When PSN relaunched post-hack, I decided I'd check out one of the games that were offered with the "Welcome Back" program. Unfortunately, as I purchased my PS3 during the outage I was not eligible (although I believe I should have been as I was unaware and caught by surprise when I tried to log on for the first time) and had to plunk down some cash (or upload it via debit card transaction). The game I wanted needed one criteria: it had to support online coop. My buddy suggested "Dead Nation", and I went for it.
DN is a twin-stick top-down 3rd person perspective shooter. Left analog controls character movement, right analog controls aim, trigger buttons control weapon firing, melee attack, grenades and escape dash, and D-pad scrolls through inventory.
Jumping right into the game on the toughest difficulty proved challenging for me. All that action on the triggers really gave my index finger on both hands a workout. It took a couple levels before I properly memory mapped each button and stopped throwing grenades when I meant to melee, and so on.
There's a bit of a learning curve to DN which I appreciated. The zombies in DN have various attributes. Some can be killed with one shot while others require more and more firepower to take down. Likewise, some of the various weapons for purchase are more appropriate in different situations. Spraying against a swarming horde of one-hit-kill zombies with a SMG works well, but not so much against anything else.
Weapons can be upgraded or purchased at checkpoints by spending money gathered as 'orbs' that are awarded for killing zombies, or found in chests or trunks of abandoned cars. These orbs diminish in value the longer it takes to gather them. For example, open a chest and orbs start pouring out, floating towards you, but walk far enough away and they will dim and become half their original value. This adds an interesting twist to the gameplay as killing a zombie horde up close and personal can be more rewarding than one located across the screen. This strategy becomes doublefold as the game's difficulty will warrant the need to accumulate as many orbs as possible to help upgrade and purchase weapons that much faster.
Sometimes, though, proper orb-collecting management is totally scrapped as huge swarms of zombies appear out of nowhere, making simple survival the name of the game. DN does well to balance out the reward process, as even though it took me a few levels to figure this all out, I seemed to always have just enough firepower to get through a level.
When I purchased DN, I thought the $15 price-tag was kinda high, but after playing through on 2 difficulty levels and trophy hunting for all but the last trophy, I spent over 35 hours playing the game, an amount that, to me, justifies the price.
What about the story? Oh yeah, it's some dribble about a virus outbreak and search for a cure while traversing post-apocalyptic zombie-infested areas, and is an afterthought compared to the game's well-polished, balanced, surprisingly deep gameplay.
What I liked:
Audio and visuals are well-polished.
The mixture of weapon and zombie characterisitics make for deep gameplay.
The game was challenging due to design, not cheapness.
What I didn't like:
No major boss battles.
Accidentally destroying a car before gathering orbs from trunk while trying to collect "Collect all loot" trophy.
Story could have been delivered better.
- 5
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