Hi everyone.
A few days back, I bought Undead Labs' open world post-apocalyptic zombie survival game, State of Decay, at the Xbox Spring sale for $15. I played the game at launch, really liked it, but withtin 10 hours the bugs got the best of me, and I ragequit the game due to a game-breaking bug. Now, I hear the game has ironed out a lot o it's buggyness, and brought a lot of general improvements too, so I decided to take the plunge once again.
This game is simply fantastic. It's a different twist on the genre. It's more about having a home base, managing your group of survivors, your resources, scavenging supplies, where you choose to have your outposts, form allies or enemies with other humans, the list goes on. All your suvivors have different traits which differenciate them, which you could level up and develop further, and these survivors might even send you on missions for their personal interests There's minimal story in the game, but in return you get to decide and form your own story. A lot of RPG-type mechanics at play here.
There's a morale system. If you leave your resources depleted, let too many zombie infestations form nearby, have a survivor die, morale will obviously go down. This has effects like fights starting between members, people leaving your base.
- Every decision of yours carries weight in the game. You really have to think carefully before doing anything in the game. For example, you want install a generator to give power to your house? You could, but it's noisy, thus having more zombies attack your house. How about moving into a new base? This new one is pretty big, but it's out in the middle of nowhere and you have to drive a significant distance to gather suppplies. But on the good side, it's rural location means less zombie seiges. How about exiling a guy who munches on too much food every day due to their traits, but in turn your community morale goes down. It's a game of decision-making.
- The night. One of the few games I've ever played that truly nails the darkness. It's very atmospheric, and creepy as hell, as you can only see how far you flashflight goes, a lot of the times. Then entiring a new building and seeing you a pair of glowing yellow eyes and hearing that low zombie grumble.. awesome.
- Permadeath. A survivor dies, you never getting them back. Raises the stakes quite a bit, and may make you want to just sneak past a horde of zombies instead of going guns blazing. It makes each supply run more tense then it normally would be. Maybe you encounter a juggernaut (a giant ass zombie) that literally rips you in half. Or maybe catch the blood plague, where you have a timer before the survivor dies, unless you cure them.
- A believeable world. (Aside from the abundant bugs), it feels like a grounded and believeable place. The game consists of 3 maps that are somewhat different, but have the same formula of a mix of small suburban type town and rural area. You can enter every single building in the entire game. Though the biggest point here, is how the loot isn't randomly dispersed throughout. You have to look at the context at what location it is. For example, clinics have medical supplies, restaurants are more likely to have food. Retail shops are likely to have luxury items, while factories have materials to build from. Police stations and military checkpoints have loads of ammo.
I could go on about the game forever. But I'm not good at explaining, as you see in this wall of text above.
However, it does have it's problems. It's still has quite a few bugs (though much less than it was at launch, now it's certainly very playable). Animations could be MUCH better. The radio still goes off every 5 minutes of a stranger calling for help or a community member bitching at you for not finding his stupid song lyrics. Speaking of that, yes, a lot of the quests can feel fetch-questy at times, and a lot of the personal goal ones feel trivial at times (FIND MY TEDDY BEAR!) but then lead to a morale decrease if it isnt done, which is stupid. Human AI still needs quite a bit work to get it where it needs to be. Sometimes your companions say dialogue that makes no sense in the given situation. Yes, this game is supposed to be your own story (and I love it), but I think a bit more story in the game would do no harm, cause the game might feel aimless to people at times. Also, the paid DLC sucks, don't even bother with it.
However, it's nowhere close to that 67 metacritic it got. That apperently broken co-op mode (which I haven't touched) brought the score down, but the single-player is just sublime. Though I think marks were wrongly taken off for not having CINEMATIC GAMEPLAY™ and REALISTIC GRAPHICS (c'mon, it's a $30 game made on a significantly smaller budget than most AAA games, cut them some slack. Cause the graphics are a huge improvment over State of Decay 1 as well).
This game is an underrated gem, a definite reccomend from me. C'mon Microsoft, give Undead Labs the budget to create a full fledged $60 State of Decay 3. These guys have earned it, and franchise has huge potential. There is so much that I can think of that can truly take the game to next level. DO IT. It's gonna be a killer title in your next-gen exclusive library.
