2007: Play the news

News
By published

Eight mildly amusing videogame ideas inspired by real life news

This is the news

A pair of scientists have been examining microscopic organisms dredged up from an abandoned copper mine, now flooded with corrosive contaminated water. It had been assumed that nothing could survive in the toxic liquid, which is laced with arsenic, aluminium, cadmium and zinc. Only slightly less vile than your local outdoor swimming pool, then.

But within this noxious fluid have been discovered 80 chemical compounds that exist nowhere else and 142 organisms that, it is believed, could help create a new generation of cancer-fighting drugs. Scientists, toxic goo, unexplained bacteria... What if they were to unearth something with deadly consequences?

ZOMBIES FROM THE PIT

The blurb

"They went looking for a cure for cancer, but they found a cure... for life! When researchers at a long-abandoned flooded mining pit discover a virulent strain of organisms, a scientific breakthrough is on the horizon. But when a car accident sees one scientist come into contact with a broken specimen case, the only thing in store for the remote lab location is death.

"As the hungry organism - now with a ravenous taste for flesh - slowly devours the scientist alive, it prods his suffering brain into seeking out new fleshy hosts and so pass on the infection. By biting them. Soon, a legion of bite-happy victims is roaming the land, heading relentlessly to nearby villages. Can you escape the oncoming plague, warn the authorities and survive long enough for the infection to burn out?"

The review

"Yes, it's ridiculous. No, it's not even remotely plausible. And no, they're not really zombies, just tormented flesh-seeking victims of an obscure and mysteriously sentient virus. But, hey, it's a game where you get to shoot these so-called zombies in the face. So it's brilliant."
101%, Necroplayers magazine

The game

ZOMBIES FROM THE PIT

The blurb

"They went looking for a cure for cancer, but they found a cure... for life! When researchers at a long-abandoned flooded mining pit discover a virulent strain of organisms, a scientific breakthrough is on the horizon. But when a car accident sees one scientist come into contact with a broken specimen case, the only thing in store for the remote lab location is death.

"As the hungry organism - now with a ravenous taste for flesh - slowly devours the scientist alive, it prods his suffering brain into seeking out new fleshy hosts and so pass on the infection. By biting them. Soon, a legion of bite-happy victims is roaming the land, heading relentlessly to nearby villages. Can you escape the oncoming plague, warn the authorities and survive long enough for the infection to burn out?"

The review

"Yes, it's ridiculous. No, it's not even remotely plausible. And no, they're not really zombies, just tormented flesh-seeking victims of an obscure and mysteriously sentient virus. But, hey, it's a game where you get to shoot these so-called zombies in the face. So it's brilliant."
101%, Necroplayers magazine

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.