The guys at Housemarque who are responsible for the insanely addictive Super Stardust HD have decided it’s their turn to dip their toes in the zombie game pool. You’ll learn quick that you’re never safe while playing Dead Nation where you’ll cautiously enter the pool slowly and you might see a zombie or two only to suddenly be pushed right in the deep-end where the horde was waiting for you.
Dead Nation
Developer: Housemarque
Price: $15.00
Platform: PS3 (reviewed)
Housemarque decided to stick to what they know so Dead Nation plays like a stick shooter with a difference with the right stick turning your character and having to hit R1 to shoot. This of course is an important change from regular stick shooters since in Dead Nation ammo gets depleted on a regular basis so you’re going to want to hold on to that trigger finger and approach each encounter with the undead with a calm mind. Of course when I say this I mean run the fuck away shouting while “NOPE!” each time you hear a manhole being opened or when you hear the sound of a Bombie coming up. The game also supports offline and online co-op as well which is always a huge plus.
Dead Nation has 10 chapters for you to go through which can each last around 30 minutes to complete, so you’re looking at a good 4-5 hours of playtime from this. Each mission starts out with a voice-over from one of the protagonists you chose to play as, detailing your objective, and your only goal is to get there in one piece. You can choose to basically sprint your way through the levels (except for mandatory areas where you have to clear a few waves out) but you’ll be missing out on tons of loot and end up seriously underpowered by the end game. Scattered around the levels are chests with gold, cars with gold, and vending machines with… well health packs of course. If you want to risk death you can steer off the main route at certain times to hopefully find a chest with an armor upgrade or point multiplier chests. Speaking of points, this is a big part of the game because as you kill zombies you’ll rack up thousands of points to hopefully get a highscore on the leaderboards. Once you get your multiplier up to 400x the points really start adding up, but I got to 400x after playing through 2 chapters straight without much fault. Of course the catch here is that if you choose to quit the game you lose your multiplier and will start back at 0 the next time you play, so highscore enthusiasts will want to skip out a day of work to blow the whole game in a day for that #1 spot. A neat addition to the leaderboard is the fact that not only is your score counted individually, it’s also counted to the points your county made. You can see how many players are playing in each county, how many zombies have been killed, and which county is on top (Hint: It’s America). This adds a nice twist to the thought that you’re not fighting other players for a spot on the leaderboards, but other counties instead.
Another of the main selling points of Dead Nation is that it allows you to choose how you want to play the game. First thing you’ll learn is that you have 3 different types of armor you can mix and match that will boost your Power, Endurance, and Agility. You’ll be able to find armor parts throughout the levels in hidden areas so it pays off to go exploring instead of running for the next checkpoint. Included are weapon upgrades that are just simple things like clip size, power, rate of fire, and the range.While playing with a friend I was more focused on upgrading the main starting rifle and sticking with a high endurance while my friend chose to go for the agility upgrades and ran around with his upgraded SMG/Shotgun combo.
The thing I love most about this game is how quickly things can escalate from calmly shooting silly zombies to shitting your pants and hoping there’s another checkpoint coming up. I literally felt mentally exhausted after finishing each chapter in the game since the zombies have decided that this time you’re never going to get a break from them. Each encounter tosses a handful of zombies at you only for you to realize the other hand was holding a bucket full of the bastards. Of course you’ll be happy to meat up with the Boomer, I mean the Bombie which is a fat zombie that blows up, the Jumper who’s the offspring of a Tank and Smoker, and there’s also the Mouth who decides that instead of contributing to the team he’s just going to call for help (Protip: Kill him quick because he calls a LOT of help). Housemarque didn’t do a stellar job with the models of the zombies/characters but you can hardly tell since the camera has the typical top-down view, and the only way you’d tell the models where sub-par were if you saw a trailer. What they did excel in was in the gore and lighting with meat bits and blood spraying all over the streets and your flashlight realistically lighting everything with complimentary shadows. The game can get scarily dark with you having to rely on your flashlight for your source of light and this can get unnerving when you hear a Bombie and you can’t tell which direction it’s coming from. Dead Nation also has a variety of levels ranging from your city streets to hospitals and a carnival (basically all the cool places to get your brain eaten by zombies). My one complaint is that the menu screens feel so bland and uninspiring. I usually don’t comment on how menus look, but in this case it looks like Housemarque hired some kid who’s studying Design 101 to do them.
The Final Word
Despite a difficulty curve that looks like Michael J Fox drew it and some ugly menus Dead Nation is a great purchase if you still haven’t gotten tired of killing zombies. Get a friend, buy the game, and sit down for some good times ahead.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Excellent
