PC

It's no secret that Germany has some very specific, very peculiar rules about the content of video games. What's good enough for the rest of the European Union is often not found suitable for der Deutchland. The usual triggers for a ban or a refusal of rating are intense violence and Nazi references, and the old joke is that the easiest remedies are to just swap in robots and green blood where necessary. Apparently these standards apply to box art too. As reported by Kotaku, here's the Left 4 Dead box as the rest of the world will see it.

And here's the German-approved version.

Yup, apparently Germany would rather keep its thumbs attached, thankyouverymuch. If this is all they can show of the box art, I cannot even fathom what the game itself will look like to our Bavarian brethren. "We've gotta take these filthy, mindless, bloodthirsty zombies out...on a field trip to the local science museum!" Coincidentally, it kind of ruins the magic of the original Left 4 Dead box art for me, having evidence that the model was just counting to four. It's a shame, because I'm profoundly amused by the 1:1 ratio of words to visual puns they've got going on. It's like I'm playing Classic Concentration, except that every solution revolves around Alex Trebek's insane desire to devour my brains.

Zombies have been pretty hot for the past few years, but between the recent release of Dead Space, the current zombie infestations in Azeroth and Liberty City, and the pending releases of Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil 5, it's never been hipper to have an insatiable, mindless craving for human brains. Developer doublesix is looking to capitalize on this zeitgeist with Burn Zombie Burn!, a dual-joystick shooter for the PlayStation Network.

The game claims much inspiration from American horror movies, with creative director Jim Mummery citing Braindead, Shaun of the Dead, the Evil Dead trilogy, Romero's Dead films, and Michael Jackson's Thriller video as examples in an interview with IGN. The title is fairly indicative of the gameplay as well. You'll be armed with baseball bats, chainsaws, lawnmowers, and the mysteriously named Brain Gun, but fire will act as your secondary weapon, which can be used to ward off encroaching zombies, or set them ablaze. While roasting the undead increases your score multiplier, it also makes them faster before their un-life comes to an end.

Having previously worked on Geometry Wars: Galaxies, doublesix certainly has some solid experience with the dual-joystick format. I have to say, for the volume of dual-joystick games that have cropped up on the various console download services over the past few years, it seems that a pretty slim percentage of them have actually been worth playing, so despite the flavor-enhancing powers of zombies, I'm keeping my optimism cautious for now. Burn Zombie Burn! is set to arrive on PSN near the end of January 2009. The official doublesix website also suggests that the game will be coming to the PC and other platforms at some point, but no further details were given.