Mad Max review: Plenty of opportunity in this wasteland

Hey guys, I know I’ve been away a while and I’m real sorry about that. I’ve been putting a lot of work into my other blog, DelcoElbowDrop.blogspot.com, and neglecting my video game obsession for a while now – but I mean to change that. With the holiday season coming up, the video game industry is going to be more active than ever so this will be the first in many upcoming updates.

Here’s hoping, anyway.

And what better way to kick things off than a game that came out of nowhere to become one of my most favorite recently played games. No, it’s not Metal Gear Solid V – it’s Mad Max.

Ever since I saw “The Road Warrior,” I’ve been a big fan of the Mad Max character. Before “Mad Max: Fury Road,” it was hard to call myself a fan of the series, because even though “The Road Warrior” is a personal favorite, the original “Mad Max” and “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” did little for me. But now “Fury Road” is right up there with “Road Warrior” in my book – which was a big part of the appeal of “Mad Max” on PlayStation 4.

While earlier movies present Max in a vast, endless wasteland populated mostly by psychopaths, “Fury Road” actually takes this concept a few steps further and details various wasteland factions, societies and locations – many of which appear in “Mad Max” the game. The War Boys, Gastown, the Buzzards are all present in “Mad Max” and other areas of the lore are expanded upon as well, such as where the Buzzards’ home base is, the other various factions inhabiting the wasteland and get a look into how these societies and cultures operate.

But this isn’t a Telltale Game – there is much more to Mad Max than exploring the lore of the series. As is the case in many of Max’s stories, the game opens with Max losing his car and, with no other options, partners with a strange wasteland hermit named Chumbucket. Max had intended to use his previous car to cross the Plains of Silence and escape the wasteland, but as so often happens, Max runs afoul of the biggest psychopath in the land – Scabrous Scrotus. Max helps Chum construct a new vehicle – one of Chum’s own design called the Magnum Opus, which will help Max defeat the hordes of Scrotus and maybe even cross the impassible Plains of Silence.

Chum is a constant companion on Max’s journey. Being a blackfinger, Chum is able to easily fix any damage the Magnum Opus sustains, as well as operating the car’s weaponry. The wasteland is a dangerous place but your car can be upgraded to support a grappling hook, side-mounted flamethrowers, a rudimentary rocket launcher called the Thunderpoon and more. As you explore, you collect scrap which is used as in-game currency to both upgrade the Magnum Opus as well as Max’s own stats and abilities.

Vehicular combat in Mad Max is frantic, destructive and thrilling

Your car can also be upgraded in a number of other ways. Extra armor can be added to increase durability. Spikes can be fitted to the hood to deal with aggressive War Boys. Bigger engines, raised suspension, various tire types are all available as well. Not to mention being able to customize the appearance with paint jobs and body types. And it’s a good thing that Chum is such an adept mechanic because the wasteland is an extremely hostile place and you’ll need all your driving skills to survive.

As soon as you enter the wasteland, you’ll notice the wide open spaces and ruins of a fallen civilization. For being a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the setting of Mad Max is quite beautiful and each region offers its own distinct appearance and characteristics. For instance, the areas you inhabit early in the game were formerly a seabed, meaning your car will handle differently here than it will in the dry, arid areas near Gastown – where a few asphalt roads can still be found.

Though the wasteland may be spacious – it is not uninhabited. The legions of Scrotus terrorize the meager few who try to survive in the wasteland and refuse to submit to their vicious rule and you can’t go far without running into a War Party. Early in the game, you’ll generally only run into one or two small cars with light armor. But later on, parties of 3-4 heavily armored vehicles roam the land and the battles with these War Parties is only rivaled by the destruction caused during Convoy battles.

Convoys rumble across the arid wasteland in massive parties and confronting a convoy is one of the most exciting elements of Mad Max. Ripping across the scorched earth and doing battle with numerous other vehicles as high-speeds, all with only small occasional graphical hiccups, is exhilarating. Just as tackling convoys are a big challenge, clearing out Scrotus camps is just as difficult. These large outposts often have various objectives to complete as well as collectible loot and these outpost battles change from a series of fist fights into large puzzles that need to be solved.

Since resources in the wasteland are scarce, much of the combat in Mad Max revolves around hand-to-hand combat. Max’s abilities can be augmented over time, along with his attire which can increase your melee effectiveness, and eventually Max can handle huge groups of War Boys on his own. The fighting is reminiscent of the “Batman: Arkham Asylum” series, with well-timed attacks, dodges and parries being the keys to success.

