Recent reviews by Bluebear

Fantastic, and this is coming from someone who doesn't particulary like zombie games or films.

Having also played Techland's earlier open world zombie slash/hack/stab/<insert killing adjective here>-em-up 'Dead Island', it's clear to see where the basic building blocks of Dying Light came from. Yet where Dead Island shambled and stumbled, faults chiefly lying with a clunky feeling combat and not much of a feel of progression, Dying Light is a fast zombie. Combat feels lithe and fluid, and you never feel out of options when you suddenly find yourself in a pickle. Jump over the zombies. Do a sliding kick through the zombies. Become unto a whirlwind of bladed death (well... death v2.0 I guess) to the zombies. And then make your escape while cackling with sheer glee as you bound over cars, scramble up walls and sprint across rooftops.

The controls are spot on in this game, and I'd go so far to argue that using a keyboard and mouse actually feels better than a gamepad; a rarity in a market so centred on consoles (for a game of this type at least). The city of Harran looks brilliant also, the first time you see the dawn sun filtering in between buildings, revealing corpses strewn about is a sight to behold.

The character skill progression in this game is a wonderfull thing, and perfectly balanced. Your first tentative steps outside the safety of the tower block, you really do feel threatened, and combat leaves you breathless. But as you improve skills, you do start to feel very confident in piling into a mass of zombies that would have left you gibbering with panic at the start of the game, and coming out alive at the other side. While certain skills and abilities may feel powerful, there's still just enough vunerability remaining to not make it feel like the game is holding your hand.

I adore this game. It takes the absolutely fantastic feeling of parkour from Mirror's Edge, introduces zombies and a well thought out combat system (and I haven't even mentioned the weapon crafting/improvement yet), and melds it all into a nice tight, cohesive package.

Maybe you're like me, not a massive zombies fan, and you're sat on the fence because of it. Put the zombies to one side of your mind, and get it for everything else. Imagine that they're clowns or something. Ok, that might not have helped.

I'm guessing now is not a good time to also say there's Bad Things lurking about at night time also? What's that? You've already bought it?

Oh.

Well. Good night. Good luck.