Recent reviews by Cosmic Engine

Full Video Review and Gameplay - http://youtu.be/HEKJWlgYY_s


Let's talk gameplay, those familiar with traditional MMO's like World of Warcraft will have no trouble in jumping straight into this one. Character creation is simple and straightforward, sadly there’s not much in the way of customization here, just a few sliders with generic options. There are four classes to choose from, Warrior, Wizard, Hunter and Priest. Each offer their unique ability skill trees and are good for their respective combat role.

The combat system is somewhat traditional with a few curve balls along the way. You right click an enemy to enter combat and your character will auto attack. Beyond this are your skills and abilities, these are activated by either clicking the hotbar icon or using the corresponding number. You obtain your skills and abilities two ways, first you have a set amount of class abilities that you can unlock and upgrade through levelling. Secondly, the weapons and armour you use will also carry both active skills and passive abilities. This means that if you change your weapon you can end up with different abilities and this can change your play-style to some degree.

Questing in the game is very text book MMO, go to quest giver, do quest, hand in and move on. That being said I like how some of the quests tie into the games crafting which I'll go into in a moment. There’s plenty of questing content to go through in villagers and heroes in fact there's over 1000 quests and the storyline of the game plus it's expansion the fury of the stone lord is a fun story to go through.

In zones and dungeons on top of your run of the mill enemies and bosses, you also have bounty enemies. Bounty enemy locations show up on your minimap and offer great rewards, even better they are soloable. Meaning you don't have to miss out on the XP, gold and loot that bounties provide. Speaking of loot, there’s plenty to be had and its a well designed system. Loot from enemies will contain gold, animal parts for crafting, weapons, armour and more. Those who enjoyed Diablo 2 will recognise the name Steig Hedlund, Hedlund was the lead designer on the most widely loved Diablo game, he is also the designer of the item, loop drop and crafting system in Villagers and Heroes.

In my opinion the crafting system is one of the biggest draws to the game. There are 10 crafting professions: Fishing, Mining, Bug Collecting, Plant Lore, Woodcrafting, Smithing, Cooking, Tailoring, Gardening, and Ranching. Gathering resources is simple and straight forward, simply find a node be it a mining node, fishing spot etc and flesh it out. Nodes also have levels, so as you level your proficiency you'll be able to mine higher level nodes for higher and rarer materials.

There’s also Gnomenting with is short for gnomish augmenting, this is the crafting ability to combine crafted gear,elder gear from defeating lair bosses and rare randomly found exotic gear. The developers didn't want to have the most powerful gear exclusive to the end game bosses and wanted to make crafting more meaningful. It allows the player to combine different gear in the way of their choosing. Since about half the spells & abilities come from gear & weapons, this means that some very powerful and unique items can only be created and not looted.



The best thing about crafting is not only the amount of things your able to create but how easy and accessible the whole system is. It's easy to use, easy to get into and easy to progress. While the game is not a true sandbox, it has a lot of sandbox features, crafting feels more of a joy than a painful grind. Also due to the fact that crafting is very meaningful, it means that crafting benefits you overall in the game rather than it just being a separate part.

Another big draw of the game is the player housing and village system. Once a player purchases a property, they become part of that village. Villages are player created and there are two types, open where anyone can join or guild specific. Player housing itself is very customizable with not only the ability to customize the appearance of your house but the ability to both garden and ranch animals in your own land. It means especially those looking for an immersive experience you can live on your own little farm with crops and animals of your choice.

Villages themselves are also not just plots of land, they are upgradable. Villages can be levelled up by members of the Village with better facilities such as a forge and more. Villages can also grow and expand in size by opening up new neighbourhoods providing housing for more players. The developers are planning to push the village feature further in the future by allowing villages to create their own dungeons and having Village vs Village warfare, where by villages plunder each others dungeons for loot, special relics and more.

Now as I've mentioned the game is a free to play which means of course there is an in game store. However its certainly far from being pay to win. The contents of the cash shop are simply cosmetic items and items that provide boosts to things such as resource gathering. There’s nothing that could really be considered as pay to win. That being said the cash shop is a little pricey but there’s really nothing you need to progress or get enjoyment from the game, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Villagers and Heroes is one of those rare games that sure, it's not perfect and its no big budget MMO but what it is, is a joy to play. Its very rare that I play an MMO and don't feel pressured to be doing anything specific, or to be rushing through content. Villagers and Heroes provides a pleasurable gameplay experience. The way the crafting, player housing and village system is designed, it really promotes a sense of community in the game. Playing with other people to complete village projects and more is fun and a enjoyable experience. It's also a game that may well appeal to the roleplaying community as theres housing, crafting oh and chat bubbles.