But the Mad Max movie franchise isn’t just about chaos and carnage – it’s also very focused on Max as a character and how the events around him shape him and effect his humanity. In the wasteland, there is a peculiar nomad named Griffa. When Max earns Griffa tokens, he can trade them in to upgrade abilities like more efficient gasoline usage, finding more water in wells, increasing Max’s life meter and more. But Griff also offers more than just abilities – he offers a peek into Max’s soul.

Despite four movies and this game, we still don’t know much about Max Rockatansky as a person. But through interactions with Griffa, we begin to see the person just underneath the rugged exterior which Max tries so desperately to hide from the world.

Hand-to-hand combat is how battles outside your car are handled

Loss is a commonality shared by all wasteland inhabitants, and the losses Max has suffered have changed him and shaped his outlook on the world. Max is essentially a good person, but he has seen too many terrible things happen to people who have trusted him. Now, Max runs from his sense of honor and duty and acts only for himself and his conscience makes him feel guilty about not doing more to help those in need. Anyone who gets too close to Max seems to die and he sees this as not being able to protect anyone but himself, so he pushes everyone away, rather than see more tragedy befall those around him.

And if you’re able to enjoy this deeper characterization, you may enjoy the story in Mad Max. But if you need to be told everything point-blank and have every twist and turn in the story played out right in front of your eyes – you may not enjoy the story Mad Max presents. The actual story told in Mad Max from beginning to end is very bare bones – Max has a nice car and wants to use it on an epic trek. Max runs afoul of a psychopath. Max’s car gets stolen. Max need to rebuild. Max befriends a few people to achieve his goals. Yada, yada, yada, game ends. This isn’t to say the story is “bad” necessarily – but if close reading of stories and characters isn’t your thing, you may not enjoy the story Mad Max presents.

And along those lines - as much as I enjoyed Mad Max, it’s not without its flaws.

Foremost, the missions aren’t organized very well and the game pretty much doesn’t track them for you – even if you’re actively engaged in them. You’d think that if you’re given a mission which tells you to go to a specific place, it would show you the route or create a very obvious waypoint. But not in Mad Max. At best, it’ll put a tiny blue circle at your destination on the map and it’s up to you to figure out where it is.

And I feel like Mad Max does its best to hide that information too. When you pause the game, there are menus for upgrades, your map, a collectible list – but no tab which is clearly marked for missions/objectives. You know where they are? Hidden away in the “Pause Menu” – that’s right, you have to select the tab marked “Pause Menu” when you pause the game – is where you find your settings and saving/loading options. But you know what else is in there? The mission log! What?! And better yet – even this doesn’t give you any help. It just recounts whatever slim info you were initially given about your quest.

Also, the camera is sometimes more of a hindrance than anything else. It swings around Max too loosely and often you’ll be surprised by enemies closing in on you, which you didn’t see, because the camera was out of position.

Another annoyance was how clumsy Max’s interactions with the world can be. For instance, the X button is used to perform a variety of tasks. You use this button to pick up limited-use melee weapons or other items like gas cans and scrap and the game makes you hold the button for a few seconds to pick up anything. This doesn’t seem like much, but makes picking up weapons on the fly, in the midst of a heated battle (where you can be outnumbered 8-1) nearly impossible. Plus holding X to pick up every item you encounter gets old quick.

And in the same vein as the complaint above, the same buttons are used for too many actions overall. For instance – gas cans. You can pick them up to refill your car and store them for later use. But you can also light them on fire and throw them as a make-shift explosive. And if you’re following along you can probably guess – the same button is used to both refill your car AND light gas cans on fire. So if you’re not in the EXACT right spot to refill your tank, you could end up setting a full gas can on fire instead of using and saving it (this is another annoyance – Mad Max is a stickler for being faced the exact right direction to interact with objects).

And these are on top of other minor gripes like not being able to tell how much gas is in a can (you see a meter while refilling your car, but if your car is full, there’s no way to tell); not being able to use your sniper rifle out of the car (Chum can drive while you shoot, but it’s slow); and relying too often on the same enemy character models (for instance, some outposts are led by Top Dogs, but each Top Dog is the same model and uses the same attacks – they’re just different colors).

