My indifference towards zombie entertainment translates to the video game medium as well. I will partake in something fun and stupid like Dead Rising from time to time and one of my favorite games on the original Playstation was Resident Evil 2, but most of the time, I steer clear. Nonetheless, I still have games on my steam list like Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, and the one I mentioned in the title: State of Decay.
Of the three Steam games I mentioned, State of Decay was definitely a game that I had an eye out for; the others were gifts from friends to play co-op. While, I'm not really an enthusiast, I am drawn to games that stress survival. I enjoy the idea of having to explore, gather supplies, craft materials, and survive in a harsh environment. I don't care about Minecraft or its clones in how they stress crafting of items. Crafting is not a big selling point to me, as it's little more than dragging your mouse from one thing to another. It's more about having to invent strategies around the crafted items in order to survive. It doesn't matter if the creatures are zombies or something more horrific and terrifying. For instance, the indie game The Forest immediately caught my attention. It's far from perfect and far from complete, but there is something viscerally rewarding about it. You have to craft tools and shelter to survive on an island that has cannibals and terrible creatures. It's tense and engaging by forcing you to strategically understand the mechanics and how to survive a harsh environment. In some ways, I saw the same opportunities in State of Decay.
It seemed to have a variety of different survival-oriented gameplay elements in a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic world that appealed to me. You had to venture out past your base to gather supplies, you had numerous weapons and methods of killing the undead, and you had various upgrade trees to further progress within the game. From the previews and reviews I read, it seemed like the game was solid and managed to accomplish these goals in it's structure.
For the most part, so far, I can agree with that. The game is good about giving you plenty to do; the map is constantly popping up with new missions for you to complete. There appears to be a bigger story underneath the surface with the military presence in a small rural town area, new types of infected, and the various minor plots related to the different characters in your base or that you can find. There is an RPG system of improving each characters abilities and stats. There is a base-building mechanic that directly affects these stats. There's an importance on managing your ammo, food, morale, and building materials as time goes on and these supplies do not necessarily self-replenish over time, which means you will have to leave home at some point and venture to a new base on the map somewhere. Since resources are ultimately limited, it seems like there is some weight to your decisions and resource management.
I do have one glaring complaint, however, I am finding the game a little repetitive. Even though there have been a few different mission types, and it is still relatively early in the game, I feel like I've already seen much of what there is to see in SoD. The zombie hunting and supply runs through the neighborhood are satisfying for now, but it has yet to reach its potential of satisfaction. Beating up zombies is easy enough, and I realize they're supposed to be relentless, but it would be nice if my systematic extermination of zombies felt like it had a little more weight. My resources are slowly draining away, but the zombies never stop appearing; some zombies will suddenly spawn behind you too as the game populates the area.
I kill hundreds during the day and yet at night there are more than I started with. I'm not asking for a limited population, just a scale of severity: if I let things go unchecked, there are more zombies and if I'm constantly killing them, the amount of hordes I encounter decreases. It would be a scenario similar to just going hunting and having a few migrating groups of zombies come into town over time. And in all honesty, a majority of what you're doing in your spare time is killing zombies. It's fun for what it is, but even with the few special zombie types to liven things up, the variety is lacking.
As of right now, SoD has a lot of potential. While I'm still early in the game, I feel like I should be out of the tutorial stage and its time the game start throwing some new things at me to force me to adapt. So far, it seems comfortable at its lumbering pace like the very hordes that it renders. I'm hopeful the game is able to deliver on its potential and expand its mechanics beyond their bare-bones simplicity.
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