Recent reviews by Grey

Very nice, tabletop-like game with a good replay factor, especially if you're hunting merits!

Bought it on Steam for nostalgia-reasons.. It's the game that got me hooked on the "Civilization" series. Old but gold.
Civilization IV and V added a lot of great stuff, but also removed some parts i really liked.

Over the years, some awesome and still very playable mods and scenario's came out for this game as well
from Civfanatics i strongly recommend:
- Escape From Zombie Island (both 1 & 2)
- Hegemon! Of the Classical Greek World!
- Age of Imperialism

Seeing i poured more hours into this game than the average review-writing player, i figured i should write my own review as well. There might be spoilers.
So here goes:

I'm not a fan of most zombie games, which seem to revolve around "shoot millions of zombies to win". There is no "winning" State of decay. The zombies are everywhere and the horde is endless. The base game ends when your survivors manage to leave Trumbull Valley and you are left wondering "How long will they last without my help?"
And this is exactly what i love about State of Decay.

The game & DLC's in a nutshell:

State of Decay:
You and your buddy went on your annual fishing trip, while you were gone large swaths of the US have been overrun by zombies. You get attacked as soon as you tie off your boat. Fighting them off is easy enough but now need to figure out what happened and where you can find a safe place to stay. Jump in the nearest car and meet up with fellow survivors holed up at a church. Then the game begins for real and answers are gradually given.

Breakdown:
Same map, alternate storyline. Several weeks after the outbreak, you and Lily are the last 2 survivors of an enclave and you know you wont last much longer on your own. While you look for another enclave to join, Lily packs up and will meet you there with whatever supplies are left. Once settled it's back to basics: survive for as long as you can. You quickly realize resources are dwindling while zombie numbers increase. Eventually it's time to move on: you pack all equipment in the RV, load up your most important survivors and look for a new home. Your new home is on the exact same map, but with fresh resources and.. more zombies.

Lifeline:
New map. You are in command of the last military outpost in the overrun city of Danforth. You must secure your base, shore up your defenses and start the search for various survivors. The brass will direct you to high-value assets: scientists, doctors and their families whose expertise might be crucial to find an eventual cure. Along the way stranded survivors cry out for help and you're the only one with the means to respond. Your actions will decide the fate of not only Danforth, but possibly the whole world.


I'll do a short pros and cons but there are a few things i should really point out first. State of Decay is not about killing lots of zombies. It is about people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. There are endless zombies but finite resources. Sure, it is great fun to smash your truck into a few zombie hordes or grab a machine gun and go on a killing spree, but that's not the intention of the game. When you're done a good truck will be broken, perhaps beyond repair. Or a lot of bullets will have been wasted on ever respawning zombies. So when you clear an area of zombies, you damn better scavenge as much as you can.

When you scavenge you may find resources you can use to improve your base or tools for zombie killing. Food and various painkillers/stimulants are also often found. There are a few possible home sites (bases) in the game for you to eventually choose from. Each of them has certain requisites and advantages/disadvantages, but larger is better :). Always you have to make tough choices: will i go for a workshop to repair weapons & cars, or rather a field hospital to aid the people who will inevitably fall sick? No one wants to go down with Black Fever.. trust me. Maybe i can have both IF i sacrifice room for the workout area, but then all survivors will have less stamina and fighting skills.. Choices.
Over the course of the game missions will pop up: help scavenging, clear out an infestation, save a survivor, trade resources with your neighbours, kill a freak zombie.

Unfortunately most of these missions can be boiled down to a simple fact: your fellow survivors have the mental capacity and survival skill of a baked potato. You are the only one who's good at it, and it's up to you to do ALL the work. I found this annoying when i first played the game and put it aside for a few weeks for that reason only. However, if you accept that's just how it is, embrace it, and you'll still have a most enjoyable game.
A few other points of light irritation:
- Graphics: good enough for a game of this price, but definately not top notch.
- Controls: especially car controls feel sluggish.
- Clipping: zombies occasionally clip trough solid objects. Not a problem if it's just a regular zombie, a bit more annoying when it's a Big Un or Feral in an enclosed space.
- Useless survivors: Plenty of them and no "clean" way to get rid of them.

The pros:
Open world game: You go where you want, when you want.
Permadeath: Your survivor got ambushed and killed? He's dead, no reloading an earlier save.
Stamina & carry capacity: The game's way of saying you're just an average Joe, not Rambo.
Traits and Skills: The game's way of taking the "average" out of "average Joe"
Soundtrack: Composed by Jesper Kyd. 'Nuff said.
Mods: Don't like this or that? Maybe want to see more of that other stuff? Check out the modding community, or find out how to do it yourself. Besides tweaking Breakdown to make it more enjoyable, i also added myself as a playable character. Much fun was had.

All in all i found this a very enjoyable game and the DLC's are definately worth it. Has been on sale several times @ -66% orso.
Even grabbed back to it a few months after i finished it.

The first game of The Elder Scrolls series i've played, but definately not the last!
Great game, with a huge modding community to make it even better.
2000+ hours, no regrets.

I just.. keep coming back to it again and again.