But even for its flaws, I still found Mad Max on PlayStation 4 to be extremely enjoyable and one of the most fun and unique open-world games I’ve played in a long time. If you’re a fan of Grand Theft Auto but sick of the setting, or want to play an open-world game but can’t get into Metal Gear Solid V or Fallout 4, Mad Max may be just the game for you. Mad Max is like building Legos – it’s nothing really revolutionary and you pretty much know what you’re gonna get, but the experience is still very fun and rewarding from beginning to end. And if you’re a fan of the Mad Max movie franchise, you owe it to yourself to check this game out, as its one of the most faithful movie-to-game adaptations I’ve ever played.

Review: Bloodborne is a maddeningly difficult but expertly crafted masterpiece

In the narrow alleyways of the cursed city Yharnam, evil lurks around every corner. Off in the distance, an unknown beast lets loose an otherworldly howl but other, nonetheless sinister, sounds can be heard just around the corner. Though the night is long and full of terrors in this town overrun with beasts, you are a hunter and the beasts will soon come to fear you.

Bloodborne, by From Software, is a third-person action/adventure game exclusively for the PlayStation 4. While it is heavy on action and exploration, with role-playing elements, combat is more about finesse and nuance than button mashing because in Yharnam, even the lowliest of monsters can end your life.

From Software is most famous for the Souls series (Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls) which are most well known for being unrelentingly difficult – and Bloodborne is no different.

Like most From games, the story in Bloodborne is incredibly vague and ambiguous but there are clues offered for those perceptive enough to pick up on them in the form of notes and NPC interactions. Players progress through the world by navigating the bleak, twisting landscape, defeating bosses and unlocking new paths. There are elements of “Metroid-vania” games, where new items are needed to progress to new areas, but Bloodborne is set up in such a way that many areas can be accessed at once and you’re never forced along a linear path.

The citizens of Yharnam have been driven mad by a strange disease or plague and do not care for outsiders

 From what I can discern the story is something along these lines – you’re a hunter participating in a beast hunt in the ancient cursed city of Yharnam. In Yharnam, consuming blood is as popular a pastime as consuming alcohol and somewhere along the way, people began consuming tainted blood which turned them into beasts. The Healing Church began organizing beast hunts to cleanse the city but as time has gone on, the city has descended further and further into madness.

There is a lot more going on (celestial beasts, a duality between the real world and the world of dreams/nightmares, various groups and covenants that have lengthy histories which are also associated with the hunt) but as this information is squirreled away in the nooks and crannies of Bloodborne, is will be a long time before players can divine some of the more ambiguous story elements.

Bloodborne is an amazingly beautiful game though that beauty comes from the high quality of the textures, characters and landscape design and not so much the actual characters and landscapes themselves. Unlike the Souls games which were fantasy-inspired, Bloodborne is much more akin to a horror movie. You’ll be spilling countless gallons of blood from huge, disgusting, horrific beasts and the settings are some of the most chilling and unsettling I’ve ever experienced. Adding to the unease is the stellar sound design. Moans, screaming and unearthly shrieks emanate from all corners of Yharnam making exploring the massive environments a frightening proposition.

For veterans of the Souls series, Bloodborne will immediately feel familiar – but there are several key differences. To begin, souls are now blood echoes and they will be your all-purpose currency and means of leveling up. There is another currency called Insight which is gained from specific items as well as encountering and defeating bosses. Insight has other purposes but I won’t spoil that here.

Bonfires (save points in Souls) are now lanterns. But these lanterns serve a different purpose than bonfires as they are used to transport you to the Hunter’s Dream. The Dream is a hub world of sorts where you can purchase items, level up your character, level up and repair weapons, fast travel to other lanterns and access the Chalice Dungeons. It’s annoying that you need to first travel to the dream to travel between lanterns, since the loading times in Bloodborne can be excruciatingly long. Traveling to the Dream also respawns enemies, much like activating a bonfire would.

Blood vials are now your means of healing, like estus flasks in Souls. Unlike estus, you can carry up to 20 vials on you at once and extra vials picked up beyond 20 will be immediately stored in your cache in the dream. A nice feature in Bloodborne is that when you die or transport between the Dream and Yharnam, your vials and quicksilver bullets will be replenished from your cache, granted you have some stored.

The landscapes of Bloodborne are massive and beautifully detailed

Unlike the Souls games, there are firearms in Bloodborne and while they can be used to deal damage, they have a much more tactical use. In Souls, using shields to execute parries and ripostes was an important element of the gameplay and in Bloodborne, your firearms take on this role. As an enemy attacks, a well-timed shot will stagger them, allowing you to initiate a “visceral attack.”

