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Zombiu
I was reading my Nintendo Power article (last issue of NP? had to get it) for Zombiu. One bite and you die? Check, I say as a mental checklist comes forth. These are zombies, and while that's fine other games have you play as an "immune", that's not the prime zombie apocalypse experience. For this game, when you die you take on a new survivor, and must hunt down "yourself" to get your gear back. I was totally thinking of this! Perfect!
I was totally hyped up then when I started watching some lets play videos I see some old stagnating trends. Health bars? No!! I want to see something more dynamic like Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater:
Treat wounds specifically. Less representation of the all holy hp bar of magic health "luck?" and unimmersion. Games need to learn from each other. If you want immersion it must encompass every aspect of gameplay.
Now I realize things need some "gameplay gimmicks" to keep things rolling smoothly, and it is what separates video game from simulation and there are good reasons to use some gimmicks sometimes. Metal Gear has had a few like rations that float above the ground and exclamation points over enemies heads.
Since we can not perceive everything our character can through just sight and sound alone, these make in actuality, a higher level of immersion possible. I get that.
Rail gameplay, add that onto my list of noes!
Skyrim: not specifically a zombie game, but this rail format from the beginning appears in many zombie games, like ZombiU
I hated this! A lot of games use a rail like "beginning" before getting to the sandbox. It was really bad in Skyrim, maybe this is a niche complaint, but I don't like that. I made my character for Skyrim. I look up to see this dragon overhead circling. I wanted to fight it but I can't because it will gladly fly in circles all day everyday forever until you progress to the next step of the preplanned tutorial. That means that's not a real simulation it is a wind up toy I am looking at and when games do this it just loses it for me.
So things won't progress until I trigger them? Technically I'd be doing this world a favor by letting this evil dragon fly in circles into infinitum. A sandbox should be itself. All the good and bad should be generated at the beginning of a new game and be left to it's own devices, why am I the one actually making things worse, by choosing to continue your game?
Someday my dream zombie game will come. It will have proper character damage mechanics, randomly emergent story, with human safe havens that form and fall nightly, it will be an open sandbox, it will give the zombie genre what it deserves.
Until then we can all dream.
Not too impressed with the melee in Zombiu
You play "crack the egg" with their heads. I'd like to try to lop it off personally, go for the neck, wheres the variety?
If I'm going to kill a zombie I'm going to do it in the cleanest way possible, I don't need zombie juices splattering all over me, even if they say its just the saliva, I don't want to risk it.
Bonuses go to a game that adds terrain damage but this is not a must. Though fragile things like light bulbs should not be invincible.
Also to support my total randomly generated sandboxish statement, let the gameplay elements be intuitive and teach themselves. I know developers worry about players getting killed too early, but make that really hard by design. Have the tougher elements be harder to get to and so forth. Some randomly unexpected hards stuff, is actually good on occasion.
Day Z
Day Z: Beautiful and sprawling, but zombie encounters at close range feel shallow. Menus are complex and inorganic.
I took a look at some youtube videos. It may be really good at its depth, but day z on the surface is not quite what I'm after. Sure its got great graphics probably better than ZombiU. Yet what about when you're attacked? The screen turns grey and you take hp damage? ZombiU already handled that better. If you let them get too close, they will push you down on the ground, and bite you and kill you. It might be promising if they change that but if that is the final product Day Z is not at all what I'm talking about. I'm sorry I didn't look more in depth to its sandbox features, but it will have to do the basics before I even consider it noteworthy.
Eh maybe I'll rant more later. So what do you think? What's you perfect zombie game? Did I pretty much cover it, or is it something completely different?
TC
Edited by Thomas Covenant, 04 January 2013 - 04:26 PM.
