Dying Light

[Brody]

Anyone else playing this? I'm enjoying it so far. It's pretty much a fun Dead Island.

[Meacon Keaton]

Not yet. I want to get a better idea of how it is through reviews and see who all gets it on here, as my real life chums seem to have no desire to get it (they were burned by Dead Island).

How's the combat? Is it like Dead Island? What do you do during the day? Give us a spoiler-free review when you have a chance.

[Brody]

**Gameplay**

I love the walking dead series. There is a sense of desperation and urge to survive that I have rarely seen captured in any zombie games. Dying light I believe really captures this feeling really well. During the day, you run around to secure safe houses spread around the map and gathering resources that you need. At night you scramble to find a safe house to get away from the super zombies (I hope you can level up to a degree to hunt them down eventually). The night is so freaky that I get nervous going out at night. It's a true testament to what Techland was able to accomplish, when they said "At night you are the prey". The last game I remember that really freaked me out was Dead Space.

There are a lot of activities to do. From the standard running missions (Go and fetch something and deliver) to quarantine zones which are like insta dungeons, will be great for co-op.

Every few hours in game, there is an air drop that is a race against time to get there before others do to secure the drop. It's a race against time versus A.I. and I suspect other players when co-op is open. The rewards are huge survivor points if you successfully secure an air drop. Found these really fun to complete.

You have to be a lot more methodical in your approach to taking down zombies, you can't just run around bashing them all in - you will get swamped.

So far I have across the following types of zombies:

1. Standard Zombie - Slow moving with limited damage

2. Standard Zombie on steroids - Running zombies with limited damage

3. Zombie Hulks - Slow moving with heavy damage

4. Spitters - Jumping and spitting venom

5. Boomers - They explode and can insta kill you

6. Hazmats - Zombies with tanks of oxygen on their backs that explode if striked from behind

7. MOTHERFUCKING NIGHT HUNTERS - ONLY APPEAR AT NIGHT AND ARE THERE TO FUCK YOUR DEAD CORPSE. HATE THEM.

8. Screamers - Baby Zombies that scream at you and attract other zombies.

The amount of zombies you see at a time I would say is about 15 - 20 max. It's not anything like dead rising with massive numbers of zombies. I personally think it works well with the style of the game.

**Controls**

You start out learning to parkour and as you level up, you open up more abilities that adds multiple combinations in your approach to the combat and parkour. You have 3 skill trees - Survivor (from completing missions), Agility (from parkour) and Power (from fucking up zombies). As you level up, you get points to unlock nodes on the tree.

At first, the controls were a bit jarring. The jump button is mapped to the right bumper on ps4 (R1). This is your main button that initiates your parkour. This was completely counterintuitive to me being used to 'X' being the jump button. Although as you keep playing it more and more, the controls become more natural - I did have the occasional issues when out off fore of decade of gaming I hit the 'X' button. You cannot map individual buttons to different functions and have only 3 presets. To initiate parkour, you need look upwards towards a ledge and then hit the jump button. It's a lot of fun sequencing a series of jumps to run across a series of obstacles. It's very very fluid once you get used to the control mechanism.

Each weapon you pick up has a different style of striking and it varies based on the stamina you have (stamina sucks in the beginning). Stamina works as follows - initially you can only strike 3 times in a row before you run out off stamina. As you level up, your number of strikes increases. It strikes a fine balance between being able to take down a few zombies and needing to run.

**Weapons**

Most of the weapons I have come across are melee weapons. There are supposedly ranged weapons too and guns, but haven't come across them yet. The melee weapons have different levels reflected by a colour code - each higher level having better damage and durability. As you use the weapons, the durability goes down till you need to repair it - and you have a limited number of repairs per weapon.

**Story** (Potential spoilers)

With the lacklustre of the story telling in recent games (destiny, watch dogs), I was nervous about the story in dying light. You are essentially a mercenary who has been sent in to retrieve a secret file. You come across two camps of survivors - a group who are trying to save as many people as possible and a rival group who will do whatever it takes to survive. As you run missions for these two groups of survivors, you are also following the orders of the unit that sent you in. In between all these survivors you come across other pockets of survivors who have their own set of side missions. I find most games lack a compelling story to draw me into it, but surprisingly I have found myself drawn into the story presented here. I am at 15% of completion with the story (15 hours in), been sidetracked by so many other activities.

**Sound**

The voice acting is great. The voices of the characters are varied enough that as you spend more time with the game, you come to associate certain voices with certain characters. The voice acting adds a whole dimension of character to the survivors you meet, from the exuberant kid who wants to save the world to the desperate voice of a father who just wants to survive. There is a great amount of attention to detail with the characters that the voice acting brings to life.

