inFamous

inFamous. A game long recommended to me, and only recently acquired (well, borrowed really). Just yesterday I finished it for the second time through and was viciously denied my platinum trophy. Rage followed. And then the acceptance that I'll probably play it on Hard again just to get the last silver trophy, and then the platinum, obviously.

So then, inFamous is a sandbox superhero RPG game following the adventures of delivery boy Phillip J. Fry....I mean Cole MacGrath. The long and the short of it, Cole gets given superpowers by the object he was delivering; The Ray Sphere. These powers include, but are not limited to; lightning the sweet baby James out of everything in sight in a variety of ways.

The game is split into three island, GTA style, with each one being unlocked after finishing enough missions and a boss fight on the previous island. Each island is controlled by a different gang, all seizing the opportunity to take control after Empire City was quarantined following the Ray Sphere detonation. The Reapers control The Neon. They're a bunch of hoodies and drug dealers lead by the maniacal and ever ridiculously sensual-talking Sasha:

Not everything needs to sound like you're climaxing, dear.

The beginning of the game is mostly spent helping Cole figure out what the hell is going on, whilst either fighting to protect the local residents from The Reapers, or just taking what you can and ignoring the plight of the people. Yes, as the clever title "inFamous" suggests the "in" bit is optional, meaning ANOTHER BI-MODAL MORAL CHOICE GAME. Once Cole manages to figure out what the deuce is going on, and that some mysterious organisation called The First Sons are responsible for the blast, the story picks up somewhat, leading you across to the slums of The Warren, controlled by a vicious gang of......well, they're called The Trash Men. They're basically tramps and the homeless but with machine guns and odd spider-crabs made of rubbish, lead by this man, Aldus Snow:

Alden Tate; mental geriatric. Literally.

The Warrens, by far the largest and most enjoyable island in the game, progresses the story a fair bit and reveals all sorts of juicy bits that I'm not spoiling for you. Suffice to say, there is enough plot progression to catapult you to The Historic District, and onto the third gang. The First Sons themselves. Now these lovely gentlemen, all dressed up like Prince Harry at that birthday party, are utter bastards. Not only are their infantry supported by flying, invisible, grenade-launcher toting drones but also invisible, shotgun-wielding uber-troops. Oh, and watch out for all the mines.

At least it's free EXP for each one...

So it's clear that there's progression in both plot and difficulty from island to island. There is also progression in Cole's abilities. With the power being out in most of the areas of Empire City at the beginning of the game, and Cole will pass out without a regular hit of juice (licking batteries can only get you so far apparently), often missions involve you trawling the sewers for substations to power on and power up.
[Segue: who interlinks the sewage (water based) system with the city's electrical grid? Segue within segue: Cole explains his knowledge of the sewers by stating he "got into urban sports a few years back." When was the last time anyone went free running in sewage?!]
With each substation brought back online Cole gains a new power. They range from a whopping big thunder storm controlled pointlessly with the SIXAXIS, to lightening grenades and a violently useful energy absorbing shield. The powers are well balanced, with no single one being all dominating (although Megawatt Hammer is the boy) and each one is well suited to a different situation; your arsenal is full by the end and you certainly need all of them.

Problem, 50cal?

The moral choice effects your powers, as you can only upgrade them down one of the two karmic branches. Generally, Good goes for temporary incapacitation and energy and health regeneration as you do damage, whereas Evil goes for MOAR ASPLOSIONS PLEAZE. Evil is more fun, Good is arguable slightly easier to play as. But that's always the way, I find.

There is not a lot wrong with the game visually, its not too bland in colour, which is nice to see, and the comic-style cut-scene graphics are very pleasing. However, if I may refer you to the 2004 Spiderman 2 game for XBOX, PC and PS2, you can see the same city design, just not as polished. In fact, I could go on for a while drawing similarities between the two games, as inFamous is mostly just a revamp of that genre of superhero sandbox game that I loved. Combat visuals are standard, over the shoulder firing looks and feels accurate and the lightning effects leave nothing to be desired. I especially enjoyed them on my Evil play through, as after activating a certain object in the late stages of the game, it went from red with flecks of white to black with flecks of red. Uber Evil. We're talking The Emperor levels of dastardliness.

