27.2.2015

Dying Light is a game that wasn't on my radar until a few days before it released digitally last month. Zombie games are nothing new and with games such as Dead Rising and Dead Island trying their hand at the genre, why should you check out Dying Light? Does it offer anything new? Is it worth buying yet another zombie game? I think so but let me explain why.-------------------------------------------------------Story-------------------------------------------------------The story of Dying Light isn't particularly ground-breaking but it's also not the traditional zombie story you'd expect. A virus has spread across the fictious city of Harran turned the people there into flesh-eating maniacs and,as the world watches on in horror and curiousity, someone within the city steals important documents that could lead to a potential cure for the virus. Your character, Kyle Crane, is a spy for an interested party and you are sent into the city undercover to find and retrieve these documents. As you parachute into the city you see how the virus has ravaged the city and turned it into a desolate and barren place. No sooner have your feet touched the ground when you are ambushed and, in the resulting scuffle, are bitten and infected with the virus.The game kicks off with you waking up in the "Tower" and becoming one of the runners there, volunteering to go out in the city and search for supplies and survivors all while you're actually trying to track down the person who stole these important documents. You meet various people throughout the story including the Tower Survivors and a bandit leader who is hoarding all of the medicine in traditional zombie-story-style. However, whilst the story isn't the standard run-of-the-mill affair, it's not fantastic either. It's pretty cool playing an undercover agent in a city overrun by zombies but the story is definitely not the main attraction of the game. The story is a decent length (although this is backed up with loads of side quests) with a good immersive feel and your character is voiced fairly well but you may end up playing the story not because you're interested in it but because you want to unlock more things and areas to explore.-------------------------------------------------------Graphics-------------------------------------------------------Dying Light looks very, very good. The city of Harran may be overrun by zombies but it feels like a living and breathing place thanks to the immersive feel of the game and the great visuals that it provides. Daytime effects look great, the rain and weather effects are very nice, the various districts of the city are represented well and general character models are detailed and life-like enough. The detailing on the zombies is pretty great and visually pleasing as you can find zombies with severed arms, holes in their ribs and the gore/blood spray mechanics are just as visceral as you'd expect. If you've played Dead Island then you'll notice it's very similar but no less satisfying. The various zombie models are interesting ranging from the giant Goon type enemy to the slim-yet-terrifying Volatiles that you'll find at night. On the whole, the developers have done a really good job making the game look, feel and play as smooth as possible and really shows what the newer consoles can do.-------------------------------------------------------Gameplay-------------------------------------------------------Dying Light is an open-world game filled with plenty to do. The prologue introduces you to elements like the free-running and fighting but then takes the learner wheels off and allows you to go exploring on your own. You can run, jump and climb up practically anything and it's so, so smooth and feels really good to do. The city is vast and travelling on the roads is dangerous because there are infected all over the place so sticking to the rooftops is a great way to travel. Not to mention that at the beginning of the game when you have few supplies and are generally weak in combat, you'll need to spend more time dodging enemies than fighting them.The combat in Dying Light is very similar to Dead Island in that you can use a wide variety of weapons ranging from pipes, wrenches, katanas, handguns and lumps of concrete to smash and slice your enemies into oblivion. At first you'll go through weapons quickly because they'll degrade fast but there's always something you can use nearby. You can upgrade your weapons to provide a variety of effects like electricity, fire and toxic through finding blueprints scattered around the game. For example, you could run around with a police baton customized with fire spitting from the tip if you like! You are also able to find weapon upgrades in the world that will buff a specific weapon with either more durability, damage or handling. Again, this is a very familiar upgrade system to Dead Island but not as crazy and far-fetched as you'd find in Dead Rising but it's still very thorough and enjoyable.In combat, you can swing wildly and hope for the best but your stamina bar will drain very quickly so you have to time your strikes and back away if you get overwhelmed. Head hits will obviously do more damage but you can also kick your enemies in the legs to try and knock them down. Caving in a zombies head with a pipe in slow-motion is very