Wouldn't advise to buy this game, another greedy company jumped on the "zombie wagon" to make some quick cash
Brutal player killing, bugs, missing features, and expensive micropayments are the true drawbacks of the impending zombie apocalypse.
So many massively multiplayer games are all about what you make them. A wide-open atmosphere can make online experiences incredibly rewarding, adding a sense of freedom and community that isn't possible when playing solo. In the case of The War Z, however, freedom and community have been allowed to run wild to such a point that the game is almost unplayable. Hammerpoint Interactive's look at life after the zombie apocalypse is a complete disaster. It's ridiculous that this game is being sold, with unfinished features, loads of bugs, wildly out-of-control player killing, and a system of micropayments that couldn't steal more money from players if you gave it a mask and a gun.
The concept behind The War Z is straightforward. It is also remarkably similar to Dean Hall's extremely impressive ARMA II: Combined Ops mod DayZ, a vastly superior and free take on the same themes seen here. If you've viewed any post-Romero fright flicks where the dead come back to life with a craving to gnaw on cerebellums, you know what to expect. The setting is the wilderness of a postapocalyptic Colorado, where you have been unceremoniously dumped with nothing more than a flashlight (one of those big Maglite things that does double duty as a club),a soft drink, a granola bar, and bandages. There are no goals, no quests, and no storyline of any sort. All you have for motivation is the imperative to stay alive, which you do by avoiding being brutally murdered by either the other players or the zombies, and by keeping enough food and drink in your system to avoid starving to death.
If you're one of the millions of people who have gotten hooked on the Walking Dead comic or TV show, let alone the countless zombie movies that have followed in the 45-year wake of Night of the Living Dead, you can't help but be intrigued by the concept. But that's all the game is--a concept; there is virtually nothing behind it. While The War Z sounds nifty, it is close to a blank slate, with an open sandbox world that is nigh impossible to enjoy. The absence of any structure and any viable reasons to go after the zombies has unbalanced the game, resulting in a frustrating free-for-all where you murder one another so often and so efficiently that the undead are no worry at all by comparison.
It's hard to imagine how any game could be more unforgiving than The War Z. You can't settle in long enough to figure out the gameplay basics before you find yourself the recipient of a shotgun blast to the face from some guy looking to loot a corpse. There are no breaks anywhere on the map. Three settlements are supposed to serve as no-weapon safe zones and places where you can access your global inventory, but they function better as ambush spots where bandits (generally with spectacularly inventive offensive names) camp out waiting to kill other players. Opportunists constantly haunt the roads into such sanctuaries, ready to gun down anyone trying to enter or leave.
A great addendum to all of this frenzied murder is the inability to spawn back in after being slain, and this is when playing on normal difficulty, not the hardcore setting where death is permanent. Get killed, and you have to wait a full hour to send your character back into the fray. You can go right back in by creating a new survivalist in one of the five available character slots or by replacing an existing character with new cannon fodder, but the delay is still absurdly punitive given how often you can get killed.
Oddly enough, zombies are an afterthought. It soon becomes clear why you are mainly killing each other: there isn't any point bothering with the undead. The biggest problem is that zombies are found mostly in and around the scarce towns and various points of interest on the map, which are thoroughly watched by player-killing campers. Playing as a zombie-murdering machine like The Walking Dead fan-fave Michonne is out of the question. Wander toward a town with a hankering to cut off zombie heads, and you set yourself up to be shot in the head by a human player waiting for newbies to wander into firing range.
Undead also offer more risk than reward. Zombie-populated towns are scattered with goodies like bottles of water and food and medical supplies, but little is worth risking life and limb over, especially given the need to run those gauntlets set up by other players. You can also be quickly overwhelmed by gangs of zombies who pop up out of nowhere and move more quickly than you might expect.
Combat isn't particularly difficult; you can generally button-mash the undead goons to death. But it is dull, with each zombie taking a dozen or more whacks before going down. It's possible to take down a group of four or five zombies, but the process is so boring that you soon wish they would just eat you. Sneaking around them is more interesting: meters show how visible you are and how much noise you're making, so you can avoid combat much of the time.
Slain zombies can at least occasionally be looted for in-game money. Kill a zombie, and you might be able to go through his pockets for 80 to 100 dollars. Still, this is not a good deal. Sure, it saves you from having to rely on killing other players to obtain gear. It even saves you real-world cash, since the only other alternative to acquire gear is to purchase it via micropayments (more on this later).
the most problem is the devs give a f*** about their community/customers and it seems they dont know what they are doing. every 3-4 weeks a small patch and it get worse like last patch. they promise too much and cant implement it like stronghold or cars. its a full rip off and i feel sorry for the ppl who bought the legendary account....btw i got a warning saying this on the forum :P
on their homepage the pictures are all faked, i mean that say it all
Proof positive that metacritic or the blogosphere is by no means always reliable. All I can say is think for yourself. For me, it's the best 15 bucks I ever spent, hands down. Playing with a huge clan and no one can touch us. Hacker problem is being addressed and is better in general. Skill trees are in now. 100 man servers. Regular updates. It's only getting better. Don't believe the smear campaign is all I can say, I love this game. I play literally every day and so does everyone in my clan.