Longevity, well there are only really two play throughs to be had here, and I did find myself rushing the second one. If you start off Evil on normal, and then play again as Good on hard, you can get all the trophies (not accounting for screwy screwyness...) with ease. The most time consuming are the 350 collectibles (Blast Shards, they increase your energy reserves) dotted around the city, but they're not too hard to find. I hunted them down in my first play through and managed to get them all, but on my second play through I found myself with 310/350 without even trying. I mean, they glow, and you have a built in radar to show them on the mini map. Simples *makes meerkat noise.*

When it comes down to it, this is indeed a great game. I very much enjoyed the 25 or so hours that I spent playing it through twice and I would recommend it to fans of sandbox games, especially ones that include superpowers. I'm now on the look-out for inFamous 2 on the cheap, so the first one must have done something right!


Side note on moral choice games:
If they're going to feature morality, at least let there be more than God or The Devil. Some sort of middle ground would be nice, maybe Bob. Instead of having to be fully Evil or Good to unlock the best upgrades etc. Also, the choices involved are mostly so ridiculously, nearly comically divided into Evil and Good that it's often difficult to decide what, given that situation being reality, "would I do?" and I for one think that should be the point of moral choices in games.

Borderlands

WELL! Welly, welly, well-well. Borderlands it is then!

I first played this back in 2010 when my flat mate Ben came bounding up to me like a randy Labrador shouting something about "1 BILLION GUNS!" to which my skeptical reply of "Oh really?" lead to a good 8 solid hours of playing Co-Op. A few more long sessions and we'd finished the main story through, but with no audio. To be fair, Cage The Elephant is better than exploding heads as background music to a game, but that's by the by. When Steam decided to throw out 4 copies of Borderlands GOTY edition for £14.99 I was sold, gifting three copies to 3 friends of mine with the intent of co-op. They all abandoned me. I'm not bitter, honest.

Lets get down to it though, shall we?

Borderlands is a first person shooter/rpg of quite some scale. Think Fall Out 3 scale. But with less decent story and more "this is your mission, you can read this paragraph for the "story" behind it if you want, but its not compulsory." The protagonist can be one of 4 characters, each occupying a sort-of archetype in the shooter universe; the hunter (Mordecai), the soldier (Roland), the tank (Brick), and the....specialist? yeah lets go with that (Lilith). Each of the 4 characters has their own unique suggested play style. Now I say suggested because you don't really have to follow them. For example, my most recent (there have been 3) play through was as Mordecai, an expert in snipers, revolvers and all things high critical hit damage. All of his offensive upgrades are centered around rate of fire/critical hit damage/reload speed so you can be melon poppin' all day long. However, considering as I was playing alone, I figured eventually I'm going to be swarmed (by spiderants, its always bloody spiderants) so I'll invest some time in shotgun proficiency. In Borderlands, the more you use it, the better you get, simple as that. Levels of proficiency increase damage, rate of fire, reload speed and critical hit damage. Something that I enjoy, as it allows simple multi-classing.

With progression through the game skill points earned for each level up can be allocated into upgrades of various tiers and across three branches of the skill tree. Mordecai's, for example, has Rogue, Hunter and Gunslinger. Rogue focuses on Bloodwing upgrades (the hunter's action skill, a pet hawk that can be on fire/full of lightning/spit acid/explode, depending on what rock you strap to it. I'm serious) Hunter focuses on upgrades to sniper damage/accuracy and eventually 100% shield bypass with all weapons, and Gunslinger, as the name suggests, deals with pistol upgrades. There aren't enough points to upgrade everything so choice and consideration is paramount, especially early on when you can't afford to pay to have them reassigned too often. This means that, though all (and I mean ALL) of the missions eventually feel like grind, experience is proportional to your level, so there's never a need to hunt down herds of respawning enemies just to get that last 10% for a level up. Having said that instead of enjoying doing each mission it quickly becomes a case of activating as many as possible so you can work your way clockwise round the map doing them all. This is an immersion/story failure not a grind issue in my opinion. If I cared more about each mission things might have gone differently.