satisfying and never gets old either, regardless of what weapon of destruction you do it with. As I mentioned above, the early stages of the game feel quite slow because you will more than likely be avoiding enemies rather than fighting them. To help you navigate the city of Harran and survive the infected, you are able to craft a variety of items such Firecrackers to distract the basic infected, lockpicks to help you get into places like shops, stores and even abandoned cars and police vans and a variety of fun and interesting weaponry such as throwing stars (and explosive throwing stars which are very fun!), knives and molotovs. If you're the sort of person who dislikes picking up an item every twenty seconds then I'm afraid you're out of luck in Dying Light. There's always something nearby for you to pick up but it's not as bad as some other games (looking at you Dead Island with all those luggage bags!)This is not an RPG game like Dead Island but you are able to level your character in three distinct categories which are Survivor, Agility and Power. Every time you pull of a jump, climb up something or perform an athletic action you gain agility points. For every kick you land, enemy you kill or finisher you perform you are awarded points towards Power and you can increase your Survivor rank by completing missions, doing side quests and finding other survivors. The three categories have loads of skills and abilities that you can purchase to help you survive out there. You've got access to faster running, dropkicks, stun kicks, vaults, slides, increases in weapon damage, grappling hooks, power attacks, boosters and a whole bunch of other skills that are fun to play around with. The fact that you actually have to perform specific activities like jumps to increase your agility, or kills to up your power is a really great mechanic and feels very real. It's not like other games where you're constantly looking at your XP bar to see how close you are to levelling up because a lot of the time in Dying Light you'll rank up without even realizing how close you were. There's less focus on staring at an XP bar and more on actually DOING the things you need to level up.There are tons of side-quests that you can embark on ranging from finding medicinal supplies and helping out your fellow survivors in the wild. If you played Dead Island then you'll remember how a lot of the side missions in that game were trivial and had you fetching silly items like champagne or diamonds with little incentive to actually do so. In Dying Light you'll want to go on these quests because they not only provide you with rewards like weapons, experience or outfits but they seem to expand on the main story as well by letting you interact with other survivors around the game world. I was impressed by the amount of side-quests that popped up so quickly after the tutorial and that's just the start of the game! Like I said above, the main story of this game isn't really the main attraction but the amount of side-quests in Dying Light must be praised because there's probably more than you think there is!When you're out and about in the world you can take on these numerous side quests the game has to offer but you can also get involved with other things as well. There are safe areas dotted around the city that you can travel to in order to get some rest and sleep during the terrifying night time. Upon reaching these areas for the first time you'll have to clear them of any infected and shore the place up by locking any gates and doors and finally, turn the power on and light the place up. This is a really nice mechanic that enforces the point that you're trying to survive out there. It's wise to go around and get as many safe houses unlocked during the day so when night falls you've got a place to go to because you do NOT want to caught outside once the sun goes down! There's no fast-travel in the game but this was a good decision because it can make you dread the arrival of night when you're miles away from a safe location. That sense of dread is something the game does very well.With the rest of the world watching the events unfold in Harran air drops are sometimes sent into the city to help out the survivors. Whilst you're exploring you might spot the plane fly overhead and see the air drop parachute down. If you choose to go after it you'd better be quick before the bandits grab it. If you get to it fast enough, you might be able to stop them from stealing it but once it's yours you can open it up and grab the relief packages that lay inside. If you take these back to the Tower Quartermaster he will reward you with Survivor points which is very, very helpful. Again, this is a great little dynamic mechanic that not only makes the game feel more immersive but it also gives the player something else to do or look forward to doing. On top of all this you can encounter random survivors out in the wild who will undoubtedly need help fending off zombies. Help them out and they'll reward you with items or money. This is a fairly simple mechanic but, again, it brings the world to life and helps remind you that you're not the only one out there trying to survive.Now the night-time aspect of the game is where Dying Light offers something different to compared to other similar games. As you are out and about