Dying Light (2015)

Decided to finally pick this up (The Following version) on sale for $12. I've only put about an hour in so far, but early impressions:

The Good

Collecting stuff is always fun

Story seems decent so far

Music frickin slaps

The Not-So-Good-But-I-Hope-It-Gets-Better

Controls for free-running are terrible. I keep pressing X to jump. Why is control-mapping not a thing in this game?

Sometimes I can't tell what I can reach and not reach as far as jumping/climbing. I'm sure I'll learn.

The Straight Up Bad

Finding the crafting items. The little icon will appear briefly, then disappear. It should stick around longer, or there should be an icon on the mini-map after you scan. Yeah yeah, that may be taking away some of the thrill and tension of exploring, but I just want to be able to remember/access the item I already scanned for without having to scan every 2 meters.

I think that's it! I'm excited to get more into it :)

Worst first impression ever. I start up the game, intro, tutorial, all fine. Go on the first mission - difficulty normal - and get massacred. To the point of almost throwing controller at the tv. Swarms of super fast zombies, and me running like crazy trying to turn on some things. Am I that old or is the game that hard?

Finish the first mission after a lot of frustrating moments, go check it out on youtube - this can't be that hard. People play same mission - do they have cheats, is that super easy, what the hell?

Turns out there is left 4 dead event going on. Turned on by default changing all zombies into super fast changing game difficulty to super extreme hard. Why is this not off by default.? Why was why I not warned?

Almost uninstalled it. Turned the event off. Now the game is too easy! I got too good too quickly.

The game has been broken.

I am so upset at this game. They took the most fun aspects and killed them with their forced story elements.

Several times they force you through a very limited, pre-defined sequence where you basically have to memorize jumps in order to escape the strictly choreographed sequences. They overuse this and force you to go through this several times before facing the big boss. One of the most satisfying and fun game mechanics, the grappling hook, they just arbitrarily disable. No story reason, just a "you can't use this now". The free running and finding your way through the world is the best part and they just killed it.

The main character has devolved from someone that understood the complexity of the world, to a dumb heroic jock that does nothing but scream angrily at the villain and run head-first into every situation. I am so tired of heroes that are just about physical strength. Why can't they actually be clever? Why does every AAA game seem to have the "this is totally a trap sequence" where they go into the villain's lair without a plan and manage to succeed using just their force of will? Ugh.

I was enjoying the story for a while as it seemed to be a departure from standard zombie survival games. I was really hoping it would present some shades of gray in the decisions that the main character continued to make. Then it took the cliché turn into ultra good guy territory. Every story beat is either betrayal or bad circumstances that almost always work out in the end.

Still playing it for now... may main-line the story to get through it.

Picked this up during the E3 sale and am enjoying it so far. Breakable weapons aren't my favorite, especially ones that I invest in by upgrading. But there seem to be enough supplies scattered around that you can find and craft new ones of similar mechanics.

The parkour is really well done. I don't normally like first person platformers but this is the best so far. The first person perspective is crucial to add to the frantic, chaotic feel that a limited view offers. If you were able to see the zombie horde in third person it wouldn't be quite as intense. I applaud their design choice.

I like that most of the characters I met so far are just normal people trying to get by in a horrible situation. It makes it seem more real and relatable. The main overarching story of zombie outbreak occurs, find a cure, is fairly standard.

I really want some combination of State of Decay 2 and this game. The story is better in Dying Light but the survivor mechanics for outfitting the base, interacting with competing survivors, perma-death, and managing your people is more well rounded. Obviously a story is a lot harder to create if your characters can die.

I played this game entirely co-op with two friends, and we had a blast. The parkour is well done and quite fluid, and that fluidity of movement also factors into the melee combat. Gun combat isn't quite as polished, but it gets the job done. The crafting system allows you to make some pretty awesome melee weapons and can be quite satisfying.

All that being said, this isn't really a great game. I would not have finished it if I had been playing alone. The story is a boring, jumbled mess, and honestly we stopped paying attention to it half-way through the game. To make matters worse, the devs seem to take the story very seriously, and NPCs will talk on and on about the most mundane things. Luckily you can usually skip these conversations, though all of your co-op partners have to agree to skip (which wasn't a problem, we were all bored). And although the parkour works really well, the occasional platforming doesn't always work as well. Climbing towers, in particular, could be very frustrating.