Pretty sad that a bunch of people who never played the game or barely played just sit on the internet and cry and whine about it like little pansies. @Mattydigs1 bad things in beautiful words :P the game is somehow fun for 15 bucks but its a rip off game when u see the ingame shop, the pictures on their website which are all faked, the regular patches mostly suck coz it getting worse with them. it was it is and will ever be a scam to the ppl.
@Mattydigs1 Almost as sad as a pansy that tells people to think for themselves and then disregards the opinions that differ from his own.
Its funny how some people are hating the score (well deserved, btw..). It is crap. get over it.
played it in a friend's place, I just wanted to whack zombies with a flashlight, and the in-game world chat is HILARIOUS, and that's the only reason he got the game.
Thanks for the review, I just saw this on steam and was about to buy it because there was no demo. But the most stupid thing has to be the micro transactions, only to lose it 10secs into the game. I couldn't believe this at first so had to read a few more reviews. The only way this game could get any worse is if it was pay monthly too... or is it?
Man, you crouch when you running for the Zombies, and you want not be killed ? Seriouly ? Man, stop making Review. Seriouly. STOP! You only speaks of the bad parts of the game. Talk about the Good things TOO. DayZ have no BUGS ? NO CHEATS ? Man, you are so dumb. Everything you said. It was a lie, I do a Review better than you.
Just the simple fact that he said "I'm glad Sony decided to go with 8gb RAM" proves that it will not be better then PCs for years to come. 8gb of ram is pretty standard on most PCs for the past year at least. They should have gone with 16gb at least since it's probably the cheapest thing to upgrade quickly (in a PC at least). That being said, I hope the PS4 is successful and sells tons o' units, since right now it seems like they're making all the wrong decisions down @ Microsoft with the whole "used game" fiasco and DRM crap. I hope none of that is true, or at least they change their minds about it before it launches.
5 Like Ohhh, dude.... Common.... The game deserves a 1.0... 2.0 is to mutch, the game wont live to those expectations if the players think this game is a 2.0...... common
1 Like This guy reviewing the game has some real brain issues. Never seen such a partial review.
Wonder how much money he got from the dayZ developers to do this shitty review. It shown nothing about the game. And he thinks he knows what the game is about but got no clue at all.
Brett Hope, do not ever make a review about a game again. Its kinda obvious you dont know a shit about gaming at all!
1 Like @Nympher Nympher is a clearly an ignorant so we should ignore this guy. I think he is one of employee in Hammerpoint. It's okay when you already spend so much money on WarZ without knowing that it is a pure shit and got offended by this review.
The truth why this game received a low score is because there is no passion went into this game for any of their customers but just a pure greed like for example Big Rigs. It really deserved 0.1 since Gamespot can't give 0 for their reviews.
1 Like @Nympher dude, are you serious? Or are you just kidding and being sarcastic? I dont get it...
10 Like @Nympher What are you talking about? Brett has been writing for GameSpot for close to a decade; he most certainly know what he is talking about.
Yes--I am sure the DayZ developer are just rolling in dough :/
The game is awful. If you find any factual errors, feel free to email them to me: kevin@gamespot.com.
@Kevin-V @Nympher c'mon. you should know better. compare to most of reviews that some sh*tty games have in here, WarZ deserves a little better. I know 'bout this and i understand both point of views, but i would've give this game 4.5 _at least_! :) someone once told - "making a game... it's not easy." - ... and even online, with a big "map"(platform), even more difficult... why do you have 1 guy judging 1 game? that way, it's logical that some people would come here and "defend" the game. and i think you know* why that happens. (*well.. i 'think' know that...)
1 Like @ricardofs @Kevin-V @Nympher You obviously enjoy mediocrity. I suggest you gain some experience with gaming before you comment again. Typical youngling.
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@PietHenkJan indeed. Guys if you really wanna see the full game in action, jump on one of the stream on twitch and you will relize that this guy Brett talking some deep shit!
hey Brett, Do me a favor and ACTUALLY play the game how it is supposed to be played before you go down talking it. if you actually went around and found guns your would freaking survive. and another little tip is when getting chased by zombies dont run in a straight line noob. one more thing when u hit zombie in the freaking stomache then of course its gonna take 12 hits to kill the dang thing. hit in the head or find hammer that takes 3 hits to kill it. just because u suck at the game dosent mean its bad. go back to hello kitty island reviewing seems like thats what ur good at mate.