If your an avid mmo'er who is looking for hardcore PVP or PVE, frankly you won't find it here. However if your looking for an MMO that’s a fun way to spend time playing with people that’s not too demanding on your time and energy then its right up your alley. The game is by no means perfect in any shape but the developers at mad otter have clearly tried to create a community focused game and have crafted the whole thing very well. I would also add that its a mmo that is very accessible to people who haven't played mmo's or are looking for a more relaxed casual experience with a good, helpful community.

Full Video Review here - http://youtu.be/klkodOS-ZCI

An Indie platform puzzler that puts the mass in massacre. The game was developed by Infinite Monkeys Entertainment and was originally conceived at the 2012 Global Game Jam. The main aim of each level is to reach the golden cup, the holy grail so to speak. How do you do this with all the death traps you ask? Well its easy when your a king, with a portal and have an infinite number of knights to send to their deaths until you can accomplish your goal.

In Life Goes On, if you die that's not the end, instead you just send another knight through the spawn portal. This is not just a piece of gimmicky morbid comedy, it is in fact a core mechanic of the game. Sometimes having to sacrifice your minions is required to progress or solve a puzzle. An example of this is if the objective is across a floor of spikes, lay down the lives of your knights so one can climb across the hole ridden bodies to reach the grail.

In other platformers, you sole objective would be to avoid a deadly trap however in Life goes on, you may need to use that trap to accomplish your goal, perhaps you need to sacrifice a knight on a saw blade to strategically land the body on a button or build a mound of bodies to reach a ledge. What this means is that obstacles in Life Goes On are not just obstacles they become useful tools to use to progress.

Overall Life Goes On is certainly a good platformer that provides a mix of enjoyment, comedy and challenge. The game provides a unique twist and this twist provides great synergy of the level design and mechanics. For anyone who loves the genre it will certainly cure that puzzler platformer itch. Don't forget to check out the full review!

http://youtu.be/EYpBwld_a7A

Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance is a lane defence strategy game developed by Eutechnyx. Eutechnyx themselves were originally founded in 1987 and their previous titles include The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Big Mutha Truckers, NASCAR and did I mention Ride to Hell: Retribution.

The general premise of each battle is simple. Send units to destroy the buildings on the enemies side. Once you have destroyed the buildings you capture the lane. To win a battle capture 3 lanes while making sure the enemy doesn't destroy yours. Each unit and building costs redemption points to produce. Buildings like communication relays build up your redemption points over time. So the idea is to have some redemption production buildings and some unit producing buildings at any one time. There is also the resolve resource, through the skill tree you can unlock special units which cost resolve to field. Resolve is accumulated by turning one of the unit production building into a resolve production building, which halts unit production. While the game may claim to have strategy in reality there’s little to be had, once you grasp the mechanics and limited upgrade system, you can easily win battles without having to put any kind of concentration in what so ever.

In between battles there is a progression system where by you can unlock new units, upgrades and special abilites that use the redemption resource. The progression system is very simplistic and there is no real meat to get your teeth into here, its a very straight forward system that offers little to be excited at. You end up playing the game on fast speed because there's no real reason to watch everything at normal speed, I don't want to see the same battlefield background and same kill animation over and over.

The major issue I have with Storm of Vengeance is that it is lazy and not just lazy, it's lazy to the extreme. Storm of Vengeance's mechanics are an exact and I mean exact replica of Eutechnyx's previous mobile title ninja cats versus samurai dogs. The only major difference between the two titles is that storm of vengeance has slapped some 3D models in there and covered itself with a Warhammer 40k skin.

Storm of Vengeance's story follows the events of the Dark Angels defence of Piscina IV against the green skin tide of the orks. While the story is interesting and is in cannon, it again feels lazy with no effort to make it even slightly entertaining, I mean hell, you didn't build the mechanics from the ground up so why not put in some effort into voice acting or something to make it enjoyable, it just looks and feels poorly executed.

Just because you slap a 40k skin on something doesn't make it codex astartes material. The game lacks any resemblance to a real Warhammer 40k experience and because of this it feels like a blatant licensed cash in. This game could literally be anything, you could place any franchise skin over this game and it would be the exact same.

