Dead Nation Review

Game: Dead Nation

Developer: Housemarque

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Available on: PlayStation Network only

Horror movies are for perverts. If you want to get some cheap scares and nasty shocks why not go and play in motorway traffic or intentionally walk in on your parents having sex?

Horror games on the other hand, those are a different proposition. They can grip the player  much tighter and play on what makes people scared far more effectively. A great horror game plays with your perception of control, it can draw you into a world far more deeply and evoke feelings of panic, isolation and desperation in a way that few films can achieve.

Does Dead Nation, developed by Housemarque (of Super Stardust HD fame), manage to elevate itself above the swelling mass of zombie games on the market or does it get dragged down and eaten by the hordes? Read on for the full review.

STORY: Oh no! Zombies! Everywhere!

Dead Nation uses voice over and cartoon stills to tell a familiar tale of isolated survivors in a post zombie apocalypse world but, whilst the story is incredibly familiar, there are some nice touches that will keep you entertained. The game has a dark little sense of humour lurking underneath its festering skin; clown zombies that squeak and honk when shot to pieces, the ludicrous splatter of zombies exploding and watching teams of american football zombies pouring from crashed team coaches, all of which are laugh out loud moments that make the slog of killing meat-puppets a little bit more enjoyable. Dead Nation slices a similar comedic vein to recent Emma “hummina hummina” Stone film Zombieland, effectively finding moments of humour in the mindless carnage.

The games menus have a scrolling news ticker, filled with little jokes, statistics highlighting your killing capabilities and those of your fellow country men (more on this in the ‘longevity’ section). It gives the games front page the feeling of a news report or data terminal and is actually a pretty imaginative (and often amusing way) way of presenting the game.

It is odd, though, that the games main story is told in such a stony-faced manner. The idea of being one of the last people left alive is particularly overworked and, despite some twists and turns, Dead Nation’s telling of its tale is so overtly serious that it just comes off as played-out and inconsequential. Considering that there is an obvious sense of fun and humour in the team at Housemarque it is disappointing that the presentation of the story is so familiar that it actually turns out to be slightly irrelevant.

Zombie apocalypse survival tip 32 - explosions, cause as many of them as you can.

GRAPHICS: The first thing you will notice when you play Dead Nation is how dark it is. Really dark. The design team seemed to be trying to create a claustrophobic darkness, with enemies fleetingly revealed by your torchlight or lost in the gloom. The trouble is this darkness is so all consuming that it serves only to cover detail and just becomes a frustration, masking everything whilst adding little atmosphere. The sense of foreboding is actually created far more effectively through the audio, rather than what is on the screen. The only consistently light area is just in front of the character, in the ubiquitous torchlight. These lighting effects are superb and, when under a flickering streetlight or in the beam of the torch, character detail is superb. It is just a shame we don’t get to see more of it.

SOUND: It is difficult to heap enough praise onto the sound and audio design. In a game where darkness is all pervading and what’s hidden from the player having such a huge role, the ability of the audio to carry the show, both in creating atmosphere and providing you with information, is hugely important. In both respects, Housemarque have done a superb job. The 5.1 audio is used to superb effect, with the direction of on-screen zombie assaults brilliantly linked to an associated speaker. The larger, more dangerous creatures all have unique aural calling cards and hearing these, so visceral and brilliantly located, the tension cranks up a couple of notches.

All the sound effects in the game are superb. Gross, dangerous and ferocious, from the splatter of a zombie headshot to the solid clunk-click of your shotgun re-loading, everything just sounds terrific and puts many full price releases to shame. Dead Nation shows that there is no excuse for not making the audio in your game work as hard as the graphics.

Note: Currently there is one notably lacking audio feature; voice chat in online co-op games. The reviewer has been assured that this option will be patched in but, for now, it is a notable omission.

GAMEPLAY: Dead Nation is an isometric twin-stick shooter and it does revel in its old-school appeal. It is challenging, downright hard in places, but the game benefits hugely from this. With the bolted on narrative, an easy game would have been a totally unsatisfying game. Every mission ends with a green hatched area that you have to reach and there is a genuine sense of excitement and relief when you do. Shooting is strategic and a discernible effort has been made to keep the fighting areas varied. Zombies can be funnelled down narrow streets, there are open areas with no cover and the environment is full of items at your disposal. Even in a zombie apocalypse, people just don’t put fuel tanks in safe places.