exploring or doing missions, time is constantly going round and round. During the day the infected are pretty tame and as you'd expect (with the exception of the special infected like Goons etc.) but once it gets to about 7pm in-game, you'll get a warning telling you that it's getting dark (just in case you didn't notice!). Once it gets to 9pm, the game changes and this is when Dying Light really comes to life. Night time gameplay can quite unnerving at times and that's coming from somone who's put hours into this game! The game becomes very dark, it becomes hard to see, the regular zombies literally come to life and become much more aggressive and, most importantly, Volatiles come out to play. These special infected can run, climb, and sprint even faster than you so escaping them can be very hard. They appear all over the map and you can see on your own mini-map that they have cones of vision to detail where they are looking. If they see you, they will pursue you relentlessly and can inflict a lot of damage but you are able to damage them with UV Lights and various traps that you can set-up around the city.I'm sure that there are some of you reading this who don't think any of this sounds exciting or impressive but believe me, the atmosphere that the developers have created at night is really, really well done and, at first, can really make you dread the night coming (especially in the early game stages) but it's something you have to experience for yourself. I'll admit that when I heard about the night-time mechanics of the game I didn't know what to expect but when I actually sat down to play the game and experienced my first night (where I wasn't sitting in a safehouse!) it was really spooky and I played very cautiously and that's why I love it so much. If you don't feel like tangling with the Volatiles during the night you can always hot-foot it to a safehouse before it gets truly dark and wait it out while you organize your inventory or purchase supplies or you could just advance time via sleeping, it's up to you.If you feel like adventuring through the night you will be rewarded for doing so. Agility and Power points are doubled during the night so if you want to raise your skills, night time is both the best and worst time to do it! Survive through a night and you'll not only get a sense of satisfaction but you'll also receive XP bonuses based on a variety of things such as not getting spotted by Volatiles or exploring a certain distance. Needless to say, I am really impressed by the night time elements of Dying Light and, even after investing thirty plus hours into the game and being armed to the teeth with various weaponry, you still might feel uneasy when the alarm on your watch begins to go off signalling that the night is coming.Finally, Dying Light features co-op and online play modes. You can play with up to three other people and explore the vast maps of Harran while slaying zombies, free-running up buildings or just progress the story. You can also open your game up for invasions (you can choose whether to turn this off completely so don't worry) which will allow other players to invade your game as the Night Hunter and try to hunt you down. This is fairly similar to the online game modes but the invasion system adds the element of surprise because you never when it's going to happen (unless you specify for it to only happen at night or at any time) and it works fairly well. The online aspect of the game involves one player playing as a Night Hunter zombie whilst the other people in the game attempt to kill you and damage your nests that are scattered around the map. From the experience I've had with this, it works fairly well (minus the few connection issues I had) but it felt like there was something missing. It certainly felt good to swing around the city, stalk the other players in the game and level up the Night Hunter and unlock more upgrades and powers but the problem is that there's nothing else to do. Whilst it provided me with a few hours of entertainment, I was always looking forward to gettting back into the singleplayer as I just found it more entertaining overall.So then, should you get Dying Light? I'm very pleased that I picked it up and am enjoying it more than similar games like Dead Island thanks to the free-running mechanics, great visuals and night time elements of the game. Whilst Dying Light doesn't really offer anything NEW to the zombie genre of games it's still a fun and enjoyable game and if you're looking for another decent game for your console then you might want to look at this. The story is fairly forgettable and won't make you leap out of your seat in surprise but with everything that you can do in this game there's a chance you won't even mind. If you're on the fence about buying this, I will say that I think Dying Light is a game you have to PLAY rather than watch in order to see if you like it or not so, with that in mind, I'd recommend holding off if you're unsure and wait for the price to drop. For fans of action, freedom, exploration and, of course, zombies I recommend this!PROS+ Looks excellent+ Free-running/movement is fluid+ Night time gameplay mechanics are a nice change of pace and add atmosphere to the game+ Satisfying combat+ Co-op capabilitiesCONS- Forgettable story- The online lacked substance

