Humans vs. Zombies FPS games

[Margalis]

There have been a few of them recently IIRC, but I haven't heard much about them. Are they not very good? Can I play any for free? (Research) Have these games had just execution problems or is there some inherent flaw in the idea of zombies and humans duking it out multiplayer?

[Samwise]

Zombie Panic is my favorite, and it's free if you have Half-Life.  (And if you don't have Half-Life you don't deserve nice things.)

[Margalis]

HL or HL2?

[schild]

There's mods for both, but unless Zombie Panic somehow got much better for HL2, then it's still shit and he's talking about HL.

[Samwise]

ZP Source still beats all the other zombie survival mods out there IMO, but yeah, the HL1 version is better (I assume there are still servers running it).

[schild]

Zombie Survival 1.05C for GMod was fucking awesome. But the creator is a nutsack who runs a server with a bunch of other nutsacks and it became entirely fucking unfun.

[Margalis]

So why aren't these games very popular overall? Is it something to do with the players, the gameplay, or the entire concept?

[schild]

They're never really balanced, and level design for them is terribly hard. I think it would work with like 32 players with one of the medium sized GTA maps though.

[Samwise]

What schild said, and also the concept is a bit "niche".  Not everyone likes asymmetrical FPS gameplay, because most people want to be the one with the biggest gun.  In any good zombie survival game the shambling undead vastly outnumber the guys with big guns.

[ahoythematey]

cs:source actually has a few decent zombie-modded maps out there.  Of course, they never have the staying power of a game designed around the humans vs zombie concept would, but still fun for a bit.  Left 4 Dead is coming out "soon", though it won't be free.