Combat in Bloodborne is much quicker than the Souls series and since there are no (worthwhile) shields, dodging enemy attacks and counterattacking quickly is your best bet to staying alive. The stamina meter is much friendlier in Bloodborne than the Souls series, quickly recharging as soon as you stop moving.

In Bloodborne, along with your firearms, you will be dealing damage with your Trick Weapons. You get a choice of three to pick from at the beginning (and don’t sweat the choice too much, you’ll be able to acquire those other weapons and many more later on) and each weapon has two positions – regular and extended. For example, the saw cleaver (which is represented on the game’s cover) attacks very quickly when in regular position but can be switched to extended which doubles its range at the cost of some attack speed. There are several unique weapons to be found and part of the fun is experimenting with each one in its various modes to discover which fits your play style the best.

But the biggest similarity between Bloodborne and Souls is that you will die. A lot. Probably more often than you ever have in any other game. Even if you were an expert at the Souls games, you will die often in Bloodborne. But don’t get discouraged – you should learn something from every death. Whether it’s observing an enemy’s movement, learning the layout of a map, or getting a better handle on your own player movement, every death is a learning experience that you can build on when you respawn. Yes, you still lose all your blood echoes when you die and often you’ll die before you can recollect them but the beasts of Yharnam are plentiful and the hunt is long giving you ample opportunity to earn more.

Those who have played the Souls series will be aware of the challenges presented by Bloodborne but new players may be discouraged by the ambiguity, obscurity and difficulty of the game. The trick to enjoying Bloodborne is not only persistence but to understand that you’re not going to understand or experience everything. There are always going to be more secrets, elements and areas hidden away in some out of the way corner of the game which could offer an item or it could open up an entire new area. I’m convinced you could spend a week straight playing Bloodborne and there will still be things you miss.

For example, I recently found a huge side area, featuring a massively detailed environment and enemies I didn’t encounter anywhere else. And the means of accessing this environment are very roundabout and obscure. I still don’t know why From would hide something like that away, but there are many of these kinds of secrets tucked away in Bloodborne.

And take it from me, a gamer who was not fond of the Souls series, your persistence is rewarded. It may be defeating a boss you thought was impossible. It may be finding an awesome new weapon. Or it may be discovering a brand new area of the game which offers new enemies and new challenges to overcome.

For example, one of the first feelings of accomplishment I had in Bloodborne wasn’t beating a boss– it was opening a gate. That might sound pretty dull, but not when you considered the circumstances.

Some of the enemies and bosses tower over your character in Bloodborne

 Bloodborne’s level design, like the Souls games, is incredibly intricate. The areas are massive and twist and turn in on themselves, giving them a maze-like quality. And since there is no in-game map to be had, it’s very easy to get lost. But there are several shortcuts in each area which make navigation and exploration much easier. Not having the best sense of direction, I was thrilled when I worked my way through a series of dank sewers and opened a gate and realized that I recognized the area I was in and that getting back to those sewers from the initial lantern just got much easier. I got so much confidence in myself and how I was progressing just from opening a gate that I realized just how rewarding overcoming the rest of the game could be.

I mentioned Chalice Dungeons earlier and I want to expound on them a little. In the Dream, there are several headstones – some which act as fast travel points to lanterns but others are entrances into the various Chalice Dungeons. There are several different chalices to find throughout the game and several more in the dungeons themselves.

You need special materials to access these procedurally generated dungeons, and much more of these materials can be found in the dungeons themselves. The Chalice Dungeons serve to both challenge your skills and extend the life of the game overall. Each dungeon has several layers and are capped off by a boss fight.

I’ve only started dabbling in the dungeons and I really like what they offer. Say you’re stuck on a particular boss (or bosses) or don’t know exactly know how to proceed and you’re getting frustrated. You can take a journey into a Chalice Dungeon, earn some XP, and explore an entirely different section of the game, taking your mind off your earlier difficulties and in the process, upgrade your character and maybe get the slight edge you need to overcome what was previously holding you back.

The Dungeons offer so much content they could have easily been added in a later update or sold as DLC but From decided to include them from the start, which was a genius choice considering the smoldering hate and scorn gamers have for developers they deem to be withholding finished content to sell you later.

