This Zero Budget Zombie Game Totally Gets Me

Alex Rowe
5 min readJun 19, 2024
A typical action screen in Until the Last Bullet, with a run down static background area and a zombie shambling about.
Screenshot taken by the author.

When I was a kid in the late 80’s and 90’s, I was fortunate enough to have a couple of arcades in my hometown. My childhood coincided with the second coming of “FMV” in video games, or full-motion video. These games combined live action footage stored on a laserdisc or CD-ROM with very basic point-and-click style interaction.

The most common genre for FMV was adventure games, birthing stuff like The 7th Guest. The limited interactivity was perfectly suited to basic puzzling and dialog, and in fact that style of gameplay has seen a resurgence in the last few years.

In arcades, there were many enjoyable light gun experiences that required little more than aiming and blasting away at enemies as they popped up on screen. One of my favorites was a western- themed title called Mad Dog McCree where community theater actors dressed like cowboys would menace you and then pretend to fall down after you clicked on them. It was super fun and super immersive — at least, to an eight year old.

I don’t see that many of the latter sort of FMV game these days, outside the occasional port or rerelease here or there. I like to dig through digital game store listings for fun in my free time, and I was delighted in one of these recent sessions to stumble across Until The Last Bullet. It’s a zombie-themed FMV shooting game that seems very…

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Alex Rowe
Alex Rowe

Written by Alex Rowe

I post commentary about gaming, tech, and sometimes music. I’ve written professionally about games since 2005. Look mom, I’m using my English degree!

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