Dying Light Review

     Hello everyone and happy Wednesday. hope your all doing great.  Today I will be reviewing yet another zombie game BUT WAIT, THERES A TWIST!!!!!  This zombie game is awesome with cutting edge graphics, a large open world and parkour to zip around with ease, this is Dying Light. I started following Dying Light's development about two years back and was immediately excited for the release of an open world parkour zombie game, something that would set the standard for the zombie genre.  In February after so much anticipation all my hopes and dreams were brought to me through greatness of this game.  I will admit that the story could use some work, but you can only carry zombie scenarios so far before you find yourself in the endless loop and cliches and stereotypes, so I wont hold it against my love of this game.  Dying Light is a open world sandbox RPG zombie game set in the fictional city of Harran that centers around protagonist Kyle Crane.  The city of Harran is placed under quarantine after the outbreak of unknown virus, and BOOM; zombie apocalypse.  The rest of the world is fine and the Global Relief Effort (GRE) is sending in supplies to sustain the remaining survivors while the Ministry of Defense is talking about firebombing the city out of existence.  So the game starts with the GRE sending in Crane to retrieve a file from rogue GRE agent Kadir Suleiman which if released contains a toxic form of the virus, at least thats what they say, wink wink.  After being on the ground for thirty seconds, Crane is immediately attacked by bandits, beaten up and bitten by a zombie after killing the bandits, but suddenly he is saved by Jade and Amir; some people. Amir dies, Crane passes out and Jade takes him to the Tower, the safe area for Brekens group. Not the best special agent to send in to retrieve a highly dangerous file, you find out hes cool later, but thats then and this is now so thats how it is. Crane is told hes infected but can take "Antizen" to suppress the virus so he sets off to help these people in whatever way he can while trying to get the file back.  Now that the stage is set, we can begin.  After a quick prologue with some instructions to the basics of the game and an introduction of the cast, you are released to explore this large scenic world made of sheet metal and dead things.  The first I noticed early on in the game is the inefficiency of weapons, as whacking zombies with table legs didn't seem to do much more than flicking them in the nose would do.  So for your first hour of the game you'll run away from most fights, which later on is still a good idea at times due how quickly stamina drains.  Crane can also gather some local herbs used to make drugs which increase his skills for a short period of time. You can raise your maximum efficiency in combat and free running through perks on the skill tree which are obtained as you gain XP which go towards the three tress; combat, stamina, and survival.  The first two allow you to run faster, hit harder, have more energy for both tasks along with learning new fight and parkour moves.

Crane luring zombies with firecrackers 

The survival tree contains crafting skills for weapons and equipment, XP for this tree is gained by helping survivors, completing missions or collecting packages dropped by planes.  Some vital perks on the survival tree are the grappling hook, the ability to arm traps such as explosive cars and electric fence traps.  As your survival rank increases, so will the quality of loot found in the world with certain areas containing certain items.  Gathering supplies is a large part of gameplay, with the stuff gathered you can make electric machetes and sorts of neat gadgets. Crane also knows how to lockpick every lock ever which grants him access to locked houses, chests, and storage compartments in cars. Blueprints are scattered all over the world contains new recipes for weapons, buffs, and explosives, just to name a few.  While traversing the terrain almost any location can be reached, no where is off limits which is good because in one mission you have to collect UV light bulbs atop a 500 ft bridge, survivor XP is also taken away every time you die, so it pays to be careful.  Another staple in the genre since Left 4 Dead came out is "special" zombies, so as you move along in the game you'll see exploding zombies "Bomber", spitting zombies "Toad", 9 ft tall super muscly zombies "Demolisher"  and super fast insta-kill zombies "Nightmares".
  Another defining part of the game is seen on the cover "Good Night, Good Luck", when the sun goes down zombies become more hostile, Nightmares come out and will chase you all around Harran.  Later in the game you acquire weapons strong enough to kill them in two or three hits but the catch is that more zombies you kill at night, the more attention you attract gives you a wanted level that can be shook at safehouses.

Two players taking on a demolisher

Virals don't like UV light, you have a UV flashlight that can be used for a short duration of time or use flares found off airdrops. While it is the most dangerous at night planes drop the most valuable airdrops at night which really doesn't make any sense whatsoever since Cranes the only person in Harran who doesn't spend the night in a corner sucking his thumb and crying.  As I just mentioned, safehouses are very important to gameplay, as you can access your storage there, sleep through the night, and sometimes buy or sell things to the local trader.  There are a multitude of safehouses scattered across Harran both in the Slums and Old Town (the two districts you visit) that can be activated clearing out the undead, securing all entrances and turning on the power.  There is also a multitude of side quests to take on as well as random encounters like fighting bandits to save a survivor.  Theres also this guy named "Rais"(actually Kadir Suleiman) who has really brutal lackeys that go around terrorizing everyone including you and your buds, so take them out because you have a gun and they don't.  Rock, paper, shotgun as they say. Theres also a four player co-op feature added in, so if you want to run around kicking zombies off cliffs with your friends, no problem. The one recurring thing that bothered me is the realism put into this game, I mean in the sense of human anatomy.  If you can chop a guy in half and watch as his guts gush out while hes screaming bloody murder without grimacing then you have removed yourself from humanity. Overall Dying Light's gameplay is what carries it above and beyond while the story does its job.  Not to say it was bad, there were people with feelings and a protagonist that had some personality instead of being bland and stone faced like every other apocalypse protagonist. I've played it for about seventy hours now, so I like it and hope to see this kind of quality in the future for other zombie games.  I hope you all have enjoyed this fast paced review and I will be back next week with more game.
This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

One of the coolest trailer I've seen in a long time