26.3.2015

Wow! I am genuinely struggling to find the right words for how amazing this game is. I suppose my opinion is influenced on the fact that, in general, so far the games I have had the chance to play on the PS4 have been for the most part average if not disappointing. But that does not take anything away from Dying Light and my opinion on this game is 100% honest, based on 15 hours of gameplay (in 2 days...yeah, I really haven't been able to put it down).Dying Light is an open world survival horror/action game, set in a city ravaged by a zombie apocalypse. A short summary is that we play as undercover agent Kyle Crane who is sent into the fictional city of Harran to infiltrate the quarantine zone.I don't want to spoil any more, but that is the general setting.I will sum up the game in several sections:GAMEPLAY:The game is great fun to play. It features an interesting parkour system whereby you can run and jump around and get pretty much anywhere you would like, one way or another. This proves a very useful skill given that there are zombies pretty much everywhere (without overdoing it). The game is viewed from first-person mode and the combination of the parkour abilities, as well as the thrill of running away from zombies, makes exploring the game world a lot of fun.We can do story missions, as well as many side missions, together with many other things to get through the game - for example, there are random events where we can come across another survivor being ambushed by zombies (or by other humans!), and can help him for a reward... or not. Another one are air drops - occasionally you will see a plane fly across the sky and drop some supplies. If you want to get to them you have to be quick, as there are some bad guys who will try to get to them first. Grabbing them gives you a lot of experience points, which are petty useful. This brings me to the next point - the game gives you a lot of freedom in what you do, how you do it and when you do it. I learned that sometimes you have to take a few seconds to analyse the situation before committing yourself. Using the above example, you could help the survivor, but are there lots of zombies nearby? Are there any of the more dangerous ones around? How much health/medkits do you have? How long do you have till night time? Having to take all these things into consideration when exploring the world and doing different missions makes the game a lot more fun, it creates a brilliant atmosphere whereby you genuinely immerse yourself into the zombie apocalypse.I have read complaints that the missions are repetitive and boring - I have not found this to be the case at all so far. We get asked to go out into the city and do different tasks, for example find important NPCs, find certain items, switch on power and many more things. It makes sense really given that in the story we infiltrate the city by pretending to be a 'runner' - one of a group of people scavenging supplies from the city and doing tasks to help the remaining survivors. So far I have not found the game to be repetitive in the slightest. The side missions take you to different locations around the city, and once again the freedom lets you do whatever you like. Along the way to the location you could encounter different events, there could be an air drop that you would rush off to, or perhaps you might like to gain some supplies from buildings whilst avoiding (or killing) zombies. Then there is the matter of how you approach the mission itself. Do you use stealth? Do you rush in and rush out? Do you eviscerate the enemies before doing anything else? Perhaps you'd like to do the mission at night, for double the experience and a genuine scare if you're seen by the volatiles?Whilst on the topic of the volatiles I would like to talk about the day/night cycle of the game. This feature in my opinion is fantastic. It doesn't unlock itself until you complete the tutorial so as not to put you off straight away. But once it does, you can be in for a scare. When night falls, the city becomes really dangerous, and really scary - and I do not scare easily, especially from games. Everything becomes VERY dark, the zombies become faster and more aggresive, but worst (or best) of all, the volatiles come out. These are a different type of zombie - they are very strong, very fast and can follow you anywhere unlike most other zombies, they are hard to kill, and they are very scary. The best thing to do when seen by one is to run - whilst it may not seem very courageous, getting to a safety zone after being chased by a bunch of these gives a real sense of relief and there is no shame to be had - they are simply too strong.The abovementioned safety zones are another part of the game, they will remind you of radio towers from Far Cry 3/4. Essentially you can unlock those around the city by defeating the zombies within, closing them down to prevent any more zombies from entering and switching the power and lights back on (the reason these are safety zones is that they have UV lights all around them, which the zombies, especially the volatiles, are not fond of at all). It's another fun experience, although I found it slightly easy on some of the safe houses. I would recommend unlocking as many as possible early on, because it's a great help if you end up caught outside close to nighttime, or at nighttime.At the same time, if you fancy your chances, or your stealth skills, you can explore the city at night. This gives you double experience for your actions. So far I have only really played out in the night once and that was due to a mission that requried it. Let me just say that I felt immense satisfaction upon completing it and reaching safety.Fighting in this game is mainly based on melee fighting. You can use many different weapons to eviscerate zombies, from hammers