You see, Rahat likes to drive his car up to various drive-thrus and scare the crap out of poor, innocent, food workers. Various pranks involve scary dolls, fake hands, and headless drivers. This time, he’s combined a zombie drive-thru prank with a headless drive-thru prank. The results are nice:

The news was tweeted out by series writer/producer Rhett Reese, who went on to say that viewers “hated it out of existence.” Reese also worked on the film of the same name that inspired the Amazon series.

Our Zombieland series will not be moving forward on Amazon.Sad for everyone involved.

— Rhett Reese (@RhettReese) May 17, 2013

I’ll never understand the vehement hate the pilot received from die-hard Zombieland fans.You guys successfully hated it out of existence.

— Rhett Reese (@RhettReese) May 17, 2013

Anyway, we did our best, and we’re very proud of our team.

— Rhett Reese (@RhettReese) May 17, 2013

Zombieland was part of big push from Amazon into the original content game, spearheaded by their Amazon Studios division. Back in April, Amazon released 14 pilots (both comedy and kids shows) and asked fans to submit their feedback. Amazon said that fan feedback would determine which pilots were picked up for full series runs, but didn’t go into any more specifics.

The other shows include Alpha House, Betas, Browsers, Dark Minions, Onion News Empire, Supanatural, Those Who Can’t, Annebots, Creative Galaxy, Positively Ozitively, Sara Solves It, Teeny Tiny Dogs, and Tumbleaf.

The Zombieland pilot, which has been available for all Amazon user to stream for just under a month, currently sits with a 3.5 star rating out of 5 with 5,500 reviews. Did you watch the Zombieland pilot? What did you think?

For those just joining us, Hartline was arrested back in April after he stole a semi-truck and caused a wreck that injured numerous people. The story got weird when he told officers that he was trying to escape zombies that were clinging onto the truck. It was later revealed that he was under the influence of an unnamed substance during the time.

Going back to the plea deal, Hartline pled guilty to charges of assault with a deadly weapon, hit and run causing death or injury, and vehicle theft. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of five years. That being said, it’s much better than the original charges which included three counts of causing great bodily injury. The extra charges would have upped the maximum prison sentence to 12 years, but the plea deal saw prosecutors throwing out those charges.

The last remaining question in all of this must be what happened to the strawberries being transported in the semi-truck. Said fruit was reportedly undamaged and donated to local food banks and nonprofits. It just goes to show you that zombie hallucinations not only lead to massive wrecks on the interstate, but free strawberries for lower income families.

[h/t: UT San Diego]

Besides the hilariously animated zombies, NMA might be onto something here. A spin-off Web series that explores previously unknown characters in The Walking Dead universe could potentially be a hit. It would also be a good way to keep people interested in the franchise in between seasons since the latest game was pretty much a disaster.

Anyway, it proves something I’ve been saying all along. This show would be so much better if the zombies walkers could talk. Seriously, just think about it. How hilarious/creepy would it be if mid-intestinal-foraging, one of the zombies walkers just looked up and said something. Anything. And then went back to munching on flesh. Good thing we have BLR to finally give the dead some dialogue. And before you ask, yes, Andrea is just as annoying as always in this clip.

[BadLipReading]

The publisher later issued an apology for the statue. The carefully worded response did not state that the statues would be pulled from pre-orders, but did make it clear that they would never show up in the U.S.

The complaints surrounding the statue subsided within days, and now Dead Island Riptide‘s launch day is finally here. Along with mediocre reviews, the game has arrived with the statue still a part of the collector’s edition.

Video blogger AussieGamerChick received her “Zombie Bait” edition of the game today and showed it off in an unboxing video on YouTube. No doubt speaking for many horror fans, she states that the statue is the reason she pre-ordered the game.

AussieGamerChick had defended Deep Silver and the statue back in January when complaints began:

And here’s the launch trailer for the game, for good measure:

(via Kotaku)

CNN reports that Jerimiah Clyde Hartline, 19, caused a major crash in Southern California after the stolen semi-trailer truck he was driving slammed into a number of vehicles. Hartline says his erratic driving that caused the crash was the result of him trying to shake off zombies that were clinging to the vehicle.

The police say that Hartline was under the influence of a substance that caused the zombie hallucinations. As he was trying to shake off the imaginary zombies, Hartline collided with a Toyota Tacoma than then collided with 4Runner, and so on. As is the case with these kind of collisions, a number of vehicles were involved. There were thankfully no deaths, but the police say those in the Tacoma were “seriously injured.”

So, how did all this happen in the first place? Police say that Hartline, originally from Tennessee, was traveling with Daniel Martinez, the truck driver, after he had been kicked out of his home. As the truck made a scheduled stop in California, Hartline stole the vehicle as Martinez was filling out paperwork.

After the crash, Hartline hopped into a white van demanding that be taken elsewhere. The driver held him until police could arrest him. He was charged with taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent and receiving known stolen property.

Interestingly enough, Treyarch will be attempting to make its zombie mode more of a psychological horror game this time around, instead of the tower defense/survival gameplay of past zombie modes.

Mob of the Dead will be available on Xbox Live first as part of the Uprising map pack on April 16.

IGN is reporting that The Walking Dead will be on the PlayStation Vita before season two of the acclaimed adventure series hits consoles and PC. This isn’t the first portable version of the title as the adventure series came to the iPad last year, but this is the first time we’ve seen the series on a dedicated gaming handheld.

Speaking to IGN, PlayStation’s Director of Product Planning and Platform Software Innovation Don Mesa says that The Walking Dead is a perfect fit for the Vita:

“Again, a good example is with The Walking Dead. We think that the emotion and the immersive experiences you’re going to get there, wherever you’re sitting, if you’re in your living room and playing on your Vita or sitting at a café or at the bus stop and playing this, you get that shock or fright. I think that’s going to be important. That’s what we want to deliver as you’re playing.”

It’s not known what changes will be made to the Vita version of the title, but it’s probably safe to assume that it will feature many of the same touch controls found in the iPad version.

In the latest trailer for Dead Island Riptide, it reveals that the party from the first game find themselves on a military ship. Soon after, the ship crashes on a new island with a new zombie infection to deal with. The government wants to cover up the situation by nuking the island. It’s a decent idea, but one that probably won’t bode well for the future if the Resident Evil franchise is any indication.

Dead Island Riptide will launch across the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on April 23.