Now putting the repetitive mechanics and lack of actual strategy aside for one moment, there was also a wee bit of controversy that needs to be discussed. When Storm of Vengeance originally hit steam, I like many thought it was the actual release. Then under closer inspection, the title had beta written at the end. Oh, so it's an early access game I thought, nope. So wait you ask, your saying they just released on steam with beta tagged on the end of the title? Yes pretty much, I couldn't believe it. The first thing I couldn't believe is that Steam allowed that to even happen, if a game is not complete it goes through the early access program, full stop. Second, you cannot just throw beta on your title and expect that to save you from criticism. Even worse the developers at first said there wasn't time for the game to go under early access, which as we know is now utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ since since a backlash they quickly went to hide under early access. That kind of thing is seriously dodgy stuff, as a developer you should know not to pull that kind of ♥♥♥♥ and you should definitely know that if you do, your going to get called out on it.

Anyway back to the actual game. The thing is with Storm of Vengeance is that its fun for about 10 minutes and then after that it's not. It's a shallow mobile title and that is exactly what is should only be, a mobile title. This is not a core gaming experience that fans of the franchise want, what it is however is something to pass the time on the train to work. Look at it this way On Steam Storm of Vengeance costs £6.99. On iOS and Android it costs £2.99, for the exact same game. So if you want to get it, but it on your mobile device and use it as a superficial time passer.

http://youtu.be/-CkJG8m6RAE


welcome to the most recent addition to the Might & Magic series, Might & Magic X Legacy. Developed by Limbic Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, Might & Magic X legacy was released on January 23, 2014.

The game is a throw back to the RPG's of old, adopting very traditional PC RPG mechanics. You start the game with the option of customizable character creation or the choice of choosing a default party of characters. Character creation is limited in terms of real personalization, you have the option of basically choosing a heroic voice or a cynical voice and that is about the depth of their personalties. My advice is to choose heroic every time as the cynical characters tend to repeat the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ four lines of speech every five minutes and it becomes tiresome. Other parts of character creations are good, there’s four races to choose from which span your clique elves, orcs, dwarfs and men. Each race has three unique classes to choose from, one might class, one magic class and a hybrid class.

Legacy injects a lovely sense of nostalgia and really does bring you back to the series of ten plus years ago. However once that nostalgia ends what are you left with? Well a combination of good mechanics, dated mechanics and strange design choices.

Lets start with movement outside of combat, I have no idea why the developers and ubisoft went for grid based movement outside of combat. Wanting a grid based combat system is one thing, out of combat grid based movement is quite another. While going for the retro feel is one thing, using dated movement that becomes boorish and frustrating is quite another. I really do feel that grid based world movement is a relic of a bygone era that does not need to resurface. The developers of the old might and magic games did not have grid based moment because they wanted too, it was a technological limitation of the time period, that limitation no longer exists so the lack of free world movement feels very contrived.

The over world design itself doesn't really make sense you have a little lighthouse that nearly spans a 5 by 5 area and then a supposed huge castle that takes up the same amount of space. Places and objects in the world are not in proportion and it actually becomes immersion breaking to the point of silliness. Someone should also speak to the builders of the island as they need to be introduced to the concept of roads, how any of the citizens travel in that place is beyond me.

The games graphics are confused too, you'll go from a really nice looking area, to areas riddled with poor textures, draw distance problems and outright texture load issues. I feel that Ubisoft really didn't give the game the budget it deserved and while the games graphics are in no way bad they are comparable to that of older games like elder scrolls oblivion even on its highest settings.

Combat is where the game shines, the combat system is very traditional Might & Magic combat which is by no means a bad thing. I am certainly a fan of turn based combat and always have been, it is a solid mechanic that remains fun to this day. Fights are challenging and fun making you really consider each action you take to ensure your teams survival. The problem with the combat lies in smaller design choices I don't understand. Without any warning the game seems to regularly bump up the difficulty for no logical reason, for example you can clear the first two levels of a dungeon with no fuss then suddenly on the third the enemies are a lot tougher sometimes to the point of killing your entire party in one fell swoop. You can regularly run into much higher level opponents in the world that will just kill your characters in one move, which is fine in one sense but not in other. I like the fact there are enemies you cannot defeat yet, however having one of these enemies in a cave right outside of the first starting town is annoying. You cannot choose to escape from battle, so once you accidentally stumble into an area to high level for you and engage in combat, you might as well load your last save right there. Barring the few minor annoyances combat does remain fun, engaging and challenging.