to pipe wrenches to wooden planks, there is always something different. Of course the weapons have statistics which help you choose what to use - for example, you may prefer a shovel that is heavy and does more damage but lets you attack slower than, say, a knife which lets you deal some swift damage. You have a certain amount of stamina so you can't just endlessly swing around without stopping. You can also kick enemies to give you a second to regain stamina, or perform other attacks - as a footballer I absolutely love the two-footed flying kick to the head of an enemy. In my opinion the fighting system is very good - it is realistic, but not impossible to master or frustrating like, for example, Skyrim's. Your weapons can break, and you can repair them a few times before they break altogether. Of course there are also distance weapons available, you have throwing stars, freezing throwing stars, explosive throwing stars, molotovs, there are guns and rifles as well, but you have to consider that they make a lot of noise to attract zombies.The game has a very interesting perk system, where you gain experience in three different categories: Survivor, Agility and Power. You gain the experience points doing different tasks, e.g. Survivor points for handing in air drops or helping out other survivors, Agiltiy points for using your parkour abilities, and Power abilities for attacking and killing enemies. These allow you to unlock new abilities, passive and active. I find this a great addition to the game as it lets you improve your character RPG-style, together with the equipment and crafting parts. Unlocking new skills also simply makes the game more fun to play.Crafting allows you to create different items used in different situations, for example lockpicks or medical kits. It also allows you to craft upgrades for weapons, which can add elemental damage, or you can upgrade your weapons handling (how fast you can swing it), damage, durability etc. etc., there is a wealth of options here and it's actually worth it to have a look through what you have collected every now and then and see if you can craft anything you need at the time.In terms of technical issues... I have not encountered any. Any at all. No bugs, not even little ones, and there are A LOT of objects to see that could easily be bugged and stuck into other objects or look blurry, but I have seen nothing of the sort. To be honest, if you compare this as an AAA title to an AAA title, so let's use Assassin's Creed Unity for an example here, it genuinely feels like the developers put in all the effort to provide us with a decent game that is playable and bug free. I felt like someone somewhere was treating someone like an idiot with AC: Unity - the game was riddled with bugs and FPS drops, and to this day I am unsure as to how such things could have been missed during the testing (was there even a testing stage?). But in Dying Light's case, a big high-five to Techland, they have provided.GRAPHICS:10/10. I could leave it at that really, but I think this game deserves an honest, comprehensive review. The graphics in this game are breathtaking. The city and its locations are stunning, character models look very good, the zombies, whilst seemingly not that difficult to be portrayed, also look decent and the volatiles are genuinely scary. There are some beautiful sights to be seen in a city ravaged by a zombie apocalypse. I have experienced absolutely zero FPS drops, no lagging, no zombies getting stuck in objects or hands casually levitating through tables as if they are not there. I expected the graphics to be good because I watched many videos before buying the game, but on the PS4 on a big TV they are amazing.SOUND:Again, no issues here. The sounds are clear and good, character voices admittedly sometimes sound very similar but it's not really noticeable. The game also uses sound brilliantly to add to the suspense, especially at night (but not only).MULTIPLAYER:I can't really say much on this yet. I know there is a co-op option to play with other players but I chose to play alone as there are sadly always some people who spoil the experience. I have played the Be a Zombie mode, as a survivor who was hunted by another player as a night hunter. It was a genuinely scary experience and I think it would be better if done together with others as alone it was very difficult, and scary.STORY:I described it in general above, I don't really want to include even small spoilers in here - I follow the story myself and find it interesting. It seems to be again a generic complaint for many people, that the story isn't spectacular. To be honest in a zombie world you really aren't spoilt for choices as to what your protagonists could possibly get up to on their adventures, and I think players need to stop complaining about things just for the sake of it. Sure, The Last of Us managed to provide an epic experience, but the story there was rather simplistic, it was the storytelling of the game that made it worth all the praise and awards it got. Of course I haven't got to the end of Dying Light yet so I can't comment on the whole story, but if after 15 hours of gameplay I am not bored in the slightest, then I think it can't be that bad.SUMMARY:I wrote this review after 15 hours of gameplay rather than after finishing the whole game. My reason for it is that it has been such a brilliant experience so far that I wanted to share it with others who may perhaps be unsure whether to buy the game or not. If you read the one and two star reviews, you will see the usual story of people not having a clue and rather than reviewing the game, they give one star because they were not sent a DLC code or for some other silly reason that has nothing to do with how fun the game is to play. I would definitely recommend it to any PS4 gamer.

