The Save Points!

When I first heard of this, I thought it would be something similar to RE4, with slow useless zombies that aren’t exactly hard to kill or anything, and overall wouldn’t interest me.
I recently saw some videos and thought “Whoa, this looks crazy”. Well today the demo was made available to the public (instead of just people who pre-ordered) so I thought i’d take a gander.

Read on for my impressions.
 
Graphics
The graphics aren’t too bad. The zombies look kinda scary, some more than others, the environments are really well done. The playable characters though don’t look THAT great. There’s some nice details and such, but overall they don’t look real. I think the graphics really fit well though, and overall it’s a really good looking game.
Other than that there’s a few graphical glitches. Most notably right down the first stairway, I could see a zombie’s head pass through a wall from the next room, or you can pass through your teammates’ bodies and see them transparently and such which just looks weird.

Weird stuff like that happens

Sound
This is spot on. All the sound effects, the voices, the zombie screams everything fits in great. I was totally freaked out he first time I went in the subway and heard the Witch there. Not much more to say here.

Gameplay 
Really like this. This is definitely not your normal zombie game. Instead of the weak and slow zombies from normal zombie games, the ones here are fast and strong, and there’s a lot of them at a time.
The game plays like a normal FPS, using the HL2 engine, so right there it’s a pretty different take on the usual zombie game.  The game is really fast-paced, but at the same time it retains the usual “is there something around the corner” feel zombie games usually have. 

So you start off on top of a building, and you must get in the streets to  get to the subway to eventually get to a safe spot. You get a few weapons on the way: Shotguns, Machine Guns, Molotov Cocktails, pipe bombs and Pistols with infinite ammo (you have to reload, but you still have infinite ammo) which gets really badass once you get a second pistol. So basically you’re going from room to room, or just different sections of the map to get to the next and you kill zombies on the way.

There’s the normal zombie who runs fast and gang up on you, but there’s also a handful of boss enemies. Hunters are super agile and stick to surfaces and kill by jumping on you and slashing at you until a teammate helps you out. Smokers strangle you with their really long tongues, and release gaz when they die, reducing visibility and such. Boomer are fat… They vomit on your and explode when you kill them (putting vomit on you if you’re close to them). Their vomit attracts hordes of normal zombies, so be careful.
There’s 2 also super bosses: Tanks, who are just really big and strong. And Witches, who “injure”(if you don’t get helped fast you die) you in one hit. Those will attack you if you startle them (AKA flash your light at them, shoot near them, or shoot them), and they have really creepy voices when you’re near them.
So there’s a nice variety of enemies and the bosses really make things interesting.

If I had to fault something there, it’s the AI controlled teammates. They constantly get in the way and are kinda useless unless there’s a horde attacking.

Overall the gameplay is really good, much better than I expected, I was really surprised. Fast-paced, requires a bit of strategy, and overall just really fun to play.

Overall
I was actually surprised. I wasn’t expecting this kind of fast-paced action from a zombie game. This is more about teamwork to get to the end and just blowing the crap out of everything in your way than it is about conserving ammo and such like other zombie games (I mean, you have dual-pistols with infinite ammo).

It’s a really fun game, better than I expected. Great gameplay, nice atmosphere, it’s just really well done.  I didn’t play the online yet, but i’ll be sure to give it a whirl sometime soon.

I don’t think I’ll be buying this game until it gets a price drop, but there’s no doubt in my ming that it’s a really good game. If you like FPS or zombie games, at least give it a try, you could really end up liking this.

Screenshots
Took a couple.

2 of your useless teammates

 

Disgusting, just got vomited on >_>

 

This zombie is about to get pwndÂ

 

Why not shoot my teammates? It's not like they're useful anyways

 

Currently dying after stupidly attacking the witch. At least I could still shoot in that state.

 

Those tanks are big, but they're nothing a shotgun can't take care of.

jobocan Games