This…tHiS..THIS is how you make a zombie game!!
After a recent disappointment with The Evil Within — though it has grown on me a little since that review — I was left with a void deep down in my soul that craved another encounter with the undead. Monday, I found myself face-to-face with 15-minutes of pure undead awesomeness: Dying Light.
http://youtu.be/l1YSxalaoSU
The graphics are amazing. The game seems to take place in a Brazilian slum of some sort and an the infected have over run the area, with detail in the environment as crisp and up to par with current next-gen capabilities. The rooftops, the streets, the houses– they’re all so well done I just wanted hug my monitor as I watched the gameplay. The zombies are also well designed with enough variation to keep you from feeling like same 4 people were copy-and-pasted across the city, like in some other games. *cough* The Evil Within *cough*
The main character feels very human. In a zombie apocalypse, you have to be agile and resourceful to survive. If you can’t jump or climb, you will die. It’s really just that simple. I know that seems like a trivial complaint, but it’s vital to my gaming happiness. Not only can the character jump in this game, but he can also climb VERY well. I was quite impressed by the ability to climb a light pole and jump from it to reach a nearby ledge or rooftop.
You are also able to build your own weapons, similar to The Last of Us, another incredible world of zombie gaming. Using blueprints, customizing adds to the already massive list of about 100 available weapons (i.e. electrical baseball bats, freeze shields, toxin grenades, explosive vehicles). This guy can run, jump, slide, and fight. I approve.
There may be a few of you that notice that it is very similar to Dead Island, but they’ve added many new features that separate it from the franchise as it’s own entity. One of my favorite of those features is the day/night transition. Hours seem to pass by the minute, like in Grand Theft Auto, and once the sun sets below the horizon, shit gets real. The zombies become different and you must modify your strategy to accommodate them. There are also moments when you have the option to either stray from your mission to help others or ignore their need for assistance and continue. The game responds to the decisions you make and the mission will be affected, for better or for worse.
Just watching Techland’s first 15-minutes of gameplay for Dying Light has already put it at the top of my list for upcoming games. I’m completely sold. They’ve included a very tempting 4-player co-op mode, which I expect to be amazingly fun. They have also covered one of the major flaws in most games of today: 50, that’s right, FIFTY zombie killing hours of campaign gameplay. Most solo campaigns these days can be effortlessly played and beaten in 12-20 hours and then all that’s left is the online multiplayer mode. Frustrated, no longer.
@eskobts
Speaking of multi-player, there is only one flaw that I can find in this game so far, and it’s not an isolated issue. There is NO local co-op. It can only be played over a network or the internet. I guess the days of split screen co-op missions OFFLINE with your friends is over.
I cry a little bit about this feature every night, like you will.. running from the zombies of Dying Light.
WB Games’ Dying Light is slated for release on January 27th forthe PS4, PC and Xbox One. I haven’t waited in line for a midnight release since Halo 2, but this just might be worth it.
***BONUS FEATURE***
So it seems that Ubisoft is trying its best to milk the creative lore right out of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, with last-gen players (i.e. poor people who still play either 360 or PS3) receiving their own version of this year. Assassin’s Creed Rogue follows the legacy and hurtful betrayal of Shay Patrick Cormac, a former Assassin who trained with the Brotherhood of Assassins at the age of 21. The story unfolds when you pose as a templar and go after a piece of Eden for the the Assassin’s Guild at the request of Achilles Davenport; once you acquire the piece, the poor town suffers an earthquake that kills just about everyone.
Regardless of this unfortunate event, Davenport wants to continue searching for Eden pieces. All the more reason to go Templar, right Mr. Majndle? You learn as you play and pay attention of the storyline how previous entries of AC merge into one another. Characters in this one tie in with AC3, Black Flag and Freedom Cry.
With all that being said the gameplay feels more like a DLC package of an altered AC: Black Flag. Not that our Unity score was very high, but Rogues is a mere consolation prize in comparison. The few perks the stood out the most in the game were as follows: the Puckle Guns for your ship to do some great gunning damage on the sea; fire oil slick that you can leave as a trail in the water (works better than the fire barrels to me); air rifles, which are the most efficient assassin weapon this side of sleep; and berserk and firecracker darts are a pair of fun gamepla additions. Lastly, AC jumps into Far Cry mode with some grenades and grenade launcher, perhaps a bit over the top, but fun nonetheless.
Here’s to hoping two things, kids. That Ubi finds a way to spell Victory for us few last-gen console gamers out there — there’s still 60 million of us, right? — and that some hot rich woman I stumble upon to accidentally drops a PS4 into my stocking in a few weeks. Better, let’s hope our beloved franchise doesn’t Assassinate itself out of the Animus and into the Matrix of Obscurity.
@eyebzombie