19.3.2015

Firstly, a warning, this games takes a couple of hours to get into and probably another 2 or 3 before you're actually effective in dealing with any zombies - until that happens you have only one option....be very quiet and climb everything!The first time you find yourself caught out in the open and surrounded by zombies will probably result in you dying, the first time you're caught out at night - you'll panic and die and if you remember to press the correct button when being chased through the black night your treated to a 28 Days Later'esque slo-mo glance over your shoulder as they close in on you!So, onto the game itself.Think Mirrors Edge mixed with Dead Island and you've got it nailed.However, they have borrowed game mechanics from various other titles:1) Towers from AC games (read safe houses)2) Lock picking lifted directly from Skyrim3) Parkour takem from Mirrors Edge4) Quirky melee combat taken from Dead IslandThere is a story and it's not as bad as some would make out - you do find yourself doing numerous fetch missions but it's so easy to get sidetracked that it doesn't really matter. The game voice overs are good and believable and the characters typically over the top but semi-believable.I'm about 6 hours in and the story hasn't got old yet - though I'm realising that I need to level up quite a lot to carry on with the story since I keep getting killed!The game relies heavily on scavenging materials, building/crafting upgrades, molotovs, exploding throwing stars etc. At first this seems like a very slow process but you soon realise that multiple visits to the main safe house where the quartermaster resides means you can stock up on essentials - couple that with using your cash to buy materials rather than weapons means you can soon upgrade that trusty cricket bat to death dealing, electrifying, burning hunk of willow death!There is a skills tree split into 3 types of skill sets and you achieve skill points and level up as you go along.It has taken me about 6 hours to get to the point where I can do a running flying kick, slide on the ground as speed, parkour like a little lithe Frenchman and deal with about 2 or 3 zombies at a time if I get cornered - anymore than that and I'm a zombie snack!The graphics are quite nice - definitely 'next gen' (God I hate that term) and on the PS4 there have been no frame rate issues or screen tear and only slight pop in that I think I've noticed twice. I chose the PS4 version over the Xbox as it's not a game I'm going to play online and I read the frame rate was steadier on the PS4 version - so if, like me, you are lucky enough to own both of the newer consoles then I suggest going for the PS4 version.The only niggles I've had with the game is that when you die it re-spawns you back at the most local safe house from where you died - that in itself is fine - but if you've just died and used up 10 exploding throwing stars and ruined your favourite cricket bat doing it - it would be nice to have the option to load an (auto) save game from a previous slot when you still had all your supplies. I've had to go off and buy/scavenge/craft stuff all over again just to go back to the same place to get beaten over and over again - that is quite annoying. On the flip side, if you die in a mission to say recover a box of chocolates and an old dvd for a mother with Alzheimer's (yes I kid you not this is an actual mission!) and just as you pick the last item you get munched - at least when you respawn it remembered you'd accomplished your collection task so you don't have to do that again. Still, the option to save a whim would be good.I was in two minds about this game - I was hoping 1886 was going to be good but well... reviews say it all (that's one for when it's on sale).... but this will keep me going for quite a few hours.My only other complaint (and others have also stated this) is that the missions rely too heavily on the 'go fetch X, Y & Z in order to progress'. Sure, they wrap it up in a story with dialogue but it essentially boils down to tonnes of fetch missions. However, you'll probably find you're having so much fun doing it that you won't care.A word about combat - it's a bit crap at first - well, that's unfair, 'pointless' would be a better word, as 1 zombie can basically take 10+ hits with a baseball bat before it dies - just avoid them, scavenge, level up and then when you start modding your weapons you'll deal more damage. Just remember to repair them before they break as it's annoying for your favourite crowbar that's been modded with 3 different upgrade to break and be thrown away just because you forgot to repair it.Finally, a mention has to be made of the night time cycle - when you operate during the night hours you receive double XP points etc which means you level up quicker. The first couple of times you try this is nerve jangling and bloody scary but I recommend you simply stand adjacent to a safe house door and keep popping out and attracting the nasty ones - hit them once and back into the safe house - keep doing this and you'll kill a few and earn loads of points. The other tip - if you venture out properly is to keep a close eye on the mini-map and avoid the usual 'cones of detection' and do not run! Not unless being chased - they hear you banging around on the tin roofs really easily.Overall - I'd give it a 89% score which is high for me - so that means 5 stars on Amazon.

