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[RagnarokIV]

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green is a first-person shooter licensed video game based on the George A. Romero zombie horror movie Land of the Dead, developed by Brainbox Games and published by Groove Games.

And you've never heard of it.

In my zombie obsessed days I planned the ultimate zombie game called 'Overrun' with some friends. It was a ripoff of Dawn Of The Dead where the game would drop 4 people into a mall (based on a small local mall area 1:1) and give you 72 hours to plan and setup for life while cleaning up all the zombies.
We quickly learned that people wouldn't play for 72 hours straight, so we accelerated the ingame clock. Then we learned people wouldn't play for 24 hours... We ironed out a few kinks and accelerated the clock some more...

then I picked up the new PC release

"Land Of The Dead: Road To Fiddler's Green"

This was guaranteed to be a great game. Zombies - George Romero - OFFICIALLY LICENSED - BASED ON THE GEORGE A ROMERO FILM
The game was ok.

Look at that title screen font! Also, did I tell you it was based on the George A. Romero film?

The game takes place during the outbreak (Night Of The Living Dead) and you're a farmer with a shotgun. The zombies have just arrived and you escape them to head to Fiddler's Green... Except Night Of(...) and Land Of(...) are decades apart.
Continuity means nothing.

The gameplay is typical PC FPS of the era but solid enough

There was even an Xbox port.

And did you know it was based on the George A. Romero Film?


Hurr-durr looks ghey and wahnk m8 - why did you not make Overrun?!

Because this game was actually fun. Very very fun.

The multiplayer had your typical TDM, DM and CTF ... HOWEVER it had 'Invasion'.
This mode had you, and a set number of other players, try to stay alive as waves of zombies encroached on your area...

And that's where the beauty of PC comes in. After the wonderful fun of this mode I dug deeper... Custom maps! I held out with my best friends in life, and some new friends from the game, to defend the Monroeville Mall from Dawn Of The Dead.

Why make Overrun? Our dream game was here, 'right now' as Sammy Hagar would sing. The multiplayer community was small, but I'm sure it will grow...

Ah...

After two bottles of wine I'm disjointedly reminiscing again as the past calls out to me.

Soon after Dead Rising would release.

Then we had Left 4 Dead and so on...

Overrun never made it past a Word file and rough .exe demo but Fiddler's Green was beautiful - while it lasted. Neither Overrun or Fiddler's Green made it. But they both are special to me.

Did you ever play this forgotten game? Do you have any memories of it? It's now abandonware - perhaps we can get a GAF game together?

 

[Optimus Lime]

I spent a lot of time in that era at 'fiddler's green' if you know what I'm saying.

 

[intbal]

I've heard of it.

It was the only Original Xbox game that used the console's HRTF 3D Audio.

*I'm 73% certain of that, but have never been able to confirm it.

 

[Northeastmonk]

My computer professor at ITT Tech bought several copies and installed them on the PCs. Once we finished the course he let us all play. I haven’t played or heard about it since. I remember it wasn’t terrible. I don’t remember much else. That was right around the time Left 4 Dead dominated the genre.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

I DO remember this one, sadly it was a game I meant to rent... then never did.

I'm not sure for me it looks good enough to go back to almost 20 years later, but never say never...

As for the continuity of the Living Dead films, a friend of mine told me that the Japanese cut of Dawn put forth the idea the movies are taking place in the year 199X, a then near future America that never was, but could have been, hence why everything is a weird mix of 60s, 70s and 80s, it's anyone's guess whether that applies to Land (it doesn't help the final Romero movie had a character using an IPHONE), but it makes sense for the original trilogy.