#but a lot of deaths are due to jankiness rather than a skill issue; which gets very frustrating very quickly

[heloflor]

Me playing Mario vs Donkey Kong: Man this game is so janky! I’ve got so many unnecessary deaths because of it! How are you supposed to do some of this stuff?!

Also me playing Mario vs Donkey Kong:

[self-loving-vampire]

Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game (1997)

The Fallout series is currently kind of a big deal, but to date I think the very first game has the strongest atmosphere out of all of them. From the start, this game did many things right and expanded the way choice and consequence figured into the RPG genre.

I recommend playing it with the Fallout Fixt mod.

Summary

Fallout is, unlike the more modern games in the series, an isometric RPG with turn-based combat and a much heavier inspiration from tabletop roleplaying games.

Rather than using a fantasy setting as is the standard for this type of game, Fallout takes place in a post-apocalyptic world with a retrofuturistic aesthetic and a more mature atmosphere. This automatically made it stand out from the crowd, and then the game’s approach to quest design and character-building solidified its place as a classic.

Freedom

In terms of player freedom, there are few games that manage to even reach the same level as this one.

When designing Fallout, the developers tried to include at least three potential solutions to many of the problems the player may encounter, using the game’s robust character creation system to allow all kinds of characters to have options for how to proceed.

For example, an early quest involves rescuing a girl from a raider gang. Your options include fighting your way in and out of the place, using stealth to sneak to where she is and pick (or blow up) the lock, use your speech skill to intimidate the raider into releasing the her, purchasing her freedom, defeating the raider leader in a one-on-one unarmed fight, or even impersonating the leader’s father for her release.

To be clear, not all quests have quite this many options, but there’s still usually a few, including some that may not be obvious when playing certain kinds of characters.

This famously extends to the end of the game, where it is possible to overcome the final challenge without engaging in combat.

On top of quests having multiple solutions, the world itself is completely open, gated only partially by the fact that certain areas are populated by more powerful monsters (and even then, it is possible to avoid them).

While there’s never enough options and I can think of a couple of places where I wish I could have had different ones (such as during the very last conversation in the game), the game is generally doing a lot of things right on this front, especially for its time.

Many of the game’s factions and settlements also have various different endings depending on the player’s actions.

Character Creation/Customization

This is another aspect of the game that won over many RPG fans. The character creation uses the SPECIAL system, invented for this series following licensing issues with GURPS. 

It is a versatile system with three main components: Your SPECIAL stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck), your skills (three of which can be tagged at the start of the game, gaining a bonus and increasing faster), and your traits.

Traits in particular were optional features that would grant your character both a bonus and a penalty. For example, the Fast Shot trait makes some of your attacks faster (consuming less action points) but at the cost of being unable to make targeted shots.

And it does not stop there. Fallout had “Perks” that could be gained every 3 levels, which could grant a variety of rewards, some of them very significant. For example, the Better Criticals perk makes your critical hits more devastating, sometimes even enabling them to become instant-kill attacks regardless of the target’s remaining HP. From what I understand, this perk system may have been the genesis of D&D’s feat system too.

However, the real strength of this character system lies in how the game implements it. Both your stats and your skills will affect what dialogue options you have available and what actions you can successfully take in the game world.

This might sound like it should be the default for any RPG, but you might be surprised to know how many games, even otherwise very good ones, don’t seem to even try to implement something like this. 

Many other games, even today, don’t let you specialize your character in any way outside of combat. All characters have access to all options and your stats don’t affect anything but combat.

It’s not all positive, however. There are some balance issues to be found.

In particular, Intelligence and Agility are overpowered, as is the Gifted trait. There are also many skills, traits, and perks that are of marginal usefulness at best. Skills like Throwing, Traps, or Gambling (for example) just don’t come up very often or provide meaningful advantages over other skills even accounting for the fact that a pretty low gambling skill is enough to gain essentially infinite money.

Story/Setting

This is really the part that draws people to the series in the first place. There’s just not that many post-apocalyptic RPGs out there (Wasteland and UnderRail come to mind).

