State of Decay Review

I’m really getting to grips with State of Decay and it’s about the only thing I’ve played since its release last week – yes the zombies something appear from no-where, frequently characters clip through walls and doors, frame rate sometimes drops, textures have a tendency to pop in and occasionally you get blocked into a corner by your own ‘allies’ but it’s
completely enjoyable in almost every way.

In my game, which I’m guess is over half way through the main storyline has featured the army, base movements and the black fever as well as hillbillies, supercars and hundreds of dead Zeds (the reference used for the Zombies in game).

The interesting premise here is the permi-death associated with the game itself. If a character dies they are gone forever; your ‘friends’ are you lives and each has their own levelling up capacities and specific uses.

All in all it is not a game born from this age of gaming and has almost zero hand holding or tutorials beyond a quick ‘use this button’ display on screen. You aren’t a superhuman zombie slayer of armed up to the teeth with guns and rockets. Instead you are an everyman who is just trying to survive - because of this completing any of the tasks in game needs good preparation and a particular level of caution.

Yes, State of Decay is an open-world zombie survival game, but what’s not obvious right away – and glorious once you understand its depths – is that it’s a full-blown role-playing game - and a fantastic one at that.

You can switch back and forth between your allies to recuperate health and stamina which drains as you are attacked by the undead or overexert yourself. You’ll travel across a rather large multiple-town desert; recruiting new survivors, searching for supplies in shops and houses, as well as managing your ‘groups’ relationship with other parties.

Health is scarce; the zombies can move as fast as you once they are alerted, and most harrowingly, you can realistically only run for a short time before you get tired and have to stop for breath. The other interesting decision relates to weapons – yes there are guns – but do you go in loud by firing off a couple of bullets or bust some heads with your hand to hand combat weapons. All of these actions then add to the degeneration of item quality, which includes the cars you drive, and feed into the need to repair or replacement often.

Sound is also a big matter that effects your choices, aside from fire arms, scavenging too quickly can alert nearby Zeds, cars attract the hordes and even gaining entry to a door car cause a commotion.

Luckily every base you upgrade or outpost you create has a supply locker for your resources. These collections become more important as the game goes on too – lots of allies means more food is required to hold of starvation and more beds too for combating sleep deprivation. On top of this the Locker helps your groups influence on others. To explain - a shotgun you hold might be worth 90 Influence points, so removing it from your stash subtracts 90 Influence, preventing you from going full-on Rambo out there. It makes for a brilliantly balanced system where you’re constantly forced to make considered choices.

 

I personally started by working with three main characters, levelling up their skills like cardio and fighting but unfortunately one of them, Ed has now been killed. It was a harrowing time for me and my band of survivors as I had literally become attached to him both as a personality in my group and because of the time invested in boosting his skill. Secondly the effect knocked my group back which took me some time to bring them around to the idea of keeping things going and staying alive. Eventually, though, I recovered, keeping group morale high enough so nobody fled.

My first couple of hours were spent getting into how the game works. There is a bit of a learning curve but once you understand the in’s and out’s the whole experience is thoroughly enjoyable and at times even exciting. As a warning don’t underestimate the speed and viciousness of a single zombie horde. You simply must take out the undead individually in order to successfully defeat them. A stealthy approach, thanks to insta-kill moves pulled off by manoeuvring behind a Zed undetected, can be a powerful ally.

Overall though Decay has a few minor missteps but the plotline is engaging enough to see you through to the end. Unfortunately the choices you make for survival are sometimes too prompted and can lack the tough, unexpected results you made in The Walking Dead game from Telltale. And while it may seem unfair to criticise a game for non-existent features, you can’t help but daydream about the fascinating possibilities and adventures that a cooperative mode could have had. Undead Labs, the creators, have publicly stated that it had originally planned to include it and still hopes to add the mode via a post release patch as long as the game sells well enough to fund it.

State of Decay’s ambition reaches farther than most full priced titles, so its value is unquestionable as a XBLA download – especially given how it manages to successfully meet so many of its lofty goals. I have spent about 15 hours in the Zed-infested world and will happily spend many more. The whole experience exudes the class of modern zombie games so State of Decay fits the same lofty tower as the Left 4 Dead series and the Walking Dead episodes.