Developed by Undead Labs, State of Decay is fresh take on the zombie apocalypse genre, sort of. Read on to learn if State of Decay offers enough to hold your interest or if your current horde of zombie games are already enough to keep you happy.
While there are plenty of zombie slaying titles now available on today’s market, none of them really push the survival aspect as strongly as this game does. Besides the obvious time you’ll spend slaying zombies, you’ll also need to scavenge everywhere for food, medical supplies, and other survivors to help you on your quest. Of course you can do some of this stuff in other similar titles but its never been quite on the same level it is in Sate of Decay.
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The game begins with you being on your own, and you’ll have a basic weapon to begin, but weapons break, and you may find yourself beating down zombies with your bare hands at times. Scavenging abandoned buildings or searching the woods can often yield a new weapon as well as other necessities to help you in your travels. One of the more impressive features in the game is the ability to build your own home base whether it be a simple house, farm, or a warehouse. You can block of windows and doors, a rather highly recommended step to keep your ass safe. With your your home base you can do quite a few things including creating a garden to grow food or you can focus on building and upgrading your weapons and crating new ones.
You can build your own community by finding new survivors in the world, but if you don’t focus enough on your defences then you could become overrun by infection, zombies, or starvation. Plus, if one of your survivor friends are killed then they will not respawn. Honestly though, other characters even including your own in the game are really not all that memorable. The game pot is loosely implemented and doesn’t really build up to anything nor does it expand on its characters and this pushes your focus toward the gameplay.
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While you’re out scavenging and roaming the world, sound plays an integral part of the overall experience. Obviously loud noises aren’t recommended and gunshots can trigger large numbers of zombies to quickly flock to your location. Unfortunately the game is also riddled with bugs though, and sometimes zombies will randomly get stuck in the middle of nowhere or they just won’t respond to your presence at all. Other glitches are of a cosmetic variety including some very bad pop-in graphics, and at times it’s just hard to see in the overly bright areas of the forest.
Visually though, State of Decay is a pretty impressive game. It’s not always stunning, but the farms and small towns are often quite impressive and they fit the theme of the game extremely well. The post apocalyptic feeling is perfect in the game, and even with other people showing up occasionally, you feel like you’re pretty much on your own.
State of Decay isn’t perfect, but its a fresh take that offers a few new variants on the genre while mixing it up with some stuff we’ve already seen in other games. If you can look past the bugs, there’s a diamond in the rough with this game, and with a little patience and an open mind, there’s fun to be had with this game.
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