Cheers.
A few days back, I bought Undead Labs' open world post-apocalyptic zombie survival game, State of Decay, at the Xbox Spring sale for $15. I played the game at launch, really liked it, but withtin 10 hours the bugs got the best of me, and I ragequit the game due to a game-breaking bug. Now, I hear the game has ironed out a lot o it's buggyness, and brought a lot of general improvements too, so I decided to take the plunge once again.
This game is simply fantastic. It's a different twist on the genre. It's more about having a home base, managing your group of survivors, your resources, scavenging supplies, where you choose to have your outposts, form allies or enemies with other humans, the list goes on. All your suvivors have different traits which differenciate them, which you could level up and develop further, and these survivors might even send you on missions for their personal interests There's minimal story in the game, but in return you get to decide and form your own story. A lot of RPG-type mechanics at play here.
There's a morale system. If you leave your resources depleted, let too many zombie infestations form nearby, have a survivor die, morale will obviously go down. This has effects like fights starting between members, people leaving your base.
- Every decision of yours carries weight in the game. You really have to think carefully before doing anything in the game. For example, you want install a generator to give power to your house? You could, but it's noisy, thus having more zombies attack your house. How about moving into a new base? This new one is pretty big, but it's out in the middle of nowhere and you have to drive a significant distance to gather suppplies. But on the good side, it's rural location means less zombie seiges. How about exiling a guy who munches on too much food every day due to their traits, but in turn your community morale goes down. It's a game of decision-making.
- The night. One of the few games I've ever played that truly nails the darkness. It's very atmospheric, and creepy as hell, as you can only see how far you flashflight goes, a lot of the times. Then entiring a new building and seeing you a pair of glowing yellow eyes and hearing that low zombie grumble.. awesome.
- Permadeath. A survivor dies, you never getting them back. Raises the stakes quite a bit, and may make you want to just sneak past a horde of zombies instead of going guns blazing. It makes each supply run more tense then it normally would be. Maybe you encounter a juggernaut (a giant ass zombie) that literally rips you in half. Or maybe catch the blood plague, where you have a timer before the survivor dies, unless you cure them.
- A believeable world. (Aside from the abundant bugs), it feels like a grounded and believeable place. The game consists of 3 maps that are somewhat different, but have the same formula of a mix of small suburban type town and rural area. You can enter every single building in the entire game. Though the biggest point here, is how the loot isn't randomly dispersed throughout. You have to look at the context at what location it is. For example, clinics have medical supplies, restaurants are more likely to have food. Retail shops are likely to have luxury items, while factories have materials to build from. Police stations and military checkpoints have loads of ammo.
I could go on about the game forever. But I'm not good at explaining, as you see in this wall of text above.
However, it does have it's problems. It's still has quite a few bugs (though much less than it was at launch, now it's certainly very playable). Animations could be MUCH better. The radio still goes off every 5 minutes of a stranger calling for help or a community member bitching at you for not finding his stupid song lyrics. Speaking of that, yes, a lot of the quests can feel fetch-questy at times, and a lot of the personal goal ones feel trivial at times (FIND MY TEDDY BEAR!) but then lead to a morale decrease if it isnt done, which is stupid. Human AI still needs quite a bit work to get it where it needs to be. Sometimes your companions say dialogue that makes no sense in the given situation. Yes, this game is supposed to be your own story (and I love it), but I think a bit more story in the game would do no harm, cause the game might feel aimless to people at times. Also, the paid DLC sucks, don't even bother with it.
However, it's nowhere close to that 67 metacritic it got. That apperently broken co-op mode (which I haven't touched) brought the score down, but the single-player is just sublime. Though I think marks were wrongly taken off for not having CINEMATIC GAMEPLAY™ and REALISTIC GRAPHICS (c'mon, it's a $30 game made on a significantly smaller budget than most AAA games, cut them some slack. Cause the graphics are a huge improvment over State of Decay 1 as well).
This game is an underrated gem, a definite reccomend from me. C'mon Microsoft, give Undead Labs the budget to create a full fledged $60 State of Decay 3. These guys have earned it, and franchise has huge potential. There is so much that I can think of that can truly take the game to next level. DO IT. It's gonna be a killer title in your next-gen exclusive library.
Cheers.
