Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, today I'll be doing a review of a single player zombie survival game called State of Decay!
A bit about the game and developers.
State of Decay has been published by Microsoft Studios and developed by Undead Labs. Undead Labs are rather new indie developers, since State of Decay is their first game. State of Decay is yet another zombie survival game, but this one actually has a story that you follow through.
About Gameplay.
State of Decay came out as a console exclusive game at beginning. But after a while, Undead Labs decided to also move the game over to the PC. And I'll tell you, they did a pretty decent job! I did see quite a few flaws, but most of it was awesome.
To start off, I'll say that State of Decay is a single player zombie survival game. In that game you have a group of people that you need to take care of. You can ask the people to go with you on scavenges and missions, or you can tell them to do some other stuff in stead such as build something in your base, or send them on a scavenge mission without you so that you don't need to do it. Different people have different skills, so some people are better at one thing while others are better at different things. I, honestly, didn't see that those skills had much of an impact on my gameplay, unless it was health or stamina wise. Each of those NPC's has a standing towards you. If the standing is friend then you can play as that character in stead of the main one. In case that the standing is still not Friend, then you need to do missions that will benefit him / her. Death in this game is very unforgiving, so having more than just one Friend characters is a must. After all, you most likely will end up dead!
Second thing I want to talk about are vehicles and bases. There is limited number of vehicles in State of Decay. That means that in case you brake every car, you will have to run across the whole map. Luckily there are enough cars for that to be - almost - impossible to do. The vehicles feel amazing when you drive them, and I think that developers really put a lot of work into that. I really enjoyed driving cars and just didn't want to stop it. There is also a hideout or "base" system in the game. Players start off in a church, but after a while they have an ability to chose a different home. There are about eight total houses that players can chose from. Each have their own benefits. Some houses have more building areas, while the others have better defense against zombies. I, of course, took the one with largest amount of building areas. Also some buildings allow you to build some things which others do not allow you to do that, and I saw that as a very cool feature.
Player can also set up different outposts around the town. Honestly, I saw no need for those unless you need some immediate shop or just want an achievement. Maybe I was just using them wrong.
There are many different weapons in the game. Both ranged and melee weapons. I, as a player, chose more melee weapons than ranged weapons most of the time. Mainly since I was just a horrible shooter so the guns were quite useless to me. Melee weapons seemed very powerful and useful. Though, unlike in other games, sword type weapons were much worse than blunt like weapons. So I highly suggest - keep blunt weapons, throw away your knives!
The game's story is very good. It really gets your attention and I kept wanting to do it as a player, but sadly they make you wait between main missions. In my opinion, that's wrong. I was forced to do off story missions just because main mission wanted to take it's place like two or three in game days later.
Graphic and Audio.
The game's visuals are awesome! Colors are awesome, shadows are maybe a little bit too complex, the sky is detailed. And there's another thing. The stars actually shine! There are few, but not many games in which stars are actually shining, so this was a huge plus to me. The music in the game is amazing. One of the songs reminds me of my favorite Mass Effect 3 soundtracks. and That song fully fits into a zombie survival game. I love it!
Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Big world to discover.
- Vehicles feel amazing.
- Story is very good!
- Many different cars and weapons.
Cons:
- Sometimes controls get messed up.
- Houses have limited building area.
- NPC's are rather useless.
- No Co-Op / multiplayer.
Final Grade: 8/10
Extra info: I really enjoyed playing State of Decay! It's a really awesome, story based survival game. But when ever I play the game, the "Oh my God, I need Co-Op!" just screams over and over again. Hopefully the developers are thinking about that! The game can be purchased
right here.