7 Like @mydixiwrecked I had no idea there was a WarZ defense force, creating GameSpot accounts just to promote their terrible game. It goes to show you that almost any game, no matter how awful, has its rabid fans.
@Kevin-V@mydixiwrecked If they didn't defend it, there would be no point to player camp for noobs if people got smart and stopped buying a terrible game. Poor guy is probably resorting to actually killing zombies for loots since the player base dropped. Have some pity for the desperate. :/
1 Like @Cyberdactyl137 @mydixiwrecked let me guess, another kid thats gonna judge warZ and hasent explored all features of the game? GG kid u should join him in hello kitty \.
From the creators of highly acclaimed Big Rigs: Over the Road, the War Z is even better than ever! It doubled the score from the previous game.
3 Like This game is like a hoax. False advertising, crazy microtransactions, devs banning people who criticize their game, etc.
@boyrush would you do better? that my question. bye-bye. (let me guess, you're not even a programmer it seems. if you are, then congratz - cookie?)
You are so right ricardofs! People shouldn't judge games by the actually game play or compare it to other graphics of the same genre; hell if you ask me, I think all game developers should just rip games off each other, milk as much money as they can from their player base and not worry about whether they're even enjoying the game! Making games for players to join is too trendy! It's time to be different! Dont worry about those morons like boyrush, you and I both know the real truth that games should be rated by the difficulty of creating it or the fact that people even know programing at all deserves 11/10.
5 Like LOL 2.0 Nothing I like more than seeing mouthy, overconfident and downright rude deveopers getting their realty check. It shuld be calld "getting the Romero" lmao
Phew, thank God I didn't buy this crap. I heard the embarrassing stories this game has, and everything mentioned here is the perfect summary of a comet sly broken unplayable ripoff of Day z. Heard the interview, its terribly disgusting to see that asshole ripping its customer straight in the face. I bought Re6 instead, and damn well satisfied with it. It's just like RE5 only with big improvements. Can't believe that game scored 45, but thankfully the users beg to differ. This game beats the shit out of War z, Black Ops 2 or any generic third person shooter game this and last year. Still playing it right now because of how fun it is.
1 Like Will they ever release strongholds and map hosting??? I paid the extra $20 so I wouldn't have to deal with lame ass bandit spawn killers ,but still after 3 months of patiently waiting ,still nothing. I truly regret buying this game and will never recommend it to anyone. I have faith Day Z will be the better overall finished game. Learn from The War Z's mistakes and Day Z will be great!
6 Like The game is a slapdash mod of War Inc., they failed to make any design considerations to balance PvP, they copied images from Walking Dead for their artwork, they ran it through the extremely short Alpha and Beta tests. They've behaved like a High School kid who forgot to do his research paper and is scrambling and plagiarizing and at the last minute just to have SOMETHING to turn in. The major difference being they did it deliberately to get money from anyone who would buy their game without checking reviews or buzz.
Then when it's in the hands of the public and people notice what they did, they lie, cover up, censor and blame buyers for "misreading" their misrepresentations. They're so stupid or crass they actually believe they can get away with what they've done.
Any developer who would be a party to this deserves to be blackballed from the industry for the rest of their life.
@Oshyman990 I refuse to play on my native region - why? because 90% of the people there are either russian or polish, and doesnt apparantly understand english.
6 Like Anyone who calls this game good or even average is just simply wrong, yes it's your opinion but it's extreamly dumb. It's like saying the world is flat, it might be your opinion but it's compleatly wrong. If you actully protect these developers, you're encouraging developers to act like pricks and basicly rob their customers. The people who made War Z deserve every lil bit of hate they get .
1 Like @NightmareP3 love how after two sentences you have nullified your argument twice.
I think the game is good - dumb opinion or not. But I do NOT think it is FINISHED. Releasing this game this early is about the worst decision they have ever made. But I have poured 20+ hours into it, and enjoyed it immensivly.
@alioli < - this guy said it all! :) bad move on releasing too soon...BUT the negative comments are wrong too, because of that! so it's 'null'. why? - because the game is still a "young" one. and with that phrase i "said it all"...too. ^^
3 Like @alioli @NightmareP3 the time will go by, and you'll realise your mistake.
This game is made by criminals, for not so smart people. It has been proved, and it might will again.
1 Like @alioli @NightmareP3 take it for what it is, it's already out and i doubt they care enough to fix much. it doesnt matter if YOU think its finished... because it is
