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When The Overkill's Walking Dead was announced, the title was largely overtaken. Although I took care of The Walking Dead Universe, it never really started. It was all the more surprising that the title of the latest gamescom was at the top of my favorites list for this year.
The Overkill's Walking Dead has promised a lot in some ways. Finally, Overkill was able to gain a lot of experience in the shooting game scene with the Payday series. Despite the highs and lows, the series still enjoys great popularity and the developers are in live contact with the community. In addition, there was the prospect of an exciting story, after all, the story concerned Aiden, Maya, Heather and Grant and was even part of The Walking Dead Seriencanons.
What is even more disappointing is that Overkill 's The Walking Dead fails despite its many approaches to the comfort zone of a respected developer. The game itself is not a failure, at least not yet.
Creeping history
Let's start with history: what has always been emphasized in the preparatory phase is largely limited to cinematics before missions. These, well stylized, tell the sections of the story, but they are just a sketch of the story. Dramaturgical elements are constructed, but abandoned after the end of the sequence in very long loading screens.
Even the exciting plot twists are pinched in the egg. Interact with the characters in the missions? It looks rather mau. In the advertising industry, there is now more storytelling than in this game. It sounds a bit like you have not gone beyond the concept phase with story and narrative elements.
The missions themselves are roughly divided into three types: the history missions, the supply missions and the defense missions. They speak for themselves: you defend an open area against enemy waves. During replenishment missions, you go to less known areas, already known, to recover provisions or survivors. The narrative missions tell or should tell the story of the survivors. By this means, you crawl or fight from A to B.
Sneaking is usually difficult for The Overkill's The Walking Dead. Which is strange, because after all, the game offers all the basic tools for stealthy operations. But they are difficult to use. There are basically two reasons for this: At the top is the communication between the players. A conversation that hides messages too quickly and the absence of voice chat makes communication difficult. With friends, you can resort to alternatives, but with strangers, it is difficult. Most groups are rather chaotic.
Everyone loves the Horde
A second important factor is the AI of the game. God, opponents have rarely pissed me off as much as in The Overkill's The Walking Dead. I do not talk about zombies, they are just zombies. They like to attack you by ambush and you eliminate or kill them. It is good and fair and creates a certain threat. In any case, this is done to the detriment of the Lebensbalken, rather narrow. Many more are human enemies who like to frolic until they are dead. As soon as you discover human enemies, all you have to do is turn them off as soon as possible. Not because they pose a threat to you, but because they attract hordes of zombies by their endless twists and turns. You will also always have a person in the group who thinks to play Unreal Tournament. This person shoots anything that goes through their visor. Hellooo? There are silencers ?! Yes, they break fast, but at least they exist!
The abandonment of the multiplayer mode surprisingly indicates a relatively small number of leavers. What can be that the missions (at least on normal and difficult) are often with horde of zombies in the neck still somehow feasible. Once you have found a good group, the lobby closes again after completing a mission and the entertainment begins again. By the way, playing without a band is not recommended, there are no robots or scaling the opponent.
The bottom line is that the game can only be played with friends. But if lobbies are already hard to fill with random players, how can I find three friends for the match? The problem can solve the time. But back to the Horde. Zombies are attracted by sounds and light. First and foremost, firearm noise attracts not only all the hikers in your area, but the Horde too. Almost an endless stream of zombies chasing you like bargain hunter deals on Black Friday. Fortunately, creatures can not climb and are stupid. So stupid in a positive sense, it allows a tactical game and diversionary maneuvers within the group.
The Walking Dead comes for you
However, these tactical aspects require that your players recognize the possibilities and that you are in the appropriate levels. The terrain is usually very narrow and tubular. Admittedly, this increases tension and contributes to the dense atmosphere, but often limits many play options.
On a high level of difficulty, he also plays a role in how you bademble your group. The characters are roughly divided into clbades with special abilities. It takes a bit of experience to use it properly. Skills can help the group out of more difficult situations. But you do not need to keep playing if you have the horde on one of the two highest difficulty levels on the cheek.
After all, there are also experience points for the failure of the missions to level the characters. New levels unlock skill points that will help you improve your character. However, never to the extent that improvement would be essential to the game or greatly simplifying. To improve your skills, you must also expand your base. This is done by collecting resources, mainly through replenishment missions and history missions. Resources also consume the basis for conservation. After a series of completed missions, you will have to pay a maintenance fee. If you can not pay them, the morality will go down and you will receive a penalty. High morale, on the other hand, leads to bonuses. There are also bonuses at gas stations with survivors, but you can also send them on a mission to buy new products.
Of course, you also need resources to upgrade your equipment. This being divided into levels of rarity. The higher the difficulty level, the better the chances of getting better weapons and improvements. Including visors, silencers and handles. But weapons and mods are not that interesting. It may be because many of them do not feel well enough in the game. Guns and shotguns are the best way to escape. There is no joy in the shooting game, because the game does not have a rudimentary coverage system at least during the fight. If the opponents are already so infallible, it would be nice if they could not only use the cover.
Action please as quietly
In the end, you must or must play in silence most of the time. Too bad the melee system is limited to stealth, the execution of simple strikes and the elimination of opponents – mainly zombies. Here, it would have been desirable for the developers to deepen the concept a bit. Maybe by modifying melee weapons or special melee abilities.
If you have come to this point, then hopefully read it carefully. Because many of the points mentioned above, you will have to discover it. We have reached the last point of criticism: there is practically no explanation as to how you can or should play the game. Although video tutorials are hidden in a submenu, they contain tips or help that you are looking for in vain.
My conclusion:
The Overkill's Walking Dead fails because of the developer's comfort zone. The game rarely exceeds the skills of the playful Payday Universe model. The story is lean and poorly told despite his good approach. The game itself is solid, but not enough suited to the needs of a zombie survival shooter. The term itself is a problem. Because the title is too little stealth and too much towards the shooter. Although he himself wants to be seen as a survival adventure.
The hordes of zombies on the screen are awesome and incredibly menacing, the atmosphere dense and exciting. The possibilities of this thrilling atmosphere are not exhausted enough in the elements of the game. The zombies come from nowhere, the opponents of human AI are empty and the support of the game itself is rather skinny.
The Overkill 's The Walking Dead would have liked to start an early access phase. These weaknesses would then become obvious and the developers could have started to correct them. It's still possible, but in a much more tense atmosphere. Who expects a spiritual successor Left 4 Dead will not find it here. Too bad, because the game offers just about all the basics for a great zombie adventure. After all, the developers still have time to repair before the release of the console version in February.
Disclosure: The game 505 Games has been made available for free for this review.
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