The leveling system is harsh. Biblical levels of harsh. 2 levels above you, especially in the early stages of the game, is enough to seriously trouble you. By the end of my second play through my character was level 62, and nothing was a bother at all, until I replayed one of the DLCs for a second time, and basic enemies were level 63 and 64. This means that there is rarely a stage, even in the end game, when you can waltz about an area and be reckless with tactics, this probably more so when playing as Mordecai who has the lowest health of the 4 characters.

So it would appear, so far, that we have a fairly generic shooter/rpg. Well, that is partly true, but then again I've yet to touch on the game's USP or Unique Selling Point. Remember Ben? Innocent, excitable Ben, with his love of a billion guns? Well he was, as usual, over-exaggerating. (He'll tell you he's owned a snake. He hasn't) According to the Official Borderlands forum the current standing is 17,750,000 different weapons. This was achieved in a surprisingly simple manner. "What manner?" I hear you say? No...none of you want to know? Well then skip the rest of this paragraph, and remain unfulfilled. There are a number of manufacturers of arms within the game. Each manufacturer produces 8 types of weapon (pistol, revolver, repeater, SMG, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher) within each weapon type there are, at a guess, 5 different sub-types (e.g. assault rifles, "Rowdy Machine Guns" are high rate of fire, large clips whereas "Cobras" are very small clips with high damage). Within these sub-groups are the addition of scopes, elemental damage, higher level version etc etc Very quickly you can see how they reached 17,750,000. And, to be fair, when playing the game I probably used about 10% of what I found. Seems a bit of a waste really, but at least it means every chest you open could have the best gun in the game in it, and that has more appeal than even I've given it credit for. I say that, as now I've got the best sniper in the game I don't even bother opening them anymore, and there is something missing.

The humour, especially surrounding NPCs and bosses, is a gem in this game. From T.K. Baha, the one-legged, shotgun toting hermit to Marcus the Arms Dealer with his endless catchphrases.

Tarentino Style

Not to mention everyone's favorite, Scooter. This Appalachian son of a gun has some of the best lines, including:

"The Catch-a-Ride near Fyrestone is more busted than my momma's girl parts. Really appreciate you takin' a poke at that. The uh, system, not my mom. Hot dog down a Skag den, know what I'm sayin'?"

and

"Lucky's an old buddy of mine - and by old buddy I mean asshole that ruined my momma's girl parts. Sounds like he's in trouble so you go on ahead and try and keep him alive long enough so I can kill him at a later occasion."

Thankfully, he's back in Borderlands 2. Hopefully talking about his "Momma's girl parts" some more. If you know who his mother is (revealed in one of the DLCs) you'd want more.


Anyway, that's all just fluff. Here's the review-y bit of this post.

Gameplay. Well, as I've said, its good fun but eventually gets grind-tastic. Much much better with co-op, if you're going to get it I suggest on PC rather than console, 4 player steam co-op > 2 player local co-op. (I'm suggesting you play with people you actually know.) The 4 characters support each other well, each with a niche that is well defined and exploited by their skill point upgrades, and hopefully everyone should be able to find a character that suits them. I personally enjoy sniping and one shot kills, whereas others I know enjoy using Lilith's Phase Walk ability to nip around in between the enemies setting them on fire, or burning them with acid. There is certainly enough here to warrant playing at least some of the way through with each a character.

Which brings me onto longevity. Because there are only 4 characters, there is really only a limited number of times you could play through on your own. Unlike, continuing the comparison, Fallout 3, there is nearly no customisation, only prioritisation of of one skill over another as it isn't possible to fill every skill. There is, however, a very good chance that I'd happily play through as any of the characters were I to find 3 willing and reliable co-op players, so I shall term this as a game I will definitely revisit.

