Back from the Dead

After suffering a computer death and lack of funds I've finally got myself up and running again.

Having had some time off I've decided to shift my focus slightly onto more common traits found in fictions, but I still have some petty gripes to moan about with games!

Anyway, with the subject being about coming back from the dead, let's talk zombies! Over the past few years they seem to have resurfaced a lot and become very very popular; there's been numerous films, games, game addons and mods; and we've even seen the X-Men and friends as flesh eating monsters.

My main question about zombies is why have they seemingly changed so much? We've gone from the zombies of Dawn (and Shaun) of the Dead and the original Resident Evil games to having athletic zombies who can make an athlete jealous - like 28 Days Later and Left 4 Dead. I don't understand when this shift happened, but it seems to me that the games and film industry have silently decided that this is the new norm for zombies.

Out of recent memory I can only really think of Dead Rising and Saints Row: The Third have the more shambling zombies. Admittedly in Saints Row the zombies do sprint at points, but to its credit - its a game about gang war, not zombies. I know these games also invite ridiculous weapon play and are quite tongue in cheek as a whole, but it can still be easy to succumb to the shambling hordes, which is still a suggestion that the 'classic' zombie is still deadly and not obsolete - even when you have guns and double chainsaw staffs!

I understand that having a shambling monstrosity isn't the most terrifying thing, but having a corpse, or infected human, being able to perform feats that they could have never ordinarily done in life, or to have them suddenly discover they have phenomenal stamina, strength and endurance doesn't make much sense either, in my opinion. I feel like if you're going to make a zombie such a vicious apex predator then it may as well be any other sort of monster.

It seems to me that Resident Evil could have forced a good transition between say a shuffling zombie merely infected by the T-Virus and a modified Tyrant or whatever, but it seems as this trend has gone on they're the one who are forsaking the term 'zombie' more and more! I played Resident Evil 5 and most of the time the villager's hadn't seemed to have died, and most of the bosses retained their original personalities, and to me that isn't how a zombie works!

I also feel that having a seemingly compulsory zombie mode or Easter egg in certain games feels really.... strange. The Call of Duty Nazi Zombies and subsequent zombie installments would have felt more at home if they were commandos, or terrorists, suicide bombers or an impoverishment militia (to eliminate the argument that the other folk would have guns and wouldn't function as melee only foes).

I hope we see a return of classic zombies, or at least separate tiers of zombies, soon simply because they are a classic fiction and fantasy tradition, and when used in the correct way can seem more fearsome and terrifying than super zombies.Plus I just miss them...