Levelling up again while simple suffers from strange design choices. When you level you receive attribute points to improve your base stats and skill points to improve your proficient with skills. Now any logical person would think to place tab these two menus right next too each other but no. instead you have to press the absurdly small level up button to place attribute points then close that menu to press the other small button to open the skills menu. The is a good amount of depth once in game to tailor the characters to the way you want them, there’s plenty of stats and skills to customize as is always the case in Might & Magic. The game doesn't do well in explaining skill related mechanics to players unfamiliar with the series, in fact the game has no tutorial at all and while I am a fan on games not holding your hand. It would be easy to miss that to improve skills you need to find a trainer, which by the way a spread out in an unhelpful way.

The reason I love RPG's so much is due to their rich, well told characters and story. Might & Magic X Legacy's story is about as deep as a puddle in the middle of the desert, on the sun. There is no reason what so ever to care about the characters in the game, they are all as generic as any clique uninteresting fantasy characters. The back story of your characters goes as far as, your mercenaries looking for adventure, quaint. The games main story itself, is little more than a pointless excuse to visit the various dungeons with even the governor of the island basically stating that you hold no ties to the empire and thus have no reason what so ever to help them basically by saying (office space style) 'uhhh, if you could go ahead and restore all the elemental altars... that would be great.' it makes even less sense considering the empire has an army, paladins, griffon riders and a myriad of resources available to combat the threat, the reason they don't? Who knows.

In all the game provides a good nostalgic feel but past that I feel disappointed. Those looking for a old school RPG will find it here. I feel that instead of trying to push the franchise forward Ubisoft have created a dated RPG experience and cashed in on the franchises name. I have to ask why this game needed to be made, yes make more Might & Magic games but don't replicate the mechanics over and over. Push forward, make better experiences, I'm not saying take out what makes Might & Magic, Might & Magic but at least bring the franchise into the modern era. Also Uplay is awful, stop putting that ♥♥♥♥ in your damn games Ubisoft.

http://youtu.be/2K3DhlcAJF4

You may be saying to yourself 'hey I've seen this game before' and you would be correct in that assumption. Plague inc was originally an iOS and android game and has now come to PC via Steam early access. Now you no doubt know what the game is all about so the purpose of this video is to inform you whether it's worth your hard earned cash.

Developed by one-man developer Ndemic Creations and released originally for mobile devices in 2012 Plague inc went on to be the 15th most downloaded paid iPhone game of 2012 in the U.S. (and 18th on iPad). In March 2013, the game went on to win multiple categories of the Pocket Gamer Awards, including Overall Game of the Year.

The game itself is a plague simulator, the object of the game is to infect and kill the entire world's population. Once you have selected what type of plague your going to use, be it bacteria, parasite or a myriad of other options. You then go on to select where you plague will start by selecting a country of your choice. Throughout the lifespan of your plague you can evolve it, not only increasing its infectiousness but also it's lethality. You accomplish this by purchasing various so called evolutions with DNA points. DNA points are earned naturally by the plague spreading but also by clicking the DNA and infection bubbles that pop up on the world map as the plague spreads.

As your plague spreads and starts causing fatalities, authorities will start to take notice. At a certain point scientists will begin to research a cure for your plague and then the race begins to see if you can kill the populace before a cure is developed. You can hamper the cure research progress by popping the research bubbles on the main map and by also purchasing evolutions that hamper research development.

I really enjoying Plague inc on my iOS device last year, I thought it was a fun little title that had some replayablity but it certainly was not a core game. So it begs the question is this title worth $15 of your hard earned cash? And before the complainers out there say, well you can't critique an early access title, I'll say this, if your asking money for a product, I'm damn well going to find out if it's worth the money for people or not.

In its current state on early access, it is not worth your money especially since only the main game, which I might add is the same version as the mobile game, is available. Why spend $15 dollars on something that you can pick up for less the $3 on your mobile device. That being said there are some new features coming to the game like multiplayer, speed run mode and scenarios but even then will it be worth it?

