Overkill’s The Walking Dead

Robert Kirkman’s Zombie Comic to create a famous series, books, animations, a huge number of toys or collectibles and, last but not least, a Telltale Games game series. However, the latest addition to the ever-expanding brand is due to Overkill Software, which you can learn from today’s two-part payday co-op action. So it would be like to say that creating another shot, even if the smirked walking undead, will not be a problem for the experienced matadors of the genre – but the opposite is true

Not interested

Overkill’s The Walking Dead (“OTWD” only) is controversial from the very beginning, because something like a tangible story is missing. In the game, not only do you have to get around with no known characters from a series or comic, but at the same time you are not offered something like a complete plot. When we write that you are a group of survivors fighting the second group of survivors, we basically tell you the whole story. Although you can get one of the six characters, all are shallow and uninteresting. Your opponents are The Family and this is basically the end of their description

Before each mission you can see a nice stylized video in which the narrator tells you that this or that has happened. As soon as the animation ends and you take another minute or even more recording time, you are thrown into the game. Then you realize that all the sauce you just heard does not really matter. It’s just a reason to send you a common fetch quest.

Instead of feeling that we are involved in important events – no matter how shallow – we always felt as if we were coming to the scene after something had happened and our job was to cope with the consequences. Rivalry has no depth, the characters do not interfere with each other and there is no effort in the game to elaborate their characters. As a result, all humanity has disappeared, making his comic book so famous

Rules for you

If we ignore the untapped and essentially discarded story potential, there are some interesting ideas in the OTWD cooperative formula. First of all, it is a matter of silence: the world is filled with undead, who are very happy to be shocked by the noise. And when shooting around you, you’re tempting them. Your primary task is therefore to hunt for all pedestrians with axes, sticks, baseball bats and other nearby weapons. But if you start to make noise, a problem indicator fills you and your experience changes with increasing degrees. Killing undead is not trivial, like Left 4 Dead, and if your horde runs, your quest can quite easily end up in trouble

In this way, the game is able to build tensions and create a feeling of distress in the person. When you steal the world, you loot houses and try not to care too much, the atmosphere is really dense. The problem, however, will come when you encounter The Family: The enemies immediately start shooting, and they do not care that the dead are coming around. They unload one tray after another, and you desperately watch how their idiots fill your noise indicator. Of course, there is a question as to how it is possible that you perceive the hungering of the undead as a threat and an enemy gang. A satisfactory answer does not exist – the developers have simply decided that you will only follow the rules of the game

Desperate Death

I guess we do not have to explain that if this way your enemies start to complicate your life without doing anything “instantly”, despair falls on you. The noise indicator does not gradually decrease, but illogically collects across the mission. So every hole will stretch with you and the gaming experience will change from pleasantly frosty to extremely annoying

As soon as the horde goes after you, the post-traumatic memories of the payday bodies from Payday are being poured into you, where you could shoot a small town of policemen during the mission. The OTWD does not really matter where you are – you can be quietly on the top floor of a skyscraper, and corpses will roll out from all corners. You have very little gun guns, and your only certainty is a relatively weak weapon to close. Sooner or later you are surrounded, overwhelmed, and your missions after a fierce battle for life end with desperate death.

Trapping on site

While Left 4 Dead also built a player against the hordes, in her case they were relatively manageable. It just came the flood wave you were dealing with, and the game could go on. You paid for your mistake and went on. In the OTWD, you face a steady and steep tide that will punish you until you drown, or you will not complete the mission. Which leads to a lot of frustrating situations

We recall, for example, how, for example, we survived a group of survivors with a swarm of corpses in the lift booth, because two meters from us lay an important object on the ground and we needed to pick it up. But the crowd of the zombies was dense, and the more we killed them, the more they danced on all sides. A good five minutes later, when we did not move even a meter, we were more inclined to turn off the game. In the end, we desperately pulled out the explosives and somehow mastered the situation, but at the end of the voyage, I did not feel as much satisfaction as the clear burning and boredom

One Bad Step

One mistake was enough, and the mission could have ended after more than half an hour of misery. Which is, by the way, a feeling you will not get rid of throughout the game. And it is wrapped up by the fact that without a perfectly team-mate you simply do not avoid – often with him, because the artificial intelligence of the enemy is very unreliable. Mechanics are simply unfairly cruel, and it is because of them that you will probably want to continue

In addition to reconnaissance and considerably stereotypical landings, the game also offers base defense against rival or undead strikes. During them, however, the hard effort to stay in the shadows is losing and the game turns into an absolutely dull action. The situation does not even preserve the fact that the weapons are absolutely doctored. Shooting sounds cheap, and to the undead it is so weak that it lacks something like a feeling of kinetic power. The close-up weapons are quite ordinary guides that have one primary attack. Each of the six characters is equipped with a special ability and prefers another weapon, the use of which is further enhanced by RPG elements, but their uniqueness ends.

Who is looking for …

Part of the title is also some variation on the management of your hiding place, which you can improve on found raw materials and send its inhabitants to different missions. The system is quite decent and sophisticated, but the OTWD does not bother with its explanation. All features and options are stacked across multiple menus, which you must first click through to get to know about them. From the beginning, you literally tap into the game, and before you find out what is hiding or where and where to send it, it will take you to the OTWD to continue

OTWD is simply an average zombie co-operation, which is built on an interesting idea, but it does not respect its rules. On the one hand, he tries to look within the limits of the possibilities realistically, on the other he forgets that it should also be entertaining or interesting. Its mix of mechanics in man raises hopelessness rather than the desire to embark on another mission. And a pile of menus, along with an effort to explain to you what and how it works, does not just improve the experience.