You’re shipwrecked on an isolated island, a desperate castaway in a total freakshow world. How will you survive? This is the start of your own island adventure. You choose as one of the 3 playable characters and must fight and survive to make your way off this island. Did I mention zombies. Here’s taking a look at EKO Software zombie survival guide.
You start of shipwrecked on an island and are immediately greeted with the horrible truth of the island, after your short conversation you find a broken stick and so begins the game as you find yourself killing hordes of zombies to last till the next day. Over the time you also meet many other characters along with the help of whom you try to escape.
Combat
The majority of the game is about its combat and its well done. The zombies take a few hits to go down and there are a few different variety of zombies that you will encounter and change your strategy accordingly with the variety just enough to keep you engaged till the middle of the game. The challenge in the combat comes not from the increasing difficulty of the zombies but by throwing hordes after hordes of them at you spawning out of nowhere. The game does control well with both the gamepad and keyboard/mouse, although I preferred the latter. The game also advertizes itself as a survival game but behaves like a typical action RPG with some needs bars mixed in. The emphasis is never on surviving as food and water are abundant and the maps are really short. The mechanics are under developed and do not even add the slightest of tension as the penalty for dying is minimum. The overall difficulty of the game (or lack of) and the fact that the monsters keep respawning makes it fell less like a survival game and more a of an half-baked action RPG attempt with some side dressing.
Skills and crafting
The game allows you to craft makeshift weapons together out of parts, but given the very limited backpack space you will often find yourself weighting your options. The game also makes meek attempts to tell you what items you can craft or not. Making discovering certain combinations before finding its recipe fun. Alas there are but a few weapons and armour to make and this hampers the game in the long run as halfway through the game you run out of crafting space and recipes. Once you find your favourite weapon, you will find yourself sticking with it throughout the rest of the game. The weapons (however limited they are) are fun and unique to some extent. Giving off the feeling of makeshift and also felling powerful. The character skill tree is a throwaway at best as the skill are neither interesting nor significantly change the gameplay.
Graphics
The game looks dull and dirty, with uninspired setting that feel boring from the moment you start your journey on the island. There are changes to the terrain but the brown and dark green colour pallet fails to impress. The overall game takes place on 3 different islands but they all felt the same, they could have used this setting to really differentiate but this opportunity was missed. The gore and animation however is sinfully violent and reason enough to keep me invested to finish the game. Some of the finishing blows are satisfying to pull off. The transaction from day to night look good though and I did enjoy myself exploring the islands by night as it add to the gameplay making it more tense and changing the pace where you move carefully unlike rushing past the zombies at day.
Characters and story.
The purpose of the story is to tie all of your adventure, but don’t expect to find anything in to remind you of the wonderful time you had watching Lost. Instead like the weapon the story itself is a makeshift of spare quests held together by twigs. The game is a giant fetch quest and will have you constantly moving or finding items to progress. Like the story, characters are also inconsistent with the game sometimes taking itself seriously for 5 minutes where you help save a little girl only to end up talking to a monkey. Still some of the characters are quite memorable like the old lady with the cat and the crazy kovac. Kovac along with his guide teach you the art of survival and adds much needed humor and personality in the otherwise one dimensional characters and the few minutes that you are in his presence and company is a wonderful charm.
Conclusion
How to Survive is an action RPG with minimal survival elements thrown in for the sake of variety. The game’s pacing is also terrible with the first few hours introducing new items and monster but after 3-4 hours in, the game has shown you all it can and there onwards it’s just a grind to see the finish credits. The game would last about 6-8 hours depending on how many side quest you complete. There is a co-op mode to extend some time but be careful as friendly fire is always on and there is no way to change that. Once the main mission is completed you can also take a look at some of the more difficult challenges to test your skills as well adding a few more solid hours that is more tightly scripted and as a result are more skill demanding and overall worthy addition.
That is the game overall it is an action combat game with little or no ambition. They did choose certain aspects to include but it seems that they choose the safest router to implement them making them fell half-baked to lacking in depth and variety. The game offers little to no replay value. With almost no reason for you to go back in and start a new game. Anyone who enjoys a good top down action game will find plenty to enjoy in the game. It does not fulfill any of the genres well, instead ends up being a simple mindless journey that takes you through Kovac’s Island while you kill your evening.
What’s ill:
Zombie slaughter is fun
Combat has a lot of weight and sense of impact.
Smaller mechanics fits together well.
Small amount of humor comes as good distraction.
Challenges and multiplayer add some life after the campaign.
What’s not:
Bland visuals.
Animation is clunky and jarred at places.
Lack of quests and variety obvious after a few hours.
Many of the featured are under-developed.
