I admit, I was sold on this game even before it was released, I pre-ordered it, an act that I don't do often with Console games, I was so convinced it will be good.
I started the game on day one after release, and finished the prologue, and I wasn't
impressed. It felt more like a rolling demo with occasional QTE breaks, rather than a fully interactive game. This combined with a heatwave that presented all time high
temperatures meant the game fell to the sidelines for me. I couldn't get myself to sit down in front of the TV in the 40C° heat.
I only started playing the game again a few months later, after the heat has subsided
somewhat. And fortunately it gets better. But I still wasn't entirely convinced. But before delving too deep into the game's pros and cons I'd like to make a detour about the premise.
As you probably all know, the game rides the waves of the fact that zombies became
extremely trendy recently. Everything with walking dead in it, receives ten times more attention than before. So the premise is hardly original. Zombie virus fungus breakout Soon followed by global government failures and anarchy. Nothing new there. After the prologue we pick up the story 20 years later and you're a smuggler. In a community run by the military, or what could be classified as military. Your job is simple, you smuggle things in and out of the city. I have to mention that this part of the game feels exactly like city 17 from HL2 that's run by the Combine. Even the military uniforms resemble the combine soldiers. Of course this is not necessarily a bad thing, as I said many times originality is overrated.
So you and your partner, after a little disagreement with the local street gang get into a situation where, you agree too take on an unusual job. The job is smuggling out a 14 year old girl from the city, into a firefly* compound outside the city. And this is where you're introduced to the other main character of the game.
* The fireflies are the residential good-guys. Well when I say good, I mean
they seem to be the only ones concerned with more than their own survival. They're
actually looking for a cure for the infection.
Of course the journey is riddled with complications, typical of a story like this. Each time your goal seems to be in reach, it turns out that you have to go much further. So you end up criss-crossing the continental US back and forth.
And in the end you finally reach the firefly's base of operations, that you sought all along, and... But I don't want to spoil it, so you'll have to play it to see what happens.
During this journey you of course encounter various forms of zombies, when I say various I'm being generous, because there is only three types. The first one is in the first stage of infection, these are exactly the same as zombies in other fiction. They mostly look human, and they try to bite you, they don't have much brains just run at you like crazy. Yes run, these are the fast kind, not the slowly stumbling hordes that are in The Walking Dead for example.
The second type are in an excessive stage of infection, where the fungal infection is so spread out, that it forms growths on the head of the zombie, effectively rendering these zombies blind. This means that these are less dangerous, because you can sneak past them if you're clever and quiet. The third stage is where the fungal infection is so spread out that it forms an armour around the subject so it effectively becomes bullet proof. What I don't get is why do they also become super strong, so when they reach you that's instant death for you.
You also encounter highwaymen, and cannibals who pray on anyone passing by. Here I need to dwell on something, that's not particular to this game but to almost every post-apocalyptic story I've seen so far. Most of them seem to have these nasty groups, that prey on the innocent and defenceless. What I don't get is how do they get their numbers? At what point do they say, Hey let's not kill this one, let's recruit him instead. or say: OK so now we have enough people, from now on we kill everyone who moves. It seems to me that these huge tight groups of sociopaths have no way of forming realistically, of course in every story we are presented with them when they're already at full strength.
The story's best asset is the realistic character development, and the emotional roller-coaster it presents. Especially in the second half of the game. It's easily the most emotional story ever told in a video game, that I've seen up until Beyond Two Souls.
Let's move on to the game mechanics, and other technical stuff.
The game has an extensive crafting/upgrade system: you can upgrade your abilities, with pills, like health, and such. You can upgrade your weapons by finding tools and mechanical parts. And you can craft basic survival items with collected random household stuff. This includes, Molotov cocktails, melee weapons, medkits, bombs. And here the crafting is straightforward and easy to use, and it's beneficial to use as well. Every item has a purpose. In fact this is the most well thought out crafting system I ever saw in a game.
The game has a number of weapons, and some are better than others, but you're forced to use each, because of the constant shortage of ammo. The only immersion breaking aspect of the weapons is that for example you can easily upgrade a six shooter to hold 10 rounds. The options should've been tailored to the original weapons properties. Even if they're not using real licensed weapons. Another thing I disliked is that the best weapons and best upgrade options you only get access to at the very end of the game. I never even had a chance to use a flame-thrower, because I only found it 10 minutes from the end of the game.
There is also a stealth aspect, so on some levels it's better to sneak past enemies than to take them all out. To this purpose you can utilize stealth kills, that only works on humans, and the first type of infected. You also have a "focus" mode where you focus your hearing, and this essential works as a see trough the walls device. But this is also useful for ambushing enemies.
About the controls: It took me as long to bond with them as long it took for the characters in the game to bond. That means at least five hours. But that's probably my fault, since this is essentially the first shooter I played trough on a console. In the heat of the battle I kept mixing up buttons, not because I pressed the wrong one by mistake, but because I couldn't recall which action is assigned to what button. And I also couldn't hit a zombie from point blank range with any firearm. I'm used to controlling shooters with a mouse where you can do sudden quick moves, precisely. But here you have to take your time, in aiming, and go slowly until I realized this I always shot all over the place but almost never at my target. And I always ran out of ammo. It was so frustrating that I even broke my controller mid game.
There were also some minor bugs in the game. Like clipping into objects, NPCs or
interaction options refusing to show up for minutes. At some point I was running around for minutes until it finally showed up. Enemies materializing from thin air, and sometimes disappearing into thin air as well. Enemies grabbing you from 10 meters away. Sometimes when you try to distract the enemies by throwing a glass bottle, instead of going towards the noise they all start converging on your position. When choosing "retry encounter" from the menu the game sometimes puts you at the very beginning of the level, instead of the last checkpoint, which means having to repeat parts you already beat.
One thing remains, the graphics. It's a very two edged sword, because I'm acclaimed to the PC, and the 720p resolution without anti-aliasing on a a 51" screen, seemed awful. And the graphics of the levels also varies from poor to perfect in the game. There are some beautifully made parts, and some really neglected areas. But I'm sure that by PS3 standards, this is as good as it gets.
+
- Story
- Character evolution
- Some level designs
- Crafting system
- Combat mechanics
- You really fear with the characters for what will happen next
- Top notch voice acting down to the last villain
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- The story is a bit predictable, almost every turning point can be seen from a mile away.
- 720p graphics
- minor bugs
Scoring card:
graphics/realization: 7/10
story/atmosphere: 10/10
gameplay/controls: 8/10
overall impression: 9/10
There is not much left to be said. This game will be remembered for many years as one of the best released in 2013.