Zombies and stuff, they just can’t be avoided. Zombies are the new Elves. That’s cool, though. I love me some good zombie games like Dead Rising, and Left 4 Dead.
The War Z, often ragged on for being too much like Day Z, released new footage today of Alpha gameplay. Doesn’t look like Day Z to me. The graphics aren’t washed out gray, and the UI actually looks like it doesn’t make the game a complete pita. But it does, in some ways, remind me of Day Z when they finally get around to shooting zombies; You know, once every few hours or so with paintball guns.
What I want in a zombie game looks a little more like this:
I like my zombie games to have action, tons of tense moments, and lots of zombie carnage instead of being an alternative to Ambien. I don’t want to head shot a zombie and have to bob and wave through bushes because I’d rather avoid the zombies than slay them, or cap one and have the surrounding zombies just stand there and do nothing. The War Z and Day Z make it seem like the sandbox gameplay can’t synergize with zombie survival, which is totally not true. They’re doing it wrong.
Was it just me or were all those zombies totally silent even when he was clubbing them with a flashlight? Actually everything was silent – just heard footsteps and gunshots.
@alpha: It didn’t look or sound very impressive, but it is in alpha (alpha the stage of testing, not you)
The War Z initially impressed me based on what I saw on paper and in screenshots. Actual gameplay not so much.
I don’t think they are “doing it wrong”
it comes down to preference.
DayZ is a mod for ArmA 2, a game which attracted a much different player base than your average FPS or Zombie game. It rewards careful planning and slow paced game play, which only makes sense the mod does the same thing.
I realize some people find it boring, but as someone who has been playing since ArmA 1, and DayZ when there were only 3 servers, I enjoy that style of game much more than another zerg/spray fest.
It’s primary goal is to “survive” which obviously means lasting as long as possible. You cant really claim to be a survival game when you are constantly going out of the way to put yourself in danger and killing hordes of zombies.
Look at the old Resident Evil games compared to the new ones. When you’ve killed your 5 thousandth zombie with your mini gun it kind of stops being about survival, and about being tense or scary, and just becomes COD: Zombies
Yeah I guess maybe they just haven’t finished the sound work. I actually thought it looked kind of cool. It depends what you like doing. I’m more of sneak around and headshot people type gamer than a non stop bullets fling gamer. When they are working on the sound, I hope they will also work on the flashlight clubbing animation which was awful. Increase agro range too. It was a little silly that he was standing in the middle of zombie infested town and nobody noticed until he got very close.
McFace, I respect DayZ. I respect what it’s doing and the level of difficulty. However, it pretty goddamn tedious most of the time. 15 minutes to sneak into a barn and find empty whiskey bottles? I’m past the point where I can spend my video game time that way. It doesn’t have to be a Left 4 Dead style slaughter, but the hide and seek needs to go a bit faster for me to spend time on it. Or at least a more complete game world. It would be a lot cooler if the world was actually usuable, except for the rare structure that actually built for use. If you could cat burgle your way through a small town, or maybe shake your zombie pursuers, that would be cool. But losing hours of work because you just can’t find a gun and you happen to catch the attention of one zombie— too painful.
Agree 100% with OP.
L4D’s game-play spoiled me; if a zombie game can’t pull off that level of quality, then “meh”. As toxic said, it doesn’t necessarily have to be L4D’s near-constant mayhem, but it’s got to be consistently interesting and fun; no boring, tedious crap. And yeah, always leave the player an “out”, i.e. have options to allow things to be salvaged if the crap hits the fan. L4D’s (and GW2’s) feature to revive downed characters is a good example.