For me personally, to make the $15 really worth it, this game will have to produce a great multiplayer experience. The multiplayer needs to add what the single player experience lacks, re-playability. While the cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes do sound like fun, I do doubt it will hold people for long. I think the single player could have done will some rework too, if it was me, I would have added some micro gameplay elements in there to add to the experience. Everything in the game is on the macro level, I would have added in some new levels. For example like in spore where you start of as a cell and as you grow the level gets bigger, what you could have done here is start of in a town of a country, the aim would be first to spread your plague across the country, then the game would go onto the world level.

I really feel that small changes like the addition of levels would have really added to the game and make spending $15 for what is essentially a mobile game, a more justifiable purchase. I'm not saying that Plague inc is a bad game, on the contrary its a very fun, if not superficial simulator. I simply feel that in its current state it is not worth $15 of your money, once the additional features are added especially the multiplayer, it may be worth another look. But for the time being, I'd wait either until full release or if your just interested in the single player, pick it up on your mobile device.

http://youtu.be/UiL73w87H5o

Dogs of war online is a free to play online tactical turn based strategy game developed by Cyanide studios. Cyanide studios themselves are a French developer based in Paris France and are some what of a hit or miss company in my opinion. While they have developed great games like blood bowl, confrontation and the highly underrated of Orcs and Men. They are also the ones responsible for the terrible game of thrones game. Please note a the time of making this review, the game although mostly complete is in open BETA and as such there are quite the few bugs and glitches to be had.

Dogs of war is heavily inspired by the confrontation boardgame by Rackham, as was their previous confrontation game. The game is set in the world of Aarklash which as you can imagine is in a state of war. Three factions vie for power, the forces of light, darkness and destiny. Seeing this as a grand opportunity mercenary companies have started to spring up and as you can imagine your going to set of these companies up.

Each of your units has a number of attributes such as attack, damage and parry as well as a AP value. AP stands for Army points, the way that battles work in Dogs of war is similar to popular table top games. Each battle has an AP limit value for example a death match battle with a limit of 200 AP. This means you can you'll only be able to deploy units that match or go under that score collectively. For example I can deploy my predator of blood, a Wolfen crossbowmen and a lone wolf-man unit which adds up to 167, however I cannot deploy my fang warrior as adding him to the selection goes over the 200 AP limit

So lets get down to the main focus of the game which is its combat. There are currently three types of player vs player game mode available. You have your straight up death match mode, Elimination VIP which is where you are given a unit to protect while trying to kill the enemies VIP and last is king of the hill, where you need to place units in a selected area and hold it until the timer runs out. When your not killing real peoples mercenaries, you have the option of training missions. These training missions have varying difficulties and place you against an AI.

The combat itself is your very traditional turn based strategy, the movement grid is a hexed grid and the game shows you your movement options clearly. The green area around a unit is where you can move and still do actions like attack, you also have the option to move further by going into the orange highlighted area at the expense of any form of attacking action.

Attacking works on a basic formula, your units accuracy versus the enemies parry. Should you succeed damage is then worked out by your units damage versus the enemies toughness rating. There are a variety of factors governing your units attributes in a battle, things like terrain, cover, injuries, and other status' can affect the rolls.

Speaking of terrain and cover, the maps are beautifully crafted. You can make use of walls, hedges and more to take cover from ranged enemies or shoot from hedges thus making your character covered while attacking. There are also blocks of terrain that have rubble on them, these areas are classed as heavy terrain and units standing on them incur defensive penalties.

Two really useful mechanics in combat are the charge and pursuit movement mechanics. Charge is exactly as it sounds, your unit can charge an enemy. A successful charge will not only engage the enemy in close combat but also inflict a stun state which incurs a -1 to all their attributes. Pursuit movement occurs when a unit defeats an enemy, your able to take another action be it movement or attack another close enemy.

You also have orders at your disposal in combat, orders are essentially consumable abilities that you can use on any of your units. Some orders are faction specific for example as you can see I play as the Wolfen, their faction specific order is natural selection which gives a +2 to damage to the unit for the rest of the turn. Orders are crucial to victory in Dogs of war and can be the difference between a win or a loss.

Any fan of turn based strategy will be straight at home with dogs of war, even newcomers to the genre will pick up the mechanics of the game quickly and without much pain. The games tutorial explains everything nicely by actually letting you play the mechanics rather than just show you.

Dogs of war is no where near perfect, Cyanide still have a lot of work to do to not only bug fix but to also ensure the correct balancing for the units as some currently do feel over powered. Combat is solid and it is a good framework for cyanide to build on as the game progresses, luckily it is a completely self published title and cyanide own the IP meaning they can tweak to their hearts content. If your a big turn based strategy fan, you'll find real enjoyment here as I did. It is also a good place for newcomers to the genre to find their bearings as the game is not too difficult and you can just play with friends until you feel ready for more challenging foes.