The story is relatively simple. Nuclear war has largely destroyed civilization, your ancestors survived by hiding in an underground shelter called a Vault, but the water processing chip broke and now you have 150 days to find a replacement before your entire community dies of dehydration.

The search of this replacement has you leave the vault for the first time in your life and explore the wastes, and the many diverse communities that have begun to grow and rebuild in it.

Many mutated creatures inhabit post-nuclear California, and you soon discover an even greater threat in the horizon. However, this is not an RPG about dungeons and monsters. Most of your time will be spent in various settlements, dealing with other humans.

Immersion

Pretty good overall, though still not on the level as some of my other favorites like Ultima 7 or Gothic 2. The game has day/night cycles and a few simple NPC schedules that help add some life to it, but for the most part what carries this aspect is the game’s solid worldbuilding and the relative reactivity of its setting.

One areas that detracts from the game’s immersion somewhat is the limited animations. For example, NPCs don’t actually “sleep” in their beds, they only stand next to them at night.

Some NPCs don’t seem to have schedules at all either, remaining roughly in the same state and location throughout the day.

However on the net I’d say this is still a rather immersive game, especially if you can apply a bit of your imagination to make up for the lack of animations and background details (some more text descriptions of certain locations could have helped here probably).

One place I particularly liked the first time I played was Junktown, as a couple of quests and events there felt very spontaneous to my then-young mind.

Gameplay

As previously explained, there are a variety of non-combat options throughout the game. In particular I really like how the dialogue works, especially when you compare it to the approach taken in Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and even New Vegas.

In the first two Fallout games, you do not get a [Speech] tag pointing to the optimal dialogue options. You have to think for yourself about what the most persuasive thing to say is, and what your skill does is make the option show up at all. If your skill is not high enough then the option will be not only unavailable but hidden.

I prefer this to the game outright telling you that one of your skills is tied to a dialogue option, as in practice it ends up being the same as marking that option as the correct one most of the time.

And then there’s the combat. A lot of people don’t seem to like it, but I actually think it works fine as long as you set the speed to max as the animations are a bit slow by default.

Besides the speed issue (which is easily fixed), the main complaint about the combat is that it is overly simple. This is not entirely wrong, as even though there is a wide variety of weapons to play with there is not actually that much variety in combat actions: Move, attack, targeted attack, open inventory (for healing), and sometimes burst mode make up over 95% of what you will be doing from start to finish.

There are still some tactics involved in positioning yourself and taking cover from enemy fire, as well as making good use of targeted shots to cripple the enemy. However, the fact that you have no manual control over your party members limits this front. Party members in general are both unintelligent and quickly left behind in the base game, as they don’t improve or equip better armor. The mechanics for equipping them are also rather janky.

However, combat does have its positives too. The idea of targeted shots is great, as are the accompanying critical descriptions. The animations and sound effects also make combat extremely satisfying, every hit that lands seems to carry a real weight to it.

There is also some nice variety to the death animations. Where more recent games in the series largely just have people’s body parts explode or instantly transform them into piles of ashes/goo, Fallout 1 and 2 feel like they have much more in this department.

Aesthetics

While the non-combat animations are not too good, there is a lot to like about the general art style of the game, from the architecture to the incredible talking heads various NPCs have.

The atmosphere of the game is also amazing, not only due to the way it looks but also because of the dark and ominous soundtrack (give me this over 50s music any day) that helps make the world feel appropriately desolate and perilous.

Even just the game’s intro shocked a generation and clearly marked Fallout as something dark and different.

However, this game’s atmosphere goes beyond sight and sound. The gameplay helps to heighten it. Combat is very lethal even if not always difficult, and the lack of clear initial directions beyond “Try Vault 15″ also helps the players feel appropriately lost until they find a lead.

The talking heads in particular have aged extremely well. I would say they even look better than a lot of modern RPG graphics.

Accessibility

The same lack of direction I just praised might be off-putting for some, and while the game is mechanically very simple there is no tutorial. This alone can make some modern players fail to understand some of the core mechanics.

