![]() There's a wide choice of weapons to pick up from fallen human enemies and better guns can be permanently purchased from settlements, depending on how much they trust you. Not one of these is a bad game so when you add them all together… well, you can do the maths.įirearms have wicked sway and recoil, which makes popping Freaker heads a challenge, but it can be mitigated to an extent by the "focus" ability (a bit like Red Dead's slowmo Dead Eye mode) which is unlocked as you level up Deacon and gain new perks and abilities. Nods must also be given to Dying Light and, of course, The Last of Us. The third-person cover shooter mechanics date back to Gears of War, and the solid stealth system to Metal Gear Solid and its ilk. The post-rock/Western soundtrack and backdrop is also redolent of Red Dead Redemption. The visibility and sound meters may as well have been stripped from DayZ, Bohemia's troubled multiplayer zombie survival game, and constantly managing ammunition calls the Resident Evil series to mind. The scarcity of fuel and general maintenance of your bike also seem to take cues from the 2015 Mad Max game. Marking enemies means you can track their movements out of line of sight Cyberpunk 2077: There's a great game within screaming to get out, but sadly it was released 57 years too early.Subnautica and Below Zero: Nurture your inner MacGyver and Kevin Costner on an ocean-planet holiday.Valheim: How the heck has more 'indie shovelware with PS2 graphics' sold 4 million copies in a matter of weeks?.Rogue elements: Hades and Loop Hero manage to draw on the same legacy while having very little in common.Octopath Traveler: Love letter to JRPG golden age has great combat but retro graphics highlight the genre's tedium.Even if it's one of the most done-to-death concepts under the sun, Bend has done a fantastic job of rendering an Oregon scorched by a mysterious viral epidemic that has turned 99 per cent of the population into rabid, shambling cannibals. Yes, the world stopped giving a toss after the eleventy-first season of AMC's flagging comic book adaptation The Walking Dead, but somehow surviving a zombie apocalypse remains a gripping setting for many – yours truly included. This follows a recent trend of titles made specifically for Sony's last-gen console being re-released for PC a couple of years later including Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn. ![]() We say "exclusive" because we've been playing the PC port, which came out on 18 May. Though pop culture might have reached peak zombie almost a decade ago, Oregon-based Bend Studio still managed to walk away with a decent game in the 2019 PlayStation 4 "exclusive" Days Gone. But we opted to check out something just a little bit older. In May, the industry finally pushed some hot properties out the door including Resident Evil Village, Biomutant, and the Mass Effect remasters. Days Gone has had the biggest physical sales launch of the year so far, and despite occasional bugs and imperfections, it deserves its crown.The RPG Greetings, traveller, and welcome back to The Register Plays Games, our monthly gaming column. Exploring these diverse landscapes on your trusty motorcycle offers something uncommon to zombie games: moments of serenity. The prototypical zombie landscape of bombed out cars and abandoned gas stations is supplemented by vast green forests and snow-capped mountains. My favourite were Newts, infected children who don’t attack on sight, only becoming aggressive if you invade their turf.īut the real prize is the game’s beautiful open world, which unfolds in dramatic and surprising ways. The zombies – sorry, ‘freakers’ – are cleverly and lovingly designed, with different enemy types distinguished in intricate ways that go far beyond the standard big and slow/small and fast dichotomy. You don’t need to be engrossed in a character’s arc to enjoy using him to massacre hordes of the undead. However, the nature of zombie games is such that a dud lead can be redeemed by a satisfying enemy. A couple of hours in, I realised I was more invested in his bike than in him. Deacon is a bundle of contradictions, none of them ever amounting to character. We’re supposed to believe that he’s motivated by a desire to see Sarah again, but there’s nothing meaningful to be gleaned about their relationship from the few brief flashbacks we’re given of it. Early on, he performs a mercy killing later, he murders in cold blood while sermonising on the uselessness of mercy in an unforgiving world. These are the actions of a Mensch, but over the rest of the game Deacon acts in ways seemingly unconnected by any guiding motivation. When we are introduced to Deacon, he is sending his wounded girlfriend to safety in an aid helicopter, refusing her pleas to come with in order to stay and help his similarly wounded friend Boozer. Unfortunately, the action is underserved by a hacky and uninteresting central character.
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