This is an odd one.
As a fan of L4D since the original beta on PC back in 2007, I was interested when I saw this. I never expected a L4D-tier experience so I never felt let down in that regard. However this game has good ideas but rarely utilises them.
For one, I love how seriously it takes itself. The zombie shooter genre is oversaturated and has been for atleast a decade, we have seen every kind of game come and go. I feel like zombie games that try to be actually horror games are now a rare occurrence, so I love the tone and setting of this. The overrun buildings, the graffiti everywhere, police barricades, all that tropey stuff is exactly what I like in this sort of game.
The gameplay isn't half bad either. Shooting enemies feels fun but the animations are robotic and stiff. Special infected have multiple variants but they are poorly designed so you can't ever tell them apart in the midst of fighting.
I also enjoyed the deck building card system. I haven't played since they got rid of it but I felt like it offered a reason to do multiple play throughs that was lacking from other games like this. You could make some ridiculous builds, for instance a shotgun build with endless ammo and increasing fire rate/damage.
The biggest flaw for me was the difficulty, about 2/3s of the way through the main campaign the difficulty spikes up significantly and some areas become absolute slogs. Not even in a "wow this end game is hard" way, more like a "wow this wasn't playtested" way. The rewards for pushing through aren't worth it so usually when I hit that point I stop playing or start a new run.
WB games, as usual did a bad job. They marketed this game as being a competitor to L4D and leaned into Turtle Rock's history, regardless of how valid it is today. They also abandoned this game very quickly after launch.
It was on sale for €5 on Steam recently, I definitely think it is worth that if you and your friends want an easy to play game to occupy yourselves while chatting.
As a fan of L4D since the original beta on PC back in 2007, I was interested when I saw this. I never expected a L4D-tier experience so I never felt let down in that regard. However this game has good ideas but rarely utilises them.
For one, I love how seriously it takes itself. The zombie shooter genre is oversaturated and has been for atleast a decade, we have seen every kind of game come and go. I feel like zombie games that try to be actually horror games are now a rare occurrence, so I love the tone and setting of this. The overrun buildings, the graffiti everywhere, police barricades, all that tropey stuff is exactly what I like in this sort of game.
The gameplay isn't half bad either. Shooting enemies feels fun but the animations are robotic and stiff. Special infected have multiple variants but they are poorly designed so you can't ever tell them apart in the midst of fighting.
I also enjoyed the deck building card system. I haven't played since they got rid of it but I felt like it offered a reason to do multiple play throughs that was lacking from other games like this. You could make some ridiculous builds, for instance a shotgun build with endless ammo and increasing fire rate/damage.
The biggest flaw for me was the difficulty, about 2/3s of the way through the main campaign the difficulty spikes up significantly and some areas become absolute slogs. Not even in a "wow this end game is hard" way, more like a "wow this wasn't playtested" way. The rewards for pushing through aren't worth it so usually when I hit that point I stop playing or start a new run.
WB games, as usual did a bad job. They marketed this game as being a competitor to L4D and leaned into Turtle Rock's history, regardless of how valid it is today. They also abandoned this game very quickly after launch.
It was on sale for €5 on Steam recently, I definitely think it is worth that if you and your friends want an easy to play game to occupy yourselves while chatting.