The quest log is also rather non-descriptive, so it can be easy to lose track of some details unless one takes some additional notes outside the game.

However, the game’s manual is not only complete and written for people new to RPGs, it’s also quite fun to read. A lot of people these days just don’t seem to think of the manual as something they should look at, but it helps to keep in mind that older games typically require it.

Don’t let the size of it discourage you either. You don’t need to read the whole thing at once and a lot of it is fluff or things you might already know from other games (like how to load or save your game). Just look at the index and see what might be good to know from the start.

Conclusion

It should be no surprise when I say that this is a game entirely worth playing, whether you are an existing fan of the series or not. Like many of the other games that I have reviewed and will review in the future, this one has great historical significance on its own on top of having many positives even when compared to the more modern games in the series, especially in terms of aesthetics.

Furthermore, the game is pretty short. It can easily be completed in about 20 hours or less for a first playthrough, and yet it offers so much more than that due to the many options and replayability it provides.

There is really no other game quite like this. Not even the few other post-apocalyptic RPGs that exist, not even other games in the same series (including Fallout 2). I would call this one of my favorites.

[terryblount]

Days Gone – Review

From the makers of Syphon Filter and… Bubsy 3D, Bend Studio is now back with a new IP, Days Gone. On the surface, it seems like “that video game again”. As in, you’ve probably seen various elements of the game in other games before. Open world. Zombies (but not really). Survival elements. Crafting and upgrades. Three skill trees. Shooting and melee. Clearing outposts. You get the idea.

But Days Gone is better than the sum of its parts, though it barely held the parts together at times. Yet somehow, it’s still a hell of a ride from start to finish.

Note: Review based on version 1.02 and version 1.03 (pre-release, before the day-1 patch version 1.04), played on the base PS4

Presentation

Days Gone takes place in the wilderness of Oregon, USA, 2 years after “things went to shit” as it colloquially referred to. Society falls after an outbreak killed billions and turned many of them into Freakers.

The open world is gorgeous. There is a dynamic time and weather system that dramatically changes the environment as well as impacting gameplay. Heavy rain turns the side roads muddy and slippery while the night brings out most of the nasty Freaks.

If you like taking screenshots, there’s plenty of beautiful (and gross) sceneries. And the Photo Mode is decent.

The open world feels small but dense but over time, it becomes larger, with some changes reflective of the story.

The zombie-like but not-zombie Freakers look and sound gross. Blood and gore do spill, with body parts falling off the Freakers, or human enemies when heavy force is applied. Like shooting at the face with as shotgun.

Days Gone has plenty of cinematics with great performances by the actors. Though I find it jarring to see a few seconds of a loading screen, a cut-scene plays, and then another loading screen to go back to gameplay. It ruins the flow a bit, especially when the scenes are just a few seconds long.

It’s really enjoyable riding on the open road (when nothing is out to kill you). The excellent soundtrack kicks in slowly on the longer, uninterrupted journeys. That particular song, which starts and end dynamically, is emotionally charged, swooping and atmospheric as it is soulful and mellow. Perfect for a biker traveling the open roads.

When the faced with the horrifying Freakers however, tunes of dread and suspense pipes in. Whilst the tender, emotional moments are just heartwarming to hear. The overall soundtrack, including the choice of licensed music, is astoundingly well put together.

Unfortunately, the game is crippled with performance issues. The pre-release version I played through saw massive dips in framerate on the base PS4. Slowdowns, textures not loading in, and sometimes even assets not loading in will happen if you move fast enough. Especially while riding the bike.

You will definitely notice the slowdown. At worse, the game crashes.

I can’t tell whether the performance issues are due to the modified Unreal Engine they are using, or a sign we have reached the hardware limits of the PS4.

Gameplay

In Days Gone, you play as Deacon St. John, a former biker gang member (or for you Malaysians: an American Mat Rempit) who is now a Drifter. He does odd jobs for various encampments, either clearing up hideouts or finding lost people or taking out bounties. While the plan was to head out north, circumstances lead to Deacon losing his bike and having to keep doing jobs with the camps he wanted to get away from.