Visually.....well, it's cell shaded. And we all know that usually means "we ran out of money for shiny next-gen graphics.....uhhh, just Wind Waker-it guys." I personally like the look of Borderlands, and yes, they probably did prioritise things like entertaining gameplay, good physics and length of game over smearing it with the browns and greys of the usual palette these days. By being cell shaded, it lends itself to more creative design and colouring, something this game displays well.

The DLCs. Urgh.
Considering I bought the GOTY edition, and all 4 DCLs were included (The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution) I very much wouldn't have minded if they had never been made. In a quick break down, Dr Ned's is basically the same game with an interesting Hallow'een twist, the Underdome is useless on every level as all it adds is 3 arenas of wave-based combat that don't give you experience and The Secret Armory takes the term "vehicle section" and goes all out on it with vehicles that are frustrating to begin with.

Moxxi, I hate you.



Claptrap's Revolution, however, is good. Its a continuation of the main story with a fairly climatic final battle, it brings back some old characters and introduces some new ones and is pretty much the same style of gameplay as the main game. Its the only DLC worth having.

Overall, most definitely worth a few quid to enjoy. I would dissuade most RPG fans, as there really isn't enough of that to warrant your attention, unless you're looking for a little respite from your Oblivion Kingdom of +5 Grind to the Palace of Borderlands Excellence +10 enjoyment. Fans of hard core shooters like Gears, or Resistance for example, probably would enjoy this as a change of pace. Fans of CoD (post MW1) can, as usual, jump up their collective arse and die.

Shogun 2: Total War & The Total War Series

The Total War series have long been one of my favorite series of games, I'm quite the fanboy. This love has come from a general love of 3 things: the turn-based RTS sub-genre, big fucking battles and empire building. My obsession began with the third game in the Total War series, the much loved Rome: Total War. In my opinion Rome is as near as damnit perfect as a wide-scale empire building, barbarian-murdering, power-trip game. I mean, you get to be Emperor of the god damn Roman world. Spread your chosen faction's colour and religion over the entire known world, from Spain and Morocco in the West, to Mesopotamia and Armenia in the East and as far north as......Yorkshire. The two previous games to Rome, Shogun 1 and Medieval Total War, I have not played for more than 5 minutes at a time. I think I probably would've very much enjoyed them had I found them earlier than the beginnings of my torrid love affair with Rome. However, graphical restraints being what they were back in 2000 and 2002 respectively, when playing them after becoming addicted to Rome, I found them very much lacking any appeal visually.

Anyway, away from the series as a whole and onto the newest offering from Creative Assembly, Shogun 2: Total War.

Nope, sorry, not yet, you've read my praise for the series and now like the stale cone after a delicious summer ice cream, you're going to have to read my gripes and complaints about the only mold on the Total War Loaf of Success. I speak of course of Empire Total War.

After knocking out Medieval 2 and its expansions, a reasonably enjoyable and well made sequel to Medieval 1 which i did indeed play lots and enjoy....somewhat, the next out of the Total War mixing pot was Empire. This game still exhibits the bare bones of a Total War game, in so much that it is a turn based strategy game covering entire continents with various factions and armies, but completely screwed the pooch when it came down to the details, or more importantly, the unique selling points. The setting for Empire ranges from the colonisation of the Americans, the subjugation of the Indian sub-continent and (with the addition of the expansion DLC) the Napoleonic Wars. This presented two distinct changes from previous Total War games, one handled very well and the other a complete flop.