As free to play games go, Dogs of war is by no means pay to win, though progression solely through ducats is slow and sometimes tedious, its easily done. While its a definite work in progress, there is certainly potential to build upon and I'd have no qualms about recommending this to anyone looking to play a turn based strategy.

http://youtu.be/m-CmVu5VIKI

I had a look at this a while back, I certainly wouldn't give it a rating like At7addak did, however a good turn based JRPG if your looking for your fix.

The Banner Saga Review: http://youtu.be/yEZttPytzF0

Check out my full video review, In all a fantastic game. Great story telling combined with a rich art, solid combat and unique management features.

Thanks for watching

Cosmic

Full Video Review here - http://youtu.be/G5S2mAGsoKA

As an avid RPG player, and one who is all about story, I hold any RPG story I play to a high standard. Daedalic have been great storytellers in the past and blackguards is no different. The game is dark and mature, just what I like. Often in RPG's the more morally grey characters are the most enjoyable, relate-able and overall liked characters of a given game. In Blackguards this the type of characters you play, instead of a group of moral paragons, you play a band of rogues, trying to get by in the world and dealing with events that have been thrust upon them.

You start the game as your chosen character hovering above the corpse of princess Elenor who is being eaten by a wolf, after killing said wolf you are blamed for her death, but the strange thing is, you can't quite remember what exactly happened before you saw the wolf. After being tortured and being questioned for a name you know nothing about. Enter the fire loving, fight craving, elf hating dwarf Naurim and you’re soon on a prison break with the intention of finding out just what the hell is going on here.

The Battles in blackguards are very addictive, they tend to be relatively short but by no means easier. The great thing about blackguards combat is its difficulty, some battles require real thought and careful planning. The game is very challenging but by no means overly difficult and while it can be unforgiving at times, the game auto-saves after every battle and even if you die you have the option to start the battle over at any point from the pause menu. Fans of tactical turn based Rpgs will really get a kick out of the challenge blackguards provides. One of the star features of combat is the interactive environments. In certain levels you will have objects placed around that you can use. You can cut a rope causing the hanging chandelier to crush the enemies below it, ignite flammable swamp gas to burn opponents and more. There are over 190 beautifully crafted battlefields in blackguards, these are no mere random maps, these are hand drawn, carefully thought out maps that not only feel unique but really leave a lasting impression.

If your an RPG fan, a turn based strategy fan or you just love a bloody good story, I cannot recommend blackguards enough. It is one of those rare games that I literally lost track of time playing. The story telling is good and engaging. Battles while not lengthy have great solid mechanics and good depth to them. The world is fantastically immersive, Daedalic have envisioned southern Aventuria beautifully. Check out the full video review for a more in depth look.


http://youtu.be/G5S2mAGsoKA

Cosmic.

Disclaimer - Please note I have played and completed the Xbox 360 version prior to picking the game up on steam. You can also watch the video review here - http://youtu.be/mUuRTqf5j0s

State of decay's core strengths lay within it's actual game play, it's clear early on in the game that undead labs wanted to ensure the game had a solid framework rather than just focusing on the cosmetic appeal of the genre. At its core state of decay is a survival game. I'll talk more about the games story later in the video but needless to say, you start the game and find yourself in the middle of a most unpleasant of zombie apocalypses.

Stealth is key to survival in state of decay, and the game provides a variety of mechanics for you to utilize to make sure you don't find yourself surrounded by the undead hordes. Your bog standard zombie in SOD isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, their eyesight is very poor, out of sight really is out of mind in the game. The enemies do have an acute sense of hearing however, the game visually feedbacks how much noise your making, whether your searching through cupboards or breaking down locked doors, best to be as quiet as possible or you will literally have the unwashed masses at your front door in no time. Throughout the game it is often easier to kill the standard zombie by stealth kills or building yourself so very fine traps. Though noise is your worst enemy it can be your greatest ally, creating distractions with a variety of tools, can be a great way of getting out of a particularly sticky situation.