From there on, an overarching story of multiple threads will unravel, weaving various subplots in and out as you progress. You don’t have quest lines, you have storylines, where one mission may advance one or more storyline as it is being completed.

Though for the most part, it’s a story of a man still clinging to the past. Heck, the in-game day tracker counts starting from two years (more accurately, 734 days gone) since he last saw his wife.

The map is packed and there’s really not much downtime going to point A to point B. But the fact that the roads are all windy, filled with obstacles to avoid and danger lurking, you are really on your toes while riding the bike.

If you go on the road for too long, then you better start expecting trouble is coming, either a sniper ambush or swarms of Freakers.

Fiddly (By Design) Controls

You will need to spend some time getting the hang on Days Gone’s controls. R2 is for melee and you need to aim with L2 to use your gun, no blind fire. Grenades are tucked within the Survival Wheel, which requires holding L1, select the grenades category, wait a bit, then select the grenade of choice. Combat is not that fluid, but I guess it’s a deliberate design choice- it’s a survival game, after all.

Weapons are pretty inaccurate at the start, ammo is scarce, and powerful melee weapons break. You will need to use stealth and loot for resources, but you definitely can go gung-ho once you’ve got most of the skill upgrades and stat buffs.

Loot

If the survival elements sound dreadful, just take the solemn that Bend Studio took lessons from Red Dead Redemption II. Looting is quick and easy to do- some enemies like Freakers don’t even need a button prompt to loot.

Resources and melee weapons are scattered around the desolate buildings in the world. They are plentiful but don’t expect them to respawn immediately. Thankfully, gas cans and gas stations have infinite gas.

There’s a sense of permanence in Days Gone. I had a firefight in a small town but didn’t get to loot the area properly as I was locked in a story mission. Revisiting the area not long after (within the same in-game day) and all the bodies and missed crafting components are there as I remembered.

Some Bugs

Alongside the framerate drop and texture loading issues mentioned, the AI pathfinding also frequently bugged out. I’ve seen enemies stuck behind geometry, and even friendly NPCs during missions getting stuck because a Freaker body is in the way.

This game sure has some production values but moments when such issues pop up, coupled with the controls, make it feel like a janky, cobbled-up together game at times.

The Bike

The bike is the star of Days Gone’s gameplay. It’s your only mode of transport, and it needs to be taken care of. You need to keep it away from damage and make sure you have enough fuel or face some big issues. You don’t want to be on foot for too long with Freaks roaming around ready to maul you.

It really makes you consider your traveling plans. In the early game, you’ll have to stop by a gas station for fuel or find a gas can in one of those NERO checkpoints. I spent the first few hours lifting and coasting a lot to save fuel while driving very carefully not to hit anything. And I love that I have to do that.

But later on, you get to upgrade the bike with cosmetics and performance parts, either of which changes the bike’s look, You get to see the Engine III upgrade is a bigger engine block with a different, deeper engine tone. Even racing games don’t go that deep with customisations these days.

Welcome to the Freakshow

The Freakers come in various archetypes. From the little ki- I mean Newts, to Runners, infected wolves that will chase you down even when on a bike.

But the Horde is the big selling point for Days Gone. As those early trailers showed, they are indeed vicious and they are huge. The biggest Hordes have hundreds of these Freakers roaming together.

The early game is spent on avoiding the massive Hordes unless you have a death wish taking them on. But as you progress, Deacon will get more skill points, better weapons and also stat buffs that will allow you to mow them down. Yes, it’s a lot of just running around, then looking at the back taking pot shots but the areas you fight them in do have multiple routes and explosives to use to your advantage.

Crafting all the gear needed, stocking up ammo, and laying up all the traps before engaging the Horde is both the most exhilarating and the most cathartic experience in Days Gone. Nothing like mowing down hundreds of not-zombies after hours of just gasping looking the sheer size and wondering: “How the heck am I supposed to kill them all?”