Naval combat on the battle map, the first instance of such a thing in the Total War series, was stunning. Huge fleets of gargantuan ships, bristling with cannon and battle hardened marines ready to die for King and Country clashing with the powdered wig-wearing, fake beauty spot-sporting, poor excuses for fleets of the other European nations was done to perfection. The ability to sail a British fleet from Portsmouth, across the Atlantic to Maryland, dock for repairs and then go hunting Spanish gold galleons in the Caribbean waters was enjoyable to say the least. But adding in the ability to *actually* capture such ships and either ransom them back to the Spanish or keep them for yourself was sheer brilliance. As you might have guessed, I was quite the fan of the high seas.

The flop to which I referred, comes in the form of EVERY LAND BATTLE. With the progression of technology, specifically the invention and mass production of firearms, the Total War style of battle changed completely. Which is indeed in keeping with the change in the actual battle strategy of the time, don't misunderstand me, the battles in Empire are very much accurate for the time. Huge hulking cannons firing over the heads of neatly arranged lines of Red Coats, flanked by masses of Dragoons and Light Cavalry, it all fits with my impression of what warfare would've been like back then. But it's just not Total War. Or at least, the Total War I enjoyed so much in Rome and to a lesser extent in Medieval 2. There are no thunderous cavalry charges to break enemy lines, no screaming hoards of axe-wielding barbarians charging down on a few well trained soldiers who must do their best to defend the realm. Its line firing. And that is boring. The appealing part of Total War games is now boring. And that is my biggest complaint.

Which is why, when I purchased Shogun 2 Total War 2 weeks ago I nearly back-flipped with joy, a move that Jack Donaghy will tell you is 90% mental. It is a thunderous return to Total War form. Something which has to be said is due to the change of theatre. 1500-1600 feudal Japan features the same style and tactics of battle that can be seen in European wars from 500BC to the beginning of the Renaissance. Big armies of samurai, supported by peasant ashigaru units and shock cavalry laying siege to castles, battling across a wide spread of terrain. Oh it gives me shivers, it IS a proper Total War game but with all the good bits (not previously mentioned) from Empire and none of the bad bits (previously mentioned at length). Anyway, less of the nergasms and more of the review.

Shogun features a total of 8 playable factions all vying for total control of Japan by marching into Kyoto and declaring their Daiymo to be the true Shogun of Japan, exactly the same as Rome...just in Japan. These factions all have exactly the same units, buildings, research available to them, the difference between each faction lies on their initial starting locations on the campaign map and their initial reputation among the other clans (diplomacy and honour is pushed quite a lot in Shogun 2). There are also different faction strengths, but they're so negligible that they're not really worth paying attention to. There's a katana clan, a bow clan, a ship clan, a siege weapons clan, basically a clan for every aspect of the game but when it all comes down to it they never really make any difference, so long as you are competent at the game you can either over come and compensate for the clan trait or ignore it all together, such is the case with the Monk Clan..... For example, the Chosokabe clan have superior archers, the Shimazu superior katana infantry. In a clash between the two a skilled general will use their clan advantage to negate the enemy's advantage. With the purchase of one of the DLCs a unique unit for each clan is added. This unit will be the epitome of that clan's unique trait. For example the Chosokabe have an archer unit that has a massively increase range.

I mentioned diplomacy being more important in Shogun 2. Clan honour is paramount if your faction is to survive. In order to fund a vast army income is needed and trade is an invaluable source of income. If your clan is of low honour pretty much no one will trade with you, let alone form alliances, so learning this aspect of gameplay early on is vital. Research is also still knocking around, only this time THANK THE MOUNTAIN MONKEY it's different from Empire. If you've played Empire you'll know what I'm taking about. Violently long periods of time spent researching bugger all just to get to that one important upgrade for your bayonets. Thankfully, in Shogun there are two trees, Bushido (military) and Chi (civilian). Each is a true research tree, with subsequent research building on previous to compound upgrades. Unlike Empire you can start from the first turn, and there are many ways to improve the speed of research from building libraries, to recruiting and upgrading monks or missionaries to dealing with important clan decisions which provide temporary bonuses to research or income etc

Visually the recent Total War games have not failed to provide stunning terrain and unit detail and Shogun 2 keeps up the standard. Water, being a good test of graphical quality in my opinion, is just as good, if not better than Empire. Unit detail and differences from man to man within a unit have been vastly improved since the days of Rome when every barbarian hoard genuinely looked like Genghis Khan had fathered every single one of them. All melee combat that takes place has been programmed using point-point motion capture from professional martial artists familiar and trained in the weaponry of the times, a little touch that probably cost a fair bit, but makes me feel a helluva lot better knowing that since the buy-out by Sega back in 2005 the attention to detail and general care taken over a game hasn't diminished.