Bloodborne came out on March 24 and I think I’ve been playing it nonstop since then. I’ve been completely enthralled with its challenge and atmosphere that I’ve had little desire to play anything else. Given the chance, Bloodborne will do the same to you too. Some may be turned off by its ambiguity and steep learning curve, but those willing to stick with it and conquer its many tribulations will find a rewarding experience offered by few other games.

Bloodborne - First Impressions

Admittedly, I was never a big fan of the “Souls” series by From Software. I never had a PlayStation 3, so I was never able to try Demon’s Souls. I did try getting into Dark Souls on Xbox 360 because I had heard so much about the series and had a friend who was a huge fan talk it up to me. But after playing for several hours, I wasn’t impressed. The ambiguity and intentional obscurity in the design and presentation, mixed with the immediate and steep learning curve really turned me off and I barely made a dent in Dark Souls. When Dark Souls 2 came out, I contemplated giving the series another chance but decided against it.

Considering all that, I was surprised when I found myself so intrigued by From Software’s latest title, “Bloodborne,” a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Not only that but I was even more surprised when I found myself really enjoying Bloodborne.

Set in the strange, forgotten town of Yharnham, you take on the role of a hunter seeking an ancient medicine rumored to be held somewhere in the cursed city. Incorporating an exaggerated gothic style, Bloodborne is like a horror movie come to life as Yharnham is inhabited by all manner of outlandish and vicious beasts.

If you’ve played any of the Souls games before, you’ll have a good headstart on how Bloodborne works, though there are some key differences. Careful and considered play is your best course of action since the lowest level enemy can kill you in a moment’s notice and the towering boss monsters can dispatch you even quicker. Unlike the Souls games, there is no blocking in Bloodborne, only dodging and evading. Due to the lack of blocking, the stamina meter is much more quick to recharge in Bloodborne.

There is also another big difference in the combat between the Souls games and Bloodborne. A new mechanic called the “regain system” allows you to regenerate a portion of life lost but it is a risky proposition to make the most of regain. After you’ve taken damage, your health bar drains with a white mark noting how much health you have left but to the right of the mark, a lighter shade of red remains for a few seconds. If you can deal damage while this portion of the bar remains, you will regenerate some lost health. Obviously, therein lies the risk – attacking the creature that just damaged you to regain some lost health could result in even more damage or death. It’s a risk but the quick combat in Bloodborne makes it a possibility.

Also like the Souls games, you earn “blood echoes” which can be spent on purchasing gear or leveling up your character. Though if you die, you lose all that earned XP creating a risk-reward dilemma between grinding for blood echoes and risking losing them all.

Overall, I’ve been having way more fun with Bloodborne than any of the Souls games and I think it’s because Bloodborne isn’t as intentionally obscure and confusing as the Souls games, making it more accessible to people who don’t want to spend time experimenting with every item or stat trying to figure out what it does or affects. Similarly, while the combat and difficulty are intense, I feel like Bloodborne has more in common with hack-and-slash games than the Souls series. Now, that isn’t to say that Bloodborne is hack-and-slash because it most definitely is not. But the emphasis on staying quick while dealing damage reminds me more of standard action/adventure games than the time I spent playing Dark Souls. Also, the atmosphere and aesthetics of Bloodborne are much, much cooler (in my opinion) than the Souls games. The easiest way I can explain it is if the Souls games are fantasy movies, Bloodborne is a horror film.

I’m planning on doing a full review for Bloodborne but I want to get a little deeper into it before I do but that could take some time. (I’m several hours in but only just recently beat the Cleric Beast and found the second boss. Right now I’m trying to grind for more XP to level up before trying to fight the next boss again while looking through Central Yharnham for any secret areas I surely missed.)

If you were a fan of From Software’s earlier games or are looking for a game that offers a serious challenge, definitely look into Bloodborne.

Dying Light offers a visceral and fun first-person zombie apocalypse

In the last decade, zombies have pervaded nearly every aspect of our pop culture. There are still movies and TV shows being made about zombies (“The Walking Dead” on AMC remains one of the highest rated shows on TV, for instance) and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of this trend slowing down any time soon.

In 2011, developer Techland released a game called “Dead Island” where you took on the role of a tourist stuck on a tropical island that had been overrun by a deadly plague which turned everyone into zombies. The game was comprised on several large maps but the emphasis wasn’t so much on exploration as it was on completing generic missions while bashing every zombie in sight in the head with some sort of blunt instrument.