I should also point out that, although this game is very co-op friendly, the very beginning and very end are single-player only. We found this very jarring, especially at the end when we had been playing together for dozens of hours and all of a sudden we were told we could only complete the game in single player. But for all my criticisms, the core gameplay loop, satisfying crafting, and solid co-op features make this an easy game to recommend if you have a couple of friends to play with.

Zombie fans rejoice as their passions are fed further and those who are indifferent to our undead pals will find themselves pleasantly surprised when they pick up a controller and immerse themselves into Harran. Dying Light features a large open city, brutal combat, and initially clumsy but ultimately satisfying parkour mechanics. For a zombie game, it features a fairly compelling story and cast of characters, even if the villain is a little cliche and the dialogue is hampered by poor facial animation. The main story arc is not where you will find the most interesting characters or missions however. The most dynamic interactions are found in Dying Light's many, many side quests. While most of these are, in essence, fetch quests, they are brought to life by a wide range of character motivations and the nature of the randomized zombie placement, forcing you to pay attention and giving you a reason to care. Whether you are proving the innocence of a crazed hermit or heading down to the basement to put down a man's zombified wife because he lacks the will to do it himself, the experience is always worthwhile. Even many of collectibles provide character portraits rather than big picture background, and this has a far more humanizing effect. My experience with co-op has been limited given that few of my friends own a PS4 and even fewer have the game yet, but the experience was nonetheless entertaining.

The game has a fantastic sense of progression. In your first few hours the game can feel quite difficult, as you swing quickly-degrading weapons sluggishly at one or two zombies and barely make it out alive, and struggle to escape when challenged by larger groups. The mapping of the jump mechanic to R1 and RB on consoles is initially awkward, but makes a great deal of sense when the player needs to be moving quickly and looking for the next ledge, as using a button would limit the player's ability to look to his or her destination. These seemingly large mechanic problems melt away in the perfectly balanced combination of gaining experience points and engaging perks with the player's real world grasp of the city layout and combat mechanics. By the end of the game players can expect to get around the city with little to no problems and annihilate hordes of enemies in visceral fashion.

Except at night. Its surprising just how terrifying night can be at any rank. Volatiles and the aggressive horde make stealth and quick, quiet kills a necessity. The look-back mechanic used during sprinting does well to remind you of just how badly you messed up when you decided to drop down to street level without checking for enemies. It's only a shame that more missions and side quests aren't night-exclusive, as moving anywhere for any reason at night is a tense experience.

The game isn't perfect. Textures can be bland, many environmental assets were reused during development (everyone seems to have the same wedding photo), and the frame rate can chug from time to time, even grinding to a near halt during a story cutscene with a large explosion. At one point I fell through the ground and had to kill myself to get the game to reload and continue my mission. These are classic Techland issues, but they are easily overlooked. Money becomes basically worthless around halfway through the game, as your weapons last longer you can keep a few for combat and sell the rest, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars that rarely need to be spent on anything anyway. My only other complaint is the shooting missions. Had the game only featured one or two of these basically mandatory shootouts, I would have appreciated the variety and moved on, but as the game seems to feature around six or more, I couldn't help but feel as though the game temporarily lost sight of what made it fun: movement and melee combat. These could have been made more interesting by providing other pathways to eliminate armed enemies, or at least expecting the player to search for and conserve ammo, rather than load them up with it 30 seconds before the firefight starts.

All in all, Dying Light is an engaging and ruthlessly satisfying experience. With a great world, interesting characters, and a wonderful sense of progression, its small flaws can be ignored. While not necessarily the most replayable of games, it's a great game played solo or with friends, and is a wonderful piece of entertainment that absolutely should be played.

Actually thoroughly enjoyed this game. The Parkour was VERY well developed and it felt fluid, especially when the tech-tree let's you develop your Parkour skills.

The co-op was also the single most enjoyable thing about this game. The whole story can be played it co-op. Simply great cutting zombies to prices, running for your life together when things get tough and so on.

Despite the ending a 8,5 of 10 game.