Overall, a stunning return to true Total War form. I am addicted to it currently, having played 56 hours since purchasing it less than two weeks ago. If you enjoyed Rome, Shogun 1 or Medieval 1 or 2 then this will be right up your street. It appeals to everything from those games that I enjoyed. Conversely, if you were a fan of Empire (I suggest you contact your local health adviser, or come to me and I'll hit you with a trout) you will also enjoy lots of Shogun 2. If you were a fan of Empire but don't enjoy Shogun 2 then may I suggest you try and do your taxes at the same time as playing, for that warm and familiar feeling of over-complication.


A secondary point to be made connected to Shogun 2: Steam. We all love it, and if you aren't aware of it then I strongly suggest you find out about it. Being fiscally challenged at current, I find it hard to justify ~£40 for a new game, which is why I've only managed to get my hands on Shogun 2 recently due to there being a 50% off Steam sale. Steam appears to be a perfect company not to mention a perfect business idea. Steam buys a digital copy of a mainstream game, lets use Shogun 2 as an example. Now, Steam pays Sega a certain amount of money to be able to sell copies of their game. No actual, physical disc is produced, just money. Lots and lots of money. Considering that a random number generator could be used to make legitimate CD Keys, this appears to be a legal way of printing money. Its not just good news for Steam, because thankfully they appear to have human souls and see fit to pass on their success to us, the lowly customer, in the form of slashed prices. I very much see digital copies being the only form of game distribution in the future, possibly for all media as things like the PlayStation Store and Netflix are doing a similar job in other areas of the Nerd Market.

Dead Nation

[Thank the gods, and Ryan Cleary, I got this game for free from Sony to say sorry for them losing my credit card detail that I hadn't even linked to my PSN account or anything! Total Win-Win situation ladies and gents.]

Well then, zombie games seem to be all the rage these days, and I for one, am not fine with this. However, so long as it detracts from the ever-growing need to find "Halo killers" or "CoD killers" I'm happy to leave the rotting corpses be. However, this is no ordinary zombie game. This is not waves of Nazi zombies. This is not a mall full of eager double-ended chainsaw-victims. This is not even a football match, Mr Piercy. This is a fantastic, highly enjoyable nearly top-down, third person shooter that, whilst not revolutionary, is by far the best zombie game I have ever played. I am discounting Tripwire Interactive's godly "Killing Floor" because its all multiplayer and a proper game would have to feature a single player portion to qualify for my comparison. "Killing Floor" also rocks, of that there is no doubt.

So lets break it down, Thriller style. And by that i mean in perfectly choreographed synchronicity with a dead pop star.


The plot of Dead Nation focuses around Mr Protagonist, if you're playing single player, or Mr and Mrs Protagonist, if you've dragged the local MP gimp out of the attic for a quick bash through. Standard zombie story line, some infection turns everyone into zombies, you are immune and alone fighting to survive, squishing the faces of those whom you used to share a brewski and a slice with as you try and carve a path through the horde to.....well, for a while there I didn't really know where we were going, it just seemed like Captain Anonymous had some anger issues to work out. Soon enough though mysterious radio signals and evil scientists turn up and we're right back in that warm'n'comfy arse-grove on the sofa that is a standard zombie story line.

With the faff of pretending there's a story aside, the real juicy bits. Gameplay, visuals and replay value.