Content

Days Gone is longer than you would expect. The game has about one hour worth of tutorial before opening up the world for you to explore. The fact the open world only opens up gradually means the size, and the number of side-missions available, will not overwhelm you as a result. Side-missions like clearing marauder camps each have a small reward, which can be tracked in the menus. And finding them is easy, just explore the map and it will mark the spot when you are close enough.

The story does feel cliche. “Sons Of Anarchy meets The Walking Dead” is a rather apt description, but the plot is more than just the biker life and post-apocalypse melodrama.

There are many interwoven subplots coming in and out of the main progression, all focusing on character interaction. Deacon is a dick, the name checks out, but a generic white-man protagonist he is not. Seeing him bouncing off with the rest of the cast, some with great chemistry, others with clashing personalities, is entertaining to see. And the poignant romance story, of how he is dealing with the loss of his wife, is gripping. With a great payoff.

Outside of the surprisingly good story, expect the same-old side missions and collectibles. It is an open world game, after all. Though taking down the Hordes is really fun to do by the end game.

It took me around 41 hours to finish Days Gone and see the credits. Though completionists will definitely spend more than that.

Personal Enjoyment

Days Gone sure sounds like just another open world game on paper with technical issues. But somehow, I really like it.

I am a stickler for games running at its intended framerate cap. So there’s a lot of moments where I just reel back and cringe seeing all the slowdowns. Despite that, the pros outweigh the cons. I enjoyed seeing Deacon’s story unfolded. The number of optional camps to clear is just enough- and with enough variety- to keep me engaged.

I enjoyed customising, upgrading and maintaining the bike. Plus, there’s enough wiggle room in the systems to see something dynamic happen. I tried taking down an ambush camp but forgot to put silencers on. That caught the attention of a nearby Horde and ravaged the camp for me while I cowardly hide in a bush. That’s neat!

Verdict

Days Gone is an ambitious open world survival game that is almost bursting at its seams. The dynamic open world is lovingly crafted to not only look good, but serve gameplay purposes. The customisable bike rivals those seen in racing games. The tension coming from facing the Freakers and managing your crafting resources won’t get old. The story is amazingly well told filled with great character moments.

Yet technical issues, from noticeable framerate drops to the various glitches and crashes are a letdown. It makes you think whether the PS4 is at its last legs… or the game is just too ambitious for its own good.

Whatever the case is, should you persist through the jankiness, Days Gone is the best open world biker survival game, that happens to have sort-of zombies, out there.

It’s a hell of a ride.

Review based on version 1.02 and version 1.03 (pre-release, before the day-1 patch version 1.04), played on the base PS4. Review copy provided by the publisher

Days Gone – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[terryblount]

Days Gone – Review

From the makers of Syphon Filter and… Bubsy 3D, Bend Studio is now back with a new IP, Days Gone. On the surface, it seems like “that video game again”. As in, you’ve probably seen various elements of the game in other games before. Open world. Zombies (but not really). Survival elements. Crafting and upgrades. Three skill trees. Shooting and melee. Clearing outposts. You get the idea.

But Days Gone is better than the sum of its parts, though it barely held the parts together at times. Yet somehow, it’s still a hell of a ride from start to finish.

Presentation

Days Gone takes place in the wilderness of Oregon, USA, 2 years after “things went to shit” as it colloquially referred to. Society falls after an outbreak killed billions and turned many of them into Freakers.

The open world is gorgeous. There is a dynamic time and weather system that dramatically changes the environment as well as impacting gameplay. Heavy rain turns the side roads muddy and slippery while the night brings out most of the nasty Freaks.

If you like taking screenshots, there’s plenty of beautiful (and gross) sceneries. And the Photo Mode is decent.

The open world feels small but dense but over time, it becomes larger, with some changes reflective of the story.

The zombie-like but not-zombie Freakers look and sound gross. Blood and gore do spill, with body parts falling off the Freakers, or human enemies when heavy force is applied. Like shooting at the face with as shotgun.

