's here is great, but unfortunately it's somewhat lacking. The voice acting is funny and all the gurgles of headless zombies (these zombies don't need a head to attack!) are spot on. Meanwhile, there are some very comical remarks from your victims - "He just ate Bill's brain!" or "That was my second favourite arm!" There are a few lines for each situation, but there's not half as much variety as there could have been and soon repetition sets in, particularly for what people say as you eat their brains. Another classic line comes when you use a possessed cop to strangle another cop in front of a third - "Wait a minute… cops aren't meant to strangle each other… he's one of them!" There are some laughs here, but they're mostly limited to chuckles and you can't help but feel the story could have been a lot wittier and sharper. The music is the same situation - a few fantastic Fifties tunes really add to the feel of the game, like Lollipop, Earth Angel and a superb cover of Mr. Sandman are present (I'm listening to the soundtrack on Napster as I write this) but they don't occur often enough in-game and there could have been plenty more of them. There isn't much music present, and the ominous Dawn of the Dead tones in the farmhouse level show that it would have been better if more music had been included.

Stubbs is generally a slick act, although some aspects feel unfinished and rough around the edges - I don't know if it's because I was playing on Xbox 360, but cut scenes were missing sound effects at times and they end suddenly too, while the inexplicable dancing mini-game fails miserably, because the button presses aren't timed to the music. Boss encounters offer some challenge, but they're certainly nothing that exciting. The addition of the ability to play through the whole game in co-op is great, and it really is great fun with a friend, although it's a crying shame you can't do this over Xbox Live.

The main problem with the game, and one that will kill the fun for a lot of people, is its pace - Stubbs is slow-moving (although he can get up to a fast shamble if you keep pushing the thumbstick forward) and some of the levels feel very long because of this. Some people will get bored very quickly and it's not a huge game either; I completed the whole game in nine hours on the third of four difficulty levels, and that was taking my time to kill every last person. The levels are linear, so there's no exploration or hidden bonuses to be found and I don't feel inclined to come back and replay it any time soon. And because your attacks are limited, the action feels very repetitive and can soon become a case of just going through the motions. It's hard to put your finger on exactly why it isn't as much fun as it should be, but sometimes the action really does drag. That said, it's a game like no other and I really did enjoy parts of it.

Stubbs The Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse is a great concept that doesn't quite work as well as it should do. There are going to be plenty of people that can't stand its lumbering pace and repetitive nature, but equally there will be others that love its totally unique nature, excessive gore and very black humour - it's destined to become a cult classic rather than a mainstream hit. It really does come down to personal taste whether or not you'll enjoy Stubbs, so if you like the look of it (and with the concept of being a zombie, who wouldn't?!) I'd suggest a weekend rental rather than picking it up full price. And while it might be short-lived, there's nothing quite like leading a horde of zombies around to convert every last citizen you can lay your decomposing hands on! Say it with me folks - "BRAINS!"

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).