Zombie Panic! Source

Overview

'Zombie Panic: Source' is a game based on the classic zombie outbreak scenario; the dead are living. As a Zombie your purpose is to kill the remaining Human survivors, and in turn, the Humans must stop (at all costs) the Zombie horde.

Both the Zombie and Human teams have their own advantages and disadvantages and in some cases 'Abilities'; these are described below.

Zombie Panic: Source or ZP:S as it is sometimes referred to, is a Half Life 2 (HL2) Modification and requires that HL 2 be installed on the users computer before ZP:S can be installed and played.

The Game

Players join a server where they can then join the Human or Zombie teams. One player must voluntarily join the Zombies before the game can start, however, if no players choose to join the Zombies then one player will be selected at random. The goal of the game is for the Humans to slay all the Zombies, stay alive as long as possible and complete any map objectives. Alternatively, the goal for Zombies is simple; kill all humans.

Human players that are killed join the Zombie team and must then fight to eliminate the remaining Humans. The existing humans can't tell (by viewing the player list) who's alive and who's not and eventually there will be only one last man standing, facing the remaining Zombie attack.

Zombies however only have a certain number of lives, or 'reinforcements', when a zombie is killed they lose one life from their counter. However, when a human is killed they gain one life. If the zombies only have one life left the humans can win the round by killing off the remaining undead; the human team will not know how many lives Zombies have left in their life counter.

Character Advantages & Abilities

Humans :

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  Speed: Humans have the edge in speed over zombies due to them only being able to run at 80% of the max speed of a human. However the more weapons and ammunition a human carries the more it will slow him down making an easy target for lurking zombies. Ultimately the less you carry the easier you will outrun zombies.
• Numbers: At the start of a game usually there will only be ONE zombie depending on player choice and numbers. Otherwise eveyone else will be a survivor creating a great advantage to the humans in numbers allowing everyone to watch each others backs and providing cover fire when needed. One slight problem that WILL occur in great numbers is when the ammo begins to run out, ammo hording and squabbling will start to arise.

• Communication: Humans will have the ability to communicate through voice commands allowing fast and easy means of communication. Humans have the feature of a pop-up voice command menu (similar to the battlefield series) to give commands such as asking for help, trade ammo, or organise defences.

• Weapons: Humans will always start with a random melee weapon and handgun though there are also a wide range of weapons to use such as firearms, explosives, and melee weapons. In order to survive, it is crucial for humans to locate weapons and ammo on a map. Finally humans must keep in mind that hording weapons and ammo will slow them down thus smart inventory management and teamwork will greatly increase the chances of survival.

Zombies:

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  Regeneration: Zombies have the ability to regain hit points over time making it harder for humans to kill.
• Numbers: Although zombies only start in small numbers as a game continues further the number of zombie gradually increase, until a zombie horde finally seek out and devour the last remaining survivors.
• Persistence: Although survivors may appear to have the advantage in numbers and fire power, zombies will die and re-spawn again and again. In the end survivors will run out of ammo facing the inevitable.
• Carrier: At the beginning of every round there will always be a zombie carrier that can infect other survivors form just a bite. He is known as “whitey”, since he is coloured like pale dead flesh. By default he has a 10% infection chance per hit.
• Zombie vision: Zombies have the ability to see in the dark with their zombie vision, this lightens up darkened areas similar to night vision. Also this ability will highlight active survivors in a red glow. Non active survivors that are camping will also begin to glow red due to the fear of the unknown.