5. DayZ (Dean Hall / Bohemia Interactive)
A standout entry in the zombie survival genre, DayZ has thrown off its humble beginnings as a zombie apocalypse mod for ArmA II to make a name for itself as an intensely atmospheric and bloody difficult tactical survival game. As well as the zombies themselves and they're the running kind, as befits a survival game you also have to defend yourself against hunger, thirst, illness, and even your fellow players. Weapons are few and far between, and even food and water are hard to come by when they're surrounded by hordes of the undead, so it's often easier to simply take out another player character and pinch their can of beans. Visually, the mod is a huge improvement on ArmA II, with gorgeously gloomy and expansive landscapes adding to the sense of desperation and loneliness (the game world itself is huge at around 220 square kilometres). It's still in alpha stage and there's a lot of bugs to iron out, but with 420,000 players and counting it looks set to be one of the major zombie titles of the year. The DayZ alpha is currently available for free via
direct download, but you'll need an installed copy of the ArmA II: Combined Operations bundle to run it, which you can currently get from the
Bohemia Interactive site for £14.99.