5.2.2016

S T O R YYou play as Kyle Crane, a covert operative sent to the fictional city of Harran to recover a secret file amidst a deadly plague running rampant. Upon landing you are infected with the virus and it only becomes a matter of time before it consumes you. Banding up with a group of survivors, you must seek out a cure, whilst tackling the raging zombie hordes and rogue factions.Dying Light's story is mired in B-movie cliches from the beginning. Crane isn't a likeable protagonist, nor are the forgettable survivors. The saving graces are the decent voice acting and expressive facial animations to capture performances.G R A P H I C S & S O U N DHarran is a beautifully detailed city,allowing Techland to take their Chrome game engine to new heights. The city is bustling with high rise towers, shanty towns and quarantined zones. Harran's graphical quality comes out in its day/night cycles. The lighting crackles through palm trees and every opening you can think of, making objects and surfaces sumptuously lit. Environmental draw distances are also incredible, allowing the player to gaze upon the city from a number of breathtaking views. The city's verticality and a sense of vertigo breathe life into the player's journey. The character models of the zombies and other beastly monstrosities will definitely help inject fear into the experience. The blood and gore effects are also at their most gruesome, as blood spills from zombie corpses in the most unnerving of ways.The human character models aren't as well designed in comparison to the zombies. The map design can also be a little inconsistent, limiting quick navigation and bogging down gameplay.G A M E P L A YDying Light's selling point is its fluid parkour gameplay. You will have Crane scurrying about the city in order to complete missions and escape the zombie hordes. Nearly every building in the city can be climbed upon, or even scurried up in a flash. Mastering the variety of parkour skills on offer will take some time, but they'll become lifesaving assets. Harran is overrun with zombies, which constantly staggers your survival chances. Missions range from helping survivors, reestablishing contact with your superiors and fighting against rogue factions. An important focus of the game is to liberate 'safe zones' and break the stranglehold of zombie forces. A number of distractions such as electrified surfaces and UV lights can also be a blessing.Learning how to wield weapons against the undead masses is another cornerstone of the experience. Even though the combat hasn't really evolved from the likes of Dead Island, it is still a visceral and brutal tool to employ. The great thing is that your parkour can be used to attack enemies and create offensive options. A number of upgrades can be applied to baseballs, knives, hammers etc. Weapons also have breaking points, so you need to be careful when getting a little too bloodthirsty. Firearms can also be picked up, but the scarcity of ammo will keep you more reliant on your melee items. Firearms are best used as a backup, as their noisy outbursts can attract violent zombies. These particular zombies can also climb buildings in pursuit of you. There is also a skill tree which helps players upgrade parkour, combat and survival skills.Dying Light is at its best when the day/night cycle comes into play and dramatically changes the experience. As soon as it hits night, a number of powerful 'hunter' zombies stalk the streets. This is where the gameplay and tension truly shine. Environments are literally pitch black, completely restricting the view and path ahead. Crane does have a handy 'sense' ability to help him scout out the hunters, but good luck if one of them catches you! Regular zombies also become a lot stronger and resilient to attack at night. Traversing the city at night does have its perks, as it doubles your xp for Parkour skills. A number of human opposition also litter the city, they can be hard to dispatch and require patience when taking them on. Also, human enemies will try to reach emergency air drops before you, so beat them to it!Unfortunately, Dying Light is bogged down by far too many uninteresting missions. Having to help a survivor for the 20th time starts to get repetitive. Upgrading weapons requires a lot of patience, as it can take a long time to have the resources to create effective items.O V E R A L LDying Light is a mixed bag of ideas. The stock zombie backstory doesn't do much but it showcases impressive presentation. Harran's visuals indulge a living and breathing city, exemplified by gorgeous lighting. The game's saving grace is its highly engaging parkour system, which is admittedly a great deal of fun, backed by challenging night-time gameplay and raw combat. This open-world title may not set its genre on fire, but it certainly knows how to keep you on your toes in a zombie outbreak.

23.2.2017

It's hard to review this game and not first compare it to Dead Island as it has so many similarities which you'll notice straight away. It's the same open world environment where you can choose to explore, do side mission or the story in any way you like. The combat is also melee focused and you can craft your own arsenal of insane weapons. The fighting is also the same brutal, gory, hack and slash action. But the main difference is where Dead Island got things wrong, Dying Light gets everything right. DI was very buggy, had you getting stuck in invisible walls and weapons broke down too easily - none of those problems here.But Dying Light easily stands up as it's own game and rightfully so.

28.2.2015

It's great to have a ps4 game worth playing at last. The "next gen" recent offerings have left me wondering why I even bothered to upgrade. All that I've been pelted with with are slightly improved versions of last gen games, or sub-pare next gen.Let's take some of those recent offerings for a moment: the order:1886, for example - it reminds me of the old cliche': it looks good on the outside, but once you get underneath there's nothing really there. How true this is. There is no denying the game looks great, but there really isn't much to it. Most of the game you are spent watching with a quick button press thrown in to remind you that, yes indeed, you are playing a game.

2.6.2015

Zombies have been a pretty big theme in gaming recently and with releases like The Last of Us setting the bar, it's tough not to be disappointed. Well it may not be the same caliber as Naughty Dog's masterpiece, but it's definitely a great game. To give you a quick overview, it's a lot like dead island with really stunning graphics, an enticing story line and some solid game play.The story: I'm still playing through the game but so far it's a very immersive single player experience. I won't go into too much detail but essentially your character has been airdropped into the middle of a (Middle Eastern?) zombie infested city. There is a main story line you'll be following,