Dead Island was fun at first but over time the fun wore off as technical glitches became more apparent and the repetitive nature of the game began to wear thin. Because of these reasons, I was hesitant to try out Techland’s latest title, “Dying Light.” However, Dying Light is everything that we wanted Dead Island to be – and then some.

Dying Light is a first-person, action/adventure game set in a giant open world environment with roleplaying elements. Combat is still very melee-focused, though firearms do exist, but unlike Dead Island, Dying Light incorporates free-running and parkour as a way to navigate the large, highly-detailed environments and after playing Dying Light, I found that running away is often the best strategy for survival.

I don’t want to consistently compare Dying Light to Dead Island throughout this review but I find myself doing it quite often as I try to formulate my thoughts on the game. I think this is because at its core, Dead Island and Dying Light are very similar. But where Dead Island presented many interesting ideas, it didn’t capitalize on them – whereas Dying Light feels like a much more complete game. One could say that Dying Light is the game we all thought Dead Island would be.

Zombies will overwhelm you quickly in Dying Light and staying mobile is often a better choice than fighting

In Dying Light, you play as Kyle Crane, an operative of the GRE (Global Relief Effort) who has been covertly inserted into the city of Harran where a massive viral outbreak has infected a majority of its citizens and been quarantined from the outside world. As Crane, you’re tasked with retrieving a secret document from a rogue agent but along the way, you befriend a group of survivors and it isn’t long before you realize that the goals of the GRE and the goals of the survivors are often at odds.

There is one main story quest that carries you throughout the game but as you complete story missions, you’ll unlock several side missions which offer extra XP toward your three skill trees and also money, item upgrades and blueprints.

The three skill trees affect different areas of the gameplay – survivor, agility and power. The survivor tree affects things like how much damage Crane can take, kinds of items he can create and more. Agility allows Crane to become better at free-running over the environment and gives him new abilities (the best of which is the grappling hook). And the power tree will unlock new offensive moves for Crane both with weapons and while unarmed.

Unlike many other games with RPG elements, if you die in Dying Light, you lose your earned XP, putting extra importance on careful play and weighing options of fighting and running very heavily. Where Dead Island focused more on combat, Dying Light does an exceptional job of balancing combat and running for your life. In Dying Light, you’re vulnerable to being overwhelmed quickly and fighting every zombie you see is rarely the smartest decision.

Though free-running over the environment is often better than standing and fighting, you will have to battle the undead every now and then. It’s difficult to find quality weapons early in the game but these weapons can be improved with blueprints and upgrades. Utilizing the crafting materials scattered throughout the world. Blueprints help improve durability, damage and handling and these stats can be further upgraded with one-time use items that are often awarded for helping survivors in random events or for completing quests.

As in most zombie apocalypse fiction, humans are often more of a threat than zombies in Dying Light

 

Dying Light has a very highly detailed sheen to the visuals with an impressive use of light and shadow and also incorporates a day/night cycle with a unique twist. Nights in Dying Light are extremely dark and even with a flashlight it’s hard to see the zombies around you. But at night, a special type of zombie comes out – the volatile. During the day, the typical shambling zombies clog the streets, with scattered variants (like zombies which are more aggressive, exploding zombies and ones that spit toxic slime) but at night, the volatiles come out of hiding. Extremely sensitive to ultraviolet light, volatiles are highly aggressive and strong and just as quick as Crane. Sneaking slowly to avoid their attention or sleeping through the night at safe houses are your best bets against volatiles. It’s possible to kill them but standing and fighting with them in the dead of night will get you killed very quickly.

If taking on the various beasts is too much for you to do solo, you can play through the entire game cooperatively with up to three other players. While playing with others, you can take on challenges or create challenges between your friends to add even more replayability. Also, there is a manner of competitive play where you take on the role of a super powered zombie which invades the games of others and hunt the human players. Granted, I haven’t played this mode yet it seems very cool and is an interesting twist on the standard game.

While I was hesitant at first to give Dying Light a chance, I’m glad I did. The balance of running and fighting in an open-world zombies apocalypse is perfect and being able to play the entire game with friends makes it even better. Plus, there is a harder difficulty which increases the zombies’ durability as well as putting limitations on healing, flashlight life, making night last longer and other challenging.

If you’re like me and were nervous about giving Dying Light a chance because Dead Island didn’t live up to expectations I can guarantee that Dying Light is everything you wanted from Techland’s first offering and more - and it’s even better with friends.