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Office Offal: Corporate Lifestyle Simulator

It's business time

Dawn Of The Dead contained some brilliant social commentary. The zombies were in a shopping mall, you see, which made the audience think about the herd-like cannibalistic nature of modern consumerism. Genius! If the film had been set in a school it would have contained brilliant social commentary about the mindless clones created by the education system. If it had been set in any branch of a popular chain of coffee shops it would have contained brilliant social commentary about the herd-like nature of coffee consumerism. If it had been set in a thrift shop it would have been about the rise and fall of the hipster.

Corporate Lifestyle Simulator is an isometric action game set in an office. Your co-workers are now zombies.

The trailer confused me by banging on about how 'new' everything is, even though this is the first I've heard of the game. Turns out it was released a while ago and has now been relaunched with a new title, new bosses, new levels, and other assorted bits and pieces. The original version was simply called 'Zombies', which meant that nobody had any chance whatsoever of finding it using an internet search.

Available on Steam, it looks like a hectic bloodbath with tongue proudly protruding through the hole in its rotting cheek. I think it's possible to kill the zombies with a stapler, although I may be imagining that because I've always been a bit scared of staplers since - and this is true - the kid I sat next to in physics when I was thirteen used to spend entire lessons just firing staples into his hand.

I reckon those lessons are a major reason for my affection for and apprehension regarding the films of David Cronenberg and Shinya Tsukamoto.

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