One of the great things about state of decay is that its not just you versus the world. There are a lot of survivors out there and you'll eventually get to become part of a survivor community. Your community has its own base and number of people and these too things require attention. Lets start with bases, there are a number of locations in the game world that can be used as a base. You can only have one base at a time. Each base location varies in size and that’s important because as your community grows so too will the need for beds and space. Bases can be upgraded in a variety of ways, from self sustaining food gardens to guard towers, choosing what you need is crucial as space is limited. Upgrading your defences and keeping your base well stocked and guarded is important too, bases will get attacked frequently, they can be overrun and people can and will die.

The survivors at your base also will need attention too. They need food, medical supplies and ammunition. Each survivor in your community has needs and desires, you wont please everyone, but its somewhat beneficial to at least try. Each survivor has an affection rating towards you, once you become friends with a survivor, that character becomes a player character meaning you can switch between characters at any time, especially useful when one becomes too fatigued to be any good in the field. The survivors in your community can be used to go out on computer controlled scavenging runs as well as used as companions to take out with you. Survivors have their own stories and ongoing lives, occasionally they will ask you to do something for them, whether it be deal with a zombie or a more side quest esc personal mission. Doing these side quests for your survivors improves your relationship with them and this is the way you will eventually be able to control them yourself.

Other survivor communities populate the landscape too, you can interact with these in a variety of ways from doing missions for them to trading. Trading in state of decay works off an influence system, every-time you do missions, kill zombies etc etc your earn influence points, these influence points can then be used to purchase ammo, weapons and supplies from the survivor communities. You also need influence points to upgrade your base structures as well as a variety of scavenged resources. Sometimes you may even have the option to add some survivor communities to your own, but beware things might get a bit cramped if you don’t have the space and NPC's can have fall outs with each other, the walking dead style.

One thing I really like about the game is in its RPG elements, each player character has four base skills, Cardio, wits, fighting and shooting. On top of that each individual character has a set of personal skills and traits. Take the fighting skill, this skill covers melee fighting and overall hit points. By using melee weapons on a character a lot of the time this skill will start to increase and unlock more stat bonuses. By doing certain actions a lot with a certain character this may also unlock personal traits, that add traits to that individual too, for example if you have a character that you use to scavenge a lot, you may develop a personal trait that adds a reduction to the time it takes to scavenge.

The game world itself is pretty extensive for a smaller title, you have around 8 square kilometres of playable area to go explore at your will. The world ranges from very American mid west countryside to more urbanised areas. The game also features dynamic progression, meaning even when your not playing, the world is still changing, after all just because your sleeping doesn't mean those zombies are. Its important to leave your bases well stocked before you leave the game or you may load up to an abandoned base with a lot of bodies.

There's a good enemy variety in the game to boot, not all zombies are brain dead walkers. There are a number of special zombies which are more of a challenge to take down. In some cases when facing specials it can be better to run to live to fight another day, especially if your low an ammo, especially if your facing the hulk esc beasts known as juggernauts. An interesting mechanic for the enemies in the game is the horde mechanic, if several average zombies converge on one area, they will start to attract others and a horde will form. These hordes can be very dangerous and are not to be taken on directly, its best to ensure the zombies around your base are as scattered as possible, keep that population down.

Graphically while a eye pleasing game in most respects, state of decay does suffer from FPS drops, terrain clipping but even with some cosmetic issues it never loses that immersive feel, and because the core gameplay is so good, you actually end up forgiving its short comings. The game does a great job in the sound department, cracking zombie heads with baseball bats sounds as grim as you would expect it too, its certainly not lacking in aesthetic.

Now lets talk story. The game starts you off as Marcus and your friend Ed coming back from a fishing trip in the mountain lakes, once you get back you quickly realize that all those 1980's horror movies have come true and your set off on your journey to find out what exactly is going on and how to get the hell out of there. While I don't want to spoil the games story there are some interesting plot mechanics that I do want to mention, specifically that certain story events can be missed if you ignore them too long. Spend too long wandering the world looking for supplies and some events can be missed and things will change. Not only this but certain story events can change the world around making survival increasingly difficult for you and your new found family.

Even more recently the new downloadable content Breakdown has been released. Breakdown is a true sandbox mode, stripping the game of its main story allowing you to embark on a seemingly never ending quest for survival.

In all Undead labs have succeeded in creating of the most enjoyable zombie survival games of recent years. The mix of solid mechanics, engaging characters and open world survival is a breath of fresh air in a genre where we seem to get a boat ton of below par games thrown at us non stop. State of decay is a must for any zombie survival fan and while its by no means perfect, you will get value for money.