27.2.2015

Simply put, this game is fun. Nowadays, many big budget games seem to feel more like interactive movies. The Order: 1886 is one clear example. This is perfectly fine, in it's own right. However, it's sometimes nice just to be able to stick a game in your console which you can have hours of aimless fun with. Dying light is one such game that is enjoyable and fun to play with a decent story line to keep you interested in the missions.You probably won't become emotionally invested in the plot or many of the characters that you meet with. You probably won't even care very much about your own character in the game, but I have no doubt that upon your first headsmash, molotov inferno,

11.3.2015

I purchased this game from GAME (sorry Amazon, but theirs was £7 cheaper than yours) for my PS4.I am not a big fan of Zombies, that's more the thing that my 14-year-old nephew is into, but I liked the look of this one and I got caught up in al the hype. KK, so when you first play it you get the introduction and the training session down in the "gym". After that you get to go outside in the big wide world, and this is where the game really begins. The first time you step outside from the relative dingy claustrophobic confines of the building into he bright day light of the outside world, I was put into mind the moment in Fallout 3 where you step out of the vault and get your first glimpse of the ravaged world.

16.4.2015

You play Crane, a man dropped into a virus ridden city to retrieve stolen information. Think `Resident Evil 5' and 'Dead Island' and you aren't far off.Befriended by the survivors in The Tower you slowly gain trust (and unlock new abilities) as you help people out by retrieving medicines, weapons and completing all sorts of missions.Like games of this type the 'baddies' do reappear and as you progress and level up more difficult baddies lurk the streets. At first I wasn't too keen on the rather tedious Tomb Raider style (jumping and grabbing ledges) tutorial but soon it becomes second nature which is good because it's a large part of the game. It is almost like the whole game is a love letter to parkour.

28.7.2015

I'd seen a LOT of hype about this game and the trailer showcasing the free-running definitely got me interested. However, I shall not lie and must admit that I was not intending on purchasing this game due to the fact that I thought that the games free running was only present as bait in the trailer. I could not have been more wrong.Pros-Free-running: Just about everything is climbable, meaning the only un-escapable areas in the game will be indoors. Also as one progresses up the skill trees, free running can become a central element of combat as well as simple getting from A-to-B.-Night Cycle: This was, for me, probably one of the most endearing features of the game.

27.2.2015

I downloaded "Dying Light" through the Playstation Store as I couldn't wait another month for it to be released - I love zombies! I paid £55 for it and it is definitely money worth spent!For me its a blend of Mirrors Edge, The Last of Us, Far Cry and The Walking Dead and its "bloody" fantastic!I will keep this review brief but I will try and highlight the pros and cons of the game.Pros:- Graphics. Simply stunning graphics.- Gameplay. Good controls, movement and if it is close enough, you can climb it!- Difficulty. It is actually hard from the start and you really need to be stealthy and logical with your approach. I think thats a good thing!- Weapons. You can pick up anything (within reason)

28.2.2015

The game is simply outstanding! It looks and plays beautifully smooth. The story is quite good and the whole game world is packed with side activities to do which like story missions offer a lot of variety as well. The first recent game which actually has decent length of playing tim too. The world feels quite unpredictable which is good because you never know where and when you will survivers, enemies or supplies. Every street, house, shop, warehouse or dock has something interesting in it. And night time works very well too. At night zombies become lot more aggressive and their numbers double or even triple sometimes. Night time is also when special hunter zombies come out who actively patrol the world looking specifically for you !!

7.4.2015

Wow im very pleased love this game i enjoyed techlands dead island and dead island riptide as well but the big problem with those games were you couldn't really climb anywhere to get away from the zombies and so now they do this gem where you can pretty much climb everywhere. if you make any loud sounds in this game the virals will crash out of buildings as they are newly bitten and infected and run after you and climb (zombies cant climb) man when i saw the first one climb i had a heart attack good job i had a machete. beware though as i get a little to into my games so if there is a creepy setting eerie music,

1.4.2015

Dying Light is one of those games which can be enjoyed for hours. Although it can get repetitive i can always see myself coming back to it in the future. the game has a great story line, meaning you can immerse yourself into the game and feel as if you are there. There are many other good things such as the weapons available. As you progress through the storyline you get access to bigger and better weapons which deal damage and just like in Dead Island you can modify. The NPC's and AI are brilliant in the game. Every Time night time hits I get a shiver or when a zombie attacks me I might jump because of the jump scare.Other advantages+ Big open world+ 3 Big Maps which can be accessed at any time through a certain point into the games story.

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