Zombie apocalypse survival tip 43 - keep your distance from zombies with baseball bats.

Shooting is precise and, at times, the weapons are truly inspired. It is a heartfelt pleasure to fire the blade launcher down a corridor and decapitate an ever growing row of zombies. There are a number of different types of zombie, though the more dangerous are seen all too rarely. When these creatures do appear they require special attention, but it is up to your imagination as to how you kill them. Do you save a grenade for a larger enemy, get in close with the shot gun or charge up a powerful rifle shot? Rarely is there a prescribed method for dealing with specific foes and it is liberating to be given the chance to “get creative” when dispatching these beasts. It is just a shame that they are not there to challenge you more often.

There are some odd moments, however, that really conflict with the overall aesthetic. Often these seem to be concessions to modern gaming standards. The players health automatically refills at most checkpoints, meaning that sprinting for an open checkpoint is always a viable option if in strife. In a game that is superbly unforgiving the majority of the time, this seems to be an odd choice. It certainly allows you moments to breathe and relieves the otherwise constant pressure the game keeps you under. However, you can’t help but feel there must have been a better way to implement this without compromising the games sense of pressure and urgency. It seems like there was a split between making a hyper-challenging zombie shooter or a game that is more forgiving, that allows you to make more steady progress. This is a shame, as total commitment one way or the other would have made Dead Nation stand out as more unique and it would have been a better game for it.

For every attempt at variety made by the developers, Dead Nation can be quite a repetitive game. Despite the shotguns, the molotov cocktails and the armour upgrades, you do get the feeling that you are solely grinding for the next checkpoint. Ninety-nine percent of the zombies you face offer almost no resistance. It is their impressive on-screen numbers that provide the real challenge, and so you simply pump each full of lead and move on.

Unfortunately, the game fails to evoke the feelings of dread or panic that one associates with the great zombie horror games like Resident Evil 4 or Left 4 Dead. Is the drawn back camera to blame? Maybe it’s the under-drawn characters? Perhaps the repetitive shooting is the culprit?! Whatever the reason (or reasons) may be, Dead Nation is so close to being in the top tier of gaming experiences it is frustrating that these intangible qualities are missing.

Zombie apocalypse survival tip 56 - if all else fails, just stand and shoot!

LONGEVITY: If you can forgive Dead Nation’s slightly repetitive gameplay then there is a laundry list of features to keep you coming back. Loyal to its arcade shooter heritage, Dead Nation is driven by getting high scores. Scores runs are possible, leaderboards exist and, of course, you can always go back and try to beat your own score. Every zombie you kill increases your score multiplier whilst all the health you lose reduces it so the better you are at the game, the higher your multiplier and the higher your score. It is a completely simple, completely compelling reason to play again. Of course, we all live in the internet age and so Dead Nation is great for comparing your performances to other people in the game.

Brilliantly, there is also the introduction of international competition. Every zombie you kill goes into an ever increasing list of zombies killed by people playing in the same country as you. Countries are then compared against each other on a global leaderboard. If you are full of national pride then you will be doing your bit in the great zombie extermination race. These simple mechanisms both make you feel like you are competing and cooperating all at the same time and instantly felt like a real community. It is an unmitigated success.

Speaking of co-operation, you do get a fully formed two player co-op mode (online and offline) to keep things going and a slew of local unlockables (including galleries) to aim for. Overall, there is a mound of content here on top of a single player that isn’t short on its own. For under ten pounds, that is just absurdly good value.

VERDICT: Dead Nation is a good game, almost always well designed and well considered with stand out audio design and performance. There are a host of challenges to keep you playing and, at under ten pounds, they will provide you with excellent value for money.

However, it isn’t a game better than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t have that indefinable something that will produce an emotional response and therefore doesn’t use the zombie apocalypse theme effectively. In Dead Nation you could be anywhere, any planet, fighting any enemy and that sense that you are just playing a game stops it from being a much higher recommendation.

This is pure, well-executed, arcade fun and, apart from the online options, nothing really more than that. It might not sit proudly at the top of the zombile pile, but it’s still a good, fun game that fans of twin-stick shooters are sure to enjoy.

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