Throwing you right into a horde of zombies atop your roof, the gameplay is easy to learn but hard to master. Completely ignoring the right thumb-buttons (square, triangle etc) frees up the right thumb to use the right analogue stick for dedicated 360 degree aim. Combined with a lovely, long laser sight (available on all weapons for the low, low price of $50000) makes aiming a breeze. Trigger buttons are used for firing (R1), items like grenades etc (L1), sprint (L2) and melee (R2) May I just say thank The Guardians of Ga'hoole melee wasn't R3 or L3 because the number of games doing that these days will break my controllers)

The game breaks down into 10 levels, and features a variety of zombies. The standard Zed, the exploding zed, the uber-melee zed etc but a lovely touch which I really didn't expect is the variety seen in the "standard Zed" enemies. In a hoard of about 50 Zeds you can expect to find at least 10 different kinds of standard Zed. For example, soldiers take 2 head shots to kill due to their army helmets, firemen are immune to fire, policemen sometimes carry pistols and office workers come rushing you a'swinging their attaché cases for extra melee damage like Bill from Cubicle 3 beat them in sales for the 23rd quarter in a row and they just can't go home to Marie and look her in the eyes anymore. Another touch of simplicity and brilliance; fat = health, so the larger the jiggly body of rotting flesh the more health the standard Zed has.

Weapons. Well, well, well. Weapons indeed. There is a good selection. There are cool ones. There are effective ones. But few are both cool and effective. The standard single shot rifle, which comes with unlimited ammo, once fully upgraded, is pretty much all you need until you get swarmed. There are a few pretty useless ones, like the SMG, tesla cannon and blade cannon (also, very, very cool but limited ammo/rate of fire/reload time = waste of $100000 in my opinion) but as with all zombie games the flamer and shotgun are always handy. Items are useful, varied and smart to boot. Molotovs, when thrown create a rectangle of fire which, so long as its in the general area of two pieces of terrain, will align itself to form a firewall between them for maximum toasty-zeds. Grenades and mines attract zombies to them before they explode, and once mines are fully upgraded they explode five times and are devastating, and nearly game breaking if you weren't limited to carrying just 4.


Visually, there's not a lot to complain about really. Because the player is so removed from the blood-splattering action detail isn't an issue at all. The game does look nice, but its not groundbreakingly beautiful. It'll do, and it has no flaws really. The upside of not being processor-meltingly shiny is the sheer volume of the living impaired that can "be all up in yo face, noshin' on yo jubblies" at once is ridiculously high at times. So much so that it has actually caused my PS3 to lag on occasion, something MGS4 didn't manage. This, however, entertained me for more than half an hour and didn't take a year to install. Unlike MGS4.


Replay value? I say that with an inflection of question because, for once, this isn't a wave-based zombie game, there isn't any Hidden Director bollocks that supposedly makes every play of a level different or such nonsense, so I'm unsure as to how many people will happily play the game through, all 10 levels, and then want to sit down and do it all again. I mean, I of course shall be doing this. There are trophies for finishing it on 4 different difficulties. That's all the incentive I need, being a trophy whore and all. This is not to say the game loses all value when you finish it, it certainly doesn't make a quick MP play through any less fun, only that I slightly doubt everyone who finishes it will be bothered to do so 3 more times. There is also an online MP option, but judging by the international online ranking based on percentage of game complete and number of zombies killed you either have to be Japanese, Polish or from the Oman to even compete with most of the zombie-hunters out there. Interestingly enough, ranked just one place above the US was a country listed as "Unknown." I would assume this to be the crew of the International Space Station, or penguins in Antarctica. Either way they're better at it than the Yanks.


The overview then; would I recommend this to someone? Yes. Would I recommend this to a non-zombie game fan? Yes, its a shining jewel in the sea of filth that has become the zombie plague on gaming of late. (I'm looking at you Rock Star International. Why!? Why did you have to desecrate John Marston's corpse for that pile of balls?!) Would I have payed money for this had I not got it free? No, probably not, and I would have really missed out.