[Review] Overkill’s The Walking Dead

[King_of_lion]

The first-person shooter survival game, developed by Overkill Software, was published by Starbreeze Studios and 505 Games on November 8 for PCs.

As the name clearly shows, this game takes a lot of inspiration from the comics series and TV series The Walking Dead.

I really wanted to enjoy this game, playing games based on literary or television sources. I am always excited to see how much influence this literary work has had on the minds of others, especially game developers, they certainly look at this world full of details differently from us. Viewers.

But unfortunately, after seeing the beginning clip of the game, which was very cool, I found that the game itself is not good enough to prove itself among the survival games of the current era, but it does a great job in processing the details of the original material, and presenting them in a good picture will be happy Loved by original work.

I will talk about these two points in more detail, but at the beginning I will begin my review to talk about the development of the story in the game.

Strange choice for anecdotal viewer view
As I mentioned before, the game welcomes you by showing one of the graphically powerful clips, as well as anecdotal, as it shows all the points I liked in The Walking Dead in a very short time.

What I liked in the series in short, is that the lives of people in the series do not translate into the continuous shooting of the zombies daily, such as action-free action movies, but relies on the drama between the heroes as a priority in the presentation of the idea, and portray the relations between them, and simple things they do For the sake of some of them, which have very large meanings, because the world in which they live is nearing completion.

Also, in the war of survival, there are many differences that occur between humans and each other, because resources are very limited, so do not be surprised if you find yourself on a day forced to kill humans like you, everything is permissible in order to survive.This is what the beginning clip does, illustrating these points par excellence, simple moments that show how the heroes depend on each other, their war with zombies and other people who are trying to eliminate them, and distinct music puts you in the atmosphere of awe on which the idea of the game depends. The clip looks just as graphical as the game's trailer for example.

Then all this creativity disappears, to see the place of strange story scenes before each mission, reminded me of the story scenes in the game of Call Of Duty Ghosts, and although the dialogue sentences and voice performance of the storyteller wonderful, but the scenes themselves are nothing more than elements are red light on them Annoying, or still moving images, made me feel like I would have been better if I read a novel, or maybe I would have been more happy if I saw such scenes in 2010 for example, but nowadays, I consider this to be a substandard effort.

So much freedom, so little to do with it
You can choose one of four characters to play with, with the possibility of opening two new characters later, for a final total of six characters, each of which has its own weapons and abilities, and can also be customized and changed their shape and equipment in many different ways.

The game also contains Tutorial that explains the special abilities of each character, and their relationship to the world of comics and serial, which gives a degree of realism to the shape of the characters in

There are many abilities that can be opened to help you perform tasks, such as special abilities that have an impact on you as a player, such as increasing points of life or running time, all of which are common to all characters, and special abilities that affect the way the character plays itself, which varies from character to character. Others, depending on their characteristics, equipment and weapons.

Weapons can also be modified in different ways, such as adding silencers, binoculars, or any of the other things we are used to in other shooting games.

The characters in the game are not locked into a specific weapons system.You can get as many weapons later and change the settings as you want, but of course there are weapons that work best with certain characters and vice versa.

Not only can the characters be customized, you will be able to unlock the camp's ability early in the game. New abilities other than those of the main characters).

There are many things to do and take care of, the balance between character development and interest in the camp are the key success factors in all the tasks you will face.

How is it all translated in the same gameplay missions? Unfortunately, real missions are much simpler.It can be said to be divided into only two types.The first type depends on fighting crowds of zombies or defending a particular area, and the second type is to reach a certain point or get something specific required by the task.

The game depends entirely on the cooperation between the players, you can never play on your own.This is not because of a technical defect or the like, but because of the difficulty of the missions, and the scarcity of resources available on the missions, which will make you completely dependent on other players.

 
For example, on a point-of-arrival mission, you will always find yourself stopped by closed doors, which need to collect some belongings from the map, in order to open that door, and you can only carry one thing, which means that if you are alone, You will have to go on multiple trips back and forth on the map, in order to bring all the belongings to open this door, of course this topic is easier with friends.

This is not the only obstacle in every mission, but there are also many different traps left in the map, and obstacles that require looking for other, safer ways, just like any other survival game.

You can also get some resources, make your own traps, and use the surroundings around you in different ways, such as opening doors to zombie monsters to eliminate people who are bothering you, blocking some doors with wood, or firing car horns to attract zombies around you.

As I mentioned in the introduction, zombie monsters are not the only enemies in the game, but there are also people like you who carry weapons similar to you, and have some more intelligence qualities than zombies that attack automatically without any thought.

 
The whole subject looks good on paper, but when you play yourself, the subject doesn't seem as scary or realistic to the degree that I imagined, I found myself that I could run fast and get away with most of the monsters scattered on the map, so that I could approach an enemy soldier and hit him without he Any reaction or know what happened to him.

The zombies walk in specific itineraries, leaving no space for surprises or terrifying movements.You can observe how they move in a few seconds, and choose the path that makes you avoid them, even if you cross by them, most often they will not do anything, unless you get too close to them.

The only thing you can do when one of Josh's zombies swoops at you is to push him back, or kill him with handguns. Handguns are a key factor in this game because of a lack of resources. Although the shooting system and the pain in the game seem very real, you will not use guns for a long time because of the lack of bullets, and you will eventually have to resort to handguns.

After a short time you won't even care about it because you don't get new weapons from the people you kill, just more bullets, and you don't get anything from zombies, which made me not much interested in the initiative and attack, and I preferred running and staying away from all the beasts that bother me.

Although all of this seems essential in any survival game, you will find it boring and repetitive after a while, especially after the zombie monster swoops at you for the 50th time, and pushes it for the 50th time, without any real need to eliminate any of them, or dump my guns at them. , And the graphical way in which the situation is presented looks very bad, like a cheap horror game, where there is no dynamic, or even terrifying or different scenes, that makes me terrified every time it happens.

The missions can also become repetitive after a while, as you will not focus on killing and defeating enemies as much as getting a gear or chain to open a door, and having to go back long distances to look for them, after you have hardly traversed behind zombies. Come back again because you forgot something important. Here you only have to rely on one of your friends who got this thing, and saved you from the danger of returning again, but communication in this game is only in writing, and the game does not carry a voice program of its own, which I found strange in a game based on communication and cooperation Among the players in the first place.

In short, the real problems in this game enable in the artificial intelligence of the enemies, and the way the tasks that require you to focus on unimportant things, and at the same time boring, I do not focus on survival and help the team, as much as my full focus in the search for The things I didn't see, because I was busy escaping the zombie monsters. During this focus, I forget many important things, such as using my weapons and abilities that I had tired to prepare in advance before the task began, and even helping my friends with their problems.

The future of Overkill’s The Walking Dead
I can honestly say that I do not see myself going to spend a lot of time playing this game, because of the small number of missions, very similarities, and the weakness of the story which becomes boring after a short time.

The missions are a bit long, but they are repetitive, and you'll find yourself losing a lot before you succeed one time, and this success in my opinion is due to luck rather than skill. It makes me come back to play again.

There are other missions that will be added later to the game, but I can't find myself interested if the missions will go the same way as the previous one.

Good moments in the game are not many, and if I love the original comics and series, I will be happy at first, but I will feel bored soon after playing the game.

There are no fierce wars, fateful decisions, or tests that require me to cooperate with my surviving friends enough to make me interested.

I can think of some things that could have saved this game, such as adding some other systems, other things that could be done on missions, or a real story system instead of still images, but in the current game image, it can't compete with survival games Now exist.