Days Gone has plenty of cinematics with great performances by the actors. Though I find it jarring to see a few seconds of a loading screen, a cut-scene plays, and then another loading screen to go back to gameplay. It ruins the flow a bit, especially when the scenes are just a few seconds long.

It’s really enjoyable riding on the open road (when nothing is out to kill you). The excellent soundtrack kicks in slowly on the longer, uninterrupted journeys. That particular song, which starts and end dynamically, is emotionally charged, swooping and atmospheric as it is soulful and mellow. Perfect for a biker traveling the open roads.

When the faced with the horrifying Freakers however, tunes of dread and suspense pipes in. Whilst the tender, emotional moments are just heartwarming to hear. The overall soundtrack, including the choice of licensed music, is astoundingly well put together.

Unfortunately, the game is crippled with performance issues. The pre-release version I played through saw massive dips in framerate on the base PS4. Slowdowns, textures not loading in, and sometimes even assets not loading in will happen if you move fast enough. Especially while riding the bike.

You will definitely notice the slowdown. At worse, the game crashes.

I can’t tell whether the performance issues are due to the modified Unreal Engine they are using, or a sign we have reached the hardware limits of the PS4.

Gameplay

In Days Gone, you play as Deacon St. John, a former biker gang member (or for you Malaysians: an American Mat Rempit) who is now a Drifter. He does odd jobs for various encampments, either clearing up hideouts or finding lost people or taking out bounties. While the plan was to head out north, circumstances lead to Deacon losing his bike and having to keep doing jobs with the camps he wanted to get away from.

From there on, an overarching story of multiple threads will unravel, weaving various subplots in and out as you progress. You don’t have quest lines, you have storylines, where one mission may advance one or more storyline as it is being completed.

Though for the most part, it’s a story of a man still clinging to the past. Heck, the in-game day tracker counts starting from two years (more accurately, 734 days gone) since he last saw his wife.

The map is packed and there’s really not much downtime going to point A to point B. But the fact that the roads are all windy, filled with obstacles to avoid and danger lurking, you are really on your toes while riding the bike.

If you go on the road for too long, then you better start expecting trouble is coming, either a sniper ambush or swarms of Freakers.

Fiddly (By Design) Controls

You will need to spend some time getting the hang on Days Gone’s controls. R2 is for melee and you need to aim with L2 to use your gun, no blind fire. Grenades are tucked within the Survival Wheel, which requires holding L1, select the grenades category, wait a bit, then select the grenade of choice. Combat is not that fluid, but I guess it’s a deliberate design choice- it’s a survival game, after all.

Weapons are pretty inaccurate at the start, ammo is scarce, and powerful melee weapons break. You will need to use stealth and loot for resources, but you definitely can go gung-ho once you’ve got most of the skill upgrades and stat buffs.

Loot

If the survival elements sound dreadful, just take the solemn that Bend Studio took lessons from Red Dead Redemption II. Looting is quick and easy to do- some enemies like Freakers don’t even need a button prompt to loot.

Resources and melee weapons are scattered around the desolate buildings in the world. They are plentiful but don’t expect them to respawn immediately. Thankfully, gas cans and gas stations have infinite gas.

There’s a sense of permanence in Days Gone. I had a firefight in a small town but didn’t get to loot the area properly as I was locked in a story mission. Revisiting the area not long after (within the same in-game day) and all the bodies and missed crafting components are there as I remembered.

Some Bugs

Alongside the framerate drop and texture loading issues mentioned, the AI pathfinding also frequently bugged out. I’ve seen enemies stuck behind geometry, and even friendly NPCs during missions getting stuck because a Freaker body is in the way.

This game sure has some production values but moments when such issues pop up, coupled with the controls, make it feel like a janky, cobbled-up together game at times.

The Bike

The bike is the star of Days Gone’s gameplay. It’s your only mode of transport, and it needs to be taken care of. You need to keep it away from damage and make sure you have enough fuel or face some big issues. You don’t want to be on foot for too long with Freaks roaming around ready to maul you.