Techland has done a fantastic job with the sound design that really adds to the atmosphereand really immerses me in the game. One of the coolest things is that when you are on a two way radio, you receive the responses over the Ps4 controller speaker, as if you are holding the radio in your hand. Very cool implementation. You controller rumbles every time a plane with a supply drop passes over you. There is also a rain cycle that at night or day really changes the atmosphere and feel of the game, everything is much darker making it harder to navigate; and imagine the sound of rain drops, thunder and deafening screams of zombies in the background.

8.5/10

Edited January 28, 2015 by Brody

[Baddar]

Nice little write up, Brody. Looking forward to getting this now.

[Kaney]

I've seen the physical copy has been delayed, but why the blue fuck is the digital version up to £15 more expensive?

[Baddar]

I've seen the physical copy has been delayed, but why the blue fuck is the digital version up to £15 more expensive?

Because they can charge that much. FIFA was £59.99 on release, for example, when you could buy the Ultimate Edition in stores for around a tenner less.

The GAME exclusive edition looks like it could be worth waiting for. The weapons included look very nice.

[Dan]

I got it for £15 because GameStop fucked up. Now I'm waiting to see if they're going to revoke the code or give me the season pass for free. People on CAG and NeoGaf seem to think we'll be getting the season pass for free which would be stupidly amazing (brand new game and season pass for £15!).

I've quite enjoyed what I've played so far, it's like a much better Dead Island.

[Gabriel]

So far, so good with Dying Light.

The controls are a little bit weird at first, but the longer I play the more natural they seem to get. I do, however, keep hitting L2 to kick, which instead unleashes my fireworks or my other items. This, of course, is because the strike button is R2, which would make L2 a natural for kick.

The game itself has been tons of fun though, with the zombie kills being so very satisfying. I'm not a huge fan of the parkour gimmick, but it doesn't take away from my experience at all.

[Tyrone]

Picked this up last night based quite a bit on Brody's review. Really enjoying it so far, and some of the most fun I've had since buying my PS4. Like that you're able to get around in the daytime and then shit just goes down once the night comes. Legitimately spooky using the triangle button to look behind you when you're sprinting and seeing night hunters right on your tail.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Tyrone

[Kaney]

Downloading this now. I really liked Dead Island (in theory) but there were so many missed opportunities with it. Hopefully this makes up for that.

[TKz]

http://gfycat.com/ExemplaryUnripeAmurstarfish

Sold.

[Baddar]

I've been waiting for the GAME version because of the exclusive weapons, but going by the reviews, the weapon "health" is fucking terrible, and they become useless after a few uses. Which makes me wonder if the weapons I'm essentially paying for as part of the special edition will just deteriorate and become useless too...

[TKz]

You can repair your weapons on the go (it takes like a second). Each rarity has a higher number of times it can be repaired on top of that and there are perks that give you a chance not to use one of the repair chances. Apparently some of

I'm still not keen on this trend in Dead Island type games, but that's probably the best system for it yet.

[Gazz]

http://gfycat.com/ExemplaryUnripeAmurstarfish

Sold.

A dropkick?

Over the top rope?

To a Zombie?

Is the player character Maven?

[Trey]

So now that this has been out a bit longer, is it something I should just rent or is it worth an actual purchase?

[Mr. X]

I decided to buy this for the PS4 and so far I'm having fun. Not quite sure what to really think, but the fact that I spent 2 or 3 hours in a game and it seemed to breeze by bodes well so far.

[Brody]

I've been waiting for the GAME version because of the exclusive weapons, but going by the reviews, the weapon "health" is fucking terrible, and they become useless after a few uses. Which makes me wonder if the weapons I'm essentially paying for as part of the special edition will just deteriorate and become useless too...

The exclusive weapons will more than likely be blueprints so when they eventually do break you will be able to just craft another one.

[Gabriel]

I'm stuck on Survive the Ambush.

I got to the point where I've escaped the bullets in the water, but now I've got a bunch of enemies with guns looking for me, and no guns myself.

Every walkthrough I've seen says to do it with guns and headshots to my enemies... but it loads right outside of the room, and I have no guns. I've spent way too long trying to be sneaky and pick them off, but as soon as they start shooting, I'm fucked. Anybody manage to do this without firearms?

[Kaney]

I used my guns as I made sure to always have one with me at all times. Have you got the shield upgrade yet? That's a lifesaver if you've got the blueprints otherwise I'd say try to use throwing weapons and hide as much as possible.

[Gabriel]

I used my guns as I made sure to always have one with me at all times. Have you got the shield upgrade yet? That's a lifesaver if you've got the blueprints otherwise I'd say try to use throwing weapons and hide as much as possible.

Well, I'm just right fucked then.

No guns. No throwing weapons. No shield blueprint. Every time I die, I've used more of my shit too. Eventually I won't have anything left.