State of Decay

By: Robert Murphy

With all the massive amount of zombie games to choose from out there today, it is hard to discern the good from the bad and which one you would actually enjoy picking up and playing through but with State of Decay you certainly get your moneys worth. You always see how humanity survives and makes it through in movies and TV shows, they hold up in barricaded areas and learn to survive and to get through and that’s exactly what you have to do here, learn and do whatever you can to make it through. Survival is the key in State of Decay and that is great because far too often you are armed to the teeth and able to survive and take on zombies with no problem well not now and makes for quite a bit of fun.

The open world of the game is filled with danger and problems to be faced after your character returns from a fishing trip to find out that people have become infected and now you have to find some place safe. You travel from town to town, searching homes, bags and more for anything that will help you on your way and help others that you will meet and fight to protect later on. Among the things you’ll need to find are things such as food which is in limited supply and will lead you to losing your character if you aren’t playing smart. You also have to scrounge up some weapons for you to find down the undead with, you are able to find things like bats, swords, knives and guns but with ammo being limited and you not wanting to attract a lot of attention, I’d keep it in the holster. All of these items decay over time though, as you use them to fight your way through zombies so use them wisely. Your character also isn’t an unstoppable juggernaut; he or she will get tired and cannot do things like run for an infinite amount of time so you will need to take of them or its game over. Death is permanent for your character as well so if you lose it, you lose it but you can move on as other characters you meet along the way that are hold up and trying survive just like you.

The thing that I enjoy most about State of Decay is finding a place for your little community of friends and building it up. You make relationships with people though the game by doing various things for them or saving them from become a walking corpse and this leads to you gaining friends and you being able to do more in the game. The other thing you’ll want to have is “Influence” which is treated somewhat like currency in the game. Everything you do in the game amounts to “Influence” which you need to build outposts, make upgrades, buy weapons, everything comes from it. In order to gain “Influence” you have to complete missions for people or you can return various items you find in the game into an outpost supply locker. This you will have to do anyways because you won’t be able to carry everything you find out in the open world without being encumbered by the weight. This makes things well balanced and besides, I’d rather have the “Influence” than a bunch of stockpiled guns that will cause more problems than good but that’s just me.

Things in State of Decay are always moving and there is always something that you can be doing in order to make sure things run smoothly for you and your little community that you are protecting, If you aren’t careful you can lose people because they aren’t happy with the way things are due to low supplies or various other things. Then there’s also the need to prevent attacks on your outposts, your other survivors need to be protected from the undead at home just as much as you do when you’re out searching for supplies to keep them happy. State of Decay is anything, if not a game of relationships with the people you meet and you need to keep them happy if you want to survive.

I found every aspect of the game deeply engaging but where the games short comings come from are with things like rendering and things like it. At times the frame rate in the game will make things a little laggy for you and your character and then we have other issues such as loading issues. I sometimes would turn off the game and come back to look for a car that I parked outside my outpost and it wouldn’t be there for a few moments and then pop in after awhile. These things can be annoying but over looked in the long run of all the enjoyment I found with State of Decay.

To sum up, you cannot do much better in terms of zombie survival games when you see what State of Decay has brought to the table. It’s honestly much more than just a zombie game, you experience a large open world role playing experience where you meet and make relationships with people and build a character to survive a harsh world that just happens to be infested by zombies. And for the twenty or so dollars that you will spend on the game you will get a lot of bang for your buck.

Good:

- A perfect zombie survival game for anyone

- A large open world to play through and experience

- An all around well balanced experience

Bad:

- Technical issues that are annoying such as frame rate issues

Scully Rating: 9.0 out of 10