Dead Nation defines what a top down shooter should be. It now completely carries the genre on its back.
Dead Nation defines what a top down shooter should be. Any other game in the genre will have a hard time keeping up with what Housemarque has accomplished here. Graphics, game play, story, multiplayer, its all here.
Graphically the game is gorgeous. You'll have a tough time finding any PSN game that looks better aside from Socom: Confrontation, and GT Prologue. Textures are crisp, and the lighting really brings it all into focus. Fire effects look great as well as the smoke and fog. Explosions look great and the particle effects are nice as well. There's nothing like seeing 20-30 zombies explode in pieces everywhere. On that note I'm not sure how many zombies can be on screen at any given time, I know it must be at least 100 which can be quite frightening at times.
Game play wise is where Dead Nation really shines. It starts off slow but quickly becomes a fast paced on your heels battle. There's definitely some strategy at play too such as dropping a flare for a distraction so you can shoot a grenade launcher into a group of 30 or 40 zombies. You have to play smart if you want to win so don't expect to grab the game and just shoot your way through everything. It's a lot harder then that. A nice element in the game is your score multiplier which rises every kill, however if you take any damage your multiplier drops severely. The game is scary at times, and there are a few parts where I jumped up in my seat. I highly recommend playing in a dark room with headphones.
There are a ton of upgrades in this game. There are multiple sets of armor to choose from, there are a bunch of weapons which all can be upgraded, even the moltov cocktails, grenades, and flares can be upgraded. From bigger explosions to bigger magazines, to more power and higher rates of fire its all here.
Sounds throughout the game are pretty much what you would expect. "Arghh" and stuff like that sound good, explosions and weapons sound great, and the voice acting for the story is good too.
The story in the game is pretty typical, but they do have nice cutscene's and decent voice acting to go with it so it's definitely a welcoming break after playing a single level for 30+ minutes. There are 12 levels in the game, each of them with unique set pieces and unique enemies. I really enjoyed the carnival level killing clowns for example.
There are a lot of rankings and statistics in the game. You can check your global rank for solo, co-op, online, etc... There's also a Virus Cycle meter showing all the zombies killed in different countries. After 50 million zombies are killed we'll reach Virus Cycle 2(although no one knows that this means as of yet). Right now America is of course leading with kills followed by Canada/UK right now. We've killed nearly 12 million zombies so far and are above 20% of the first Virus Cycle. I don't know if it changes the game play or anything at all other then just read zombie kills...we'll see.
I cannot really explain how much I like this game. Its a great looking top down shooter with very good game play mechanics and a slew of upgrades. Its a hard game, its a definite challenge, and it definitely feels rewarding when you win because it takes skill to win.
I have played over a dozen of PSN's top games and this is sitting at the top of the list as the best PSN game I've ever played. For $15 your getting a ton of content, and every other top down shooter from here on out we'll have to really step up to the challenge to knock Dead Nation off its throne.