Recent reviews by Catanautical

Alright, I know that just like everyone else, I've been waiting for this game to come out, counting the days down before we could finally play the early access, and I have to say there's a decent spike of disappointment and admiration when it comes to the comparison. I'll highlight some of the stuff here so that everyone might know what kinds of things they should keep, and what things might need tweaking or reworking.

First up: COMBAT.

Let's take a look at combat in Dead Frontier 2 compared to Dead Frontier 1. Gunplay is interesting in Dead Frontier 2, centering around a stop & soot playstyle, but in my opinion it feels extremely clunky and hard to use. Guns have an accuracy reticle that shrinks as you stand still, but it completely expands back out to full when you fire, making it less than desirable for small rooms. There is, however, a distinct difference between weapon types that I enjoy so far. Rifles do a lot of single target damage, shotguns do massive knockback, and pistols are quick and easy to aim. Unfortunately, guns have limited use in CQC when a zombie gets right up on you, since it's a tird person camera, the crosshair can't stick onto a zombie when they get closer than a foot to you, which is probably when you sohuld pull out your melee weapon, but that brings me to a problem with higher level areas. Wen you get to fighting bosses or enemies in level 5+ areas, they will sometimes explode into leeches on a headshot meaning you ALWAYS need to have a pistol equipped as your sidearm, which is kind of disappointing as it limits your combat capabilities, and there's no way to reliably switch weapons other than using your inventory, and even then you might end up replacing the wrong weapon. I do have a few complaints aobut melee, in the fact that you cannot move when you swing unless you fully 180 your camera after your hit lands to get you at least that small bit away from the zombie. Usually knockback is enough to just spam a zombie to death, but sometimes they'll still hit you. You can use sprint to get yourself away from that zombie so you don't get hit, as well, but sometimes they won't get knocked back and you'll get hit anyways.

Alright, now we move to looting:

Looting is just as satisfying in this as it was in Dead Frontier 1, and I would say that finding that ammo, or those medical supplies, even finding food makes you excited, and then you get ecstatic when you find rare gear. There's even gear benefits that increase your chance of finding a certain item type, which means there's go to be AMAZING late-game loot builds. I give him props for the stat bonuses, they feel really nice, and I can certainly tell the difference when I equip new gear. There is one solid complaint I will give, though. There is NEVER enough ammo. EVER. You'll always find yourself out of ammo, all the time, because of the game's unwillingness to give you more, which forces you back into aforementioned terrible melee combat.

Third, Zombies:

Zombies feel clunky, evne though they're fun to fight and watch their heads explode, they move in a very predictable fashion, and when in groups, are impossible to fight with melee, making it impossible to loot anything in the room unless the room is big for you to draw them away and then sprint off. When you get into higher level areas, there's no way to tell when zombies drop leeches when headshotted, or get back up after being killed, or start crawling. Crawlers are extremely annoying to fight with melee, especially. Bosses are somewhat satisfying to kill, though almost all of them drop leeches when headshotted to death. There are only a few standard zombies in the game, being divided into three catagories: Normal Zombies, Fat Zombies, and Bosses. There are crawler variations of all those types. Leeches do not fit into a category, though I expect this to change.

Now, believe me, I know it JUST came out and there WILL be more content, this is just going to give you an idea of what t expect from LAUNCH DAY.

And, lasty, a summary of the things I would like to see tweaked, as well as suggestions:
Melee needs to be far more fluent, ammo more plentiful, and zombie numbers need to be increased if these tings are going to happen. I can imagine you taking on three or four zombies at a time with melee if you don't have the bad movement mechanics with the melee weapons. Imput needs to be tweaked, your character takes a small pause before your controls are imput, it's the same with releasing controls, causing you to overshoot when walking or undershoot. There needs to be an easier way to hit targets on the ground, as well as a way to reliably kill leeches without constantly having to use handgun ammunition. Please, for the love of god, lower the amount of doors. Moving between rooms is an absolute nightmare, even if I understand that you have sets of pre-created rooms to fill buildings. There needs to be a way to collect cash from looting as well so we can establish a market properly. That, and we need a scrapper so we know the general value of an item before selling it on market. You don't have to be able to scrap all items, but basic items like clothes and basic weapons should be scrappable, especially damaged ones. As for the last, we should have places where certain loot is easier to find more than others. I noticed there are stores in the game, but tey don't ave nearly as much lootable value as stores in Dead Frontier 1, having only one or two shelves actually lootable for supplies. Towns are small, but I expect that it will be fixed with development.

And that about sums up my review for the release version of Dead Frontier 2. Bay far, it has insane potential, and if you found anyone to help you, we would all be grateful if you took care of yourself more. Have a good one, all!

I do recommend this game if you're looking for a strategic battlefield simulation game. It has everything you need, and an easy levelling system, easy resources, and a tough setup that will keep you on your toes. Water works well into the terrain, and the layout of the buildings are well-done. The only downside I could find to this game is the PvP. You can be a low level, and it will literally put you with someone 7 levels higher than you just because they have a rank close to yours. This is extremely unfair and should be fixed, but I'm sure they're MUCH too busy to do that. Otherwise, a good game. I do recommend it.