It really makes you consider your traveling plans. In the early game, you’ll have to stop by a gas station for fuel or find a gas can in one of those NERO checkpoints. I spent the first few hours lifting and coasting a lot to save fuel while driving very carefully not to hit anything. And I love that I have to do that.

But later on, you get to upgrade the bike with cosmetics and performance parts, either of which changes the bike’s look, You get to see the Engine III upgrade is a bigger engine block with a different, deeper engine tone. Even racing games don’t go that deep with customisations these days.

Welcome to the Freakshow

The Freakers come in various archetypes. From the little ki- I mean Newts, to Runners, infected wolves that will chase you down even when on a bike.

But the Horde is the big selling point for Days Gone. As those early trailers showed, they are indeed vicious and they are huge. The biggest Hordes have hundreds of these Freakers roaming together.

The early game is spent on avoiding the massive Hordes unless you have a death wish taking them on. But as you progress, Deacon will get more skill points, better weapons and also stat buffs that will allow you to mow them down. Yes, it’s a lot of just running around, then looking at the back taking pot shots but the areas you fight them in do have multiple routes and explosives to use to your advantage.

Crafting all the gear needed, stocking up ammo, and laying up all the traps before engaging the Horde is both the most exhilarating and the most cathartic experience in Days Gone. Nothing like mowing down hundreds of not-zombies after hours of just gasping looking the sheer size and wondering: “How the heck am I supposed to kill them all?”

Content

Days Gone is longer than you would expect. The game has about one hour worth of tutorial before opening up the world for you to explore. The fact the open world only opens up gradually means the size, and the number of side-missions available, will not overwhelm you as a result. Side-missions like clearing marauder camps each have a small reward, which can be tracked in the menus. And finding them is easy, just explore the map and it will mark the spot when you are close enough.

The story does feel cliche. “Sons Of Anarchy meets The Walking Dead” is a rather apt description, but the plot is more than just the biker life and post-apocalypse melodrama.

There are many interwoven subplots coming in and out of the main progression, all focusing on character interaction. Deacon is a dick, the name checks out, but a generic white-man protagonist he is not. Seeing him bouncing off with the rest of the cast, some with great chemistry, others with clashing personalities, is entertaining to see. And the poignant romance story, of how he is dealing with the loss of his wife, is gripping. With a great payoff.

Outside of the surprisingly good story, expect the same-old side missions and collectibles. It is an open world game, after all. Though taking down the Hordes is really fun to do by the end game.

It took me around 41 hours to finish Days Gone and see the credits. Though completionists will definitely spend more than that.

Personal Enjoyment

Days Gone sure sounds like just another open world game on paper with technical issues. But somehow, I really like it.

I am a stickler for games running at its intended framerate cap. So there’s a lot of moments where I just reel back and cringe seeing all the slowdowns. Despite that, the pros outweigh the cons. I enjoyed seeing Deacon’s story unfolded. The number of optional camps to clear is just enough- and with enough variety- to keep me engaged.

I enjoyed customising, upgrading and maintaining the bike. Plus, there’s enough wiggle room in the systems to see something dynamic happen. I tried taking down an ambush camp but forgot to put silencers on. That caught the attention of a nearby Horde and ravaged the camp for me while I cowardly hide in a bush. That’s neat!

Verdict

Days Gone is an ambitious open world survival game that is almost bursting at its seams. The dynamic open world is lovingly crafted to not only look good, but serve gameplay purposes. The customisable bike rivals those seen in racing games. The tension coming from facing the Freakers and managing your crafting resources won’t get old. The story is amazingly well told filled with great character moments.

Yet technical issues, from noticeable framerate drops to the various glitches and crashes are a letdown. It makes you think whether the PS4 is at its last legs… or the game is just too ambitious for its own good.

Whatever the case is, should you persist through the jankiness, Days Gone is the best open world biker survival game, that happens to have sort-of zombies, out there.

It’s a hell of a ride.

Review based on version 1.02 and version 1.03 (pre-release), played on the base PS4. Review copy provided by the publisher

Days Gone – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/