Road of the Dead

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Road of the Dead is an Adobe Flash game on Newgrounds about a car mechanic who must escape a city currently suffering from a Zombie Apocalypse. He must also charge through military checkpoints that save his progress. It is playable here.

It received a Gaiden Game titled Lab of the Dead.

Tropes used in Road of the Dead include:
  • A Father to His Men In direct opposition to the unnamed military commander, General Sherman seems to care about his troops far more. Ordering them to fall back when positions become overrun whereas the previous commander is more 'stand your ground at all costs'. Even going so far as to as to tell his troops that rescue is on the way, even though there is no way for transports to get to them before the nuke hits. You can hear the emotion in his voice as he does so.
  • Cool Car: The basis of the gameplay!
    • Car Fu: You have a pistol, too, but that's only for swatting zombies off the hood of your car.
  • The Danza: The main character is named after his voice actor.
  • Downer Ending: The main character escapes, but the nuke fails to stop the zombies.
  • Elite Mooks: The mutated zombies, who will always cling onto your car no matter how hard you hit them.
  • Enemy Chatter: Provides the player with ample warning for the military's attacks, as well as updates on their ill-fated attempts to repel the zombies.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Soldiers and Apaches can only damage the player's body and car when they are directly in front of each other. Otherwise, soldiers always hit non-critical sections, Apaches do not take advantage of the fact that their main weapon is turreted and controlled by a dedicated gunner, and the sheer desperation of the military never compels them to launch Hydras or Hellfires.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Art by Sickdeathfiend, enough said.
  • Made of Iron: The player character can survive being shot a few times by M-16s and the main weapon of the AH-64 Apache. For the record, that weapon is a 30mm chaingun.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It's heavily implied, though never outright stated, that the main character's breaking through military checkpoints is responsible for the military falling to the zombies.
  • Outrunning the Fireball
  • Let Them Die Happy: With the nuclear detonation just two minutes away and troops still left in the city, General Sherman assures them that the choppers will be there to evacuate them soon, and that they have made him proud.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: Blood spatters, broken windshields, the works.
  • Tactical Suicide Boss: Apaches are defeated by making them smash into highway signs. Apparently the pilot is not looking at where he is going.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: When a civilian, soldier, or zombie is caught in a carpet bombing, they will gib as if they were splatter killed.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The military gets more and more desperate to keep your possibly-infected body from leaving, up to and including carpet bombing the highway repeatedly.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: The player may choose to actually use and upgrade his car's horn, reducing civilian fatalities.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: The player may choose to intentionally hit civilians (you lose cash for doing that).
  • Villainous Breakdown: The unnamed military commander trying to stop you loses it the further you get towards the tunnel. Eventually he breaks completely, and gets pulled in favor of General Sherman.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Naturally