State of Decay

[ThryllSeekyr]

The friend who told me about State of Decay is also heavily into Dayz and has warden me that it's a brutal game!!!!!

[ThryllSeekyr]

I finally dusted off my X-Box 360 after nearly a years hiatus and purchased the State of Decay download. Which is cheap at just $20. I thought this was large budget game from it's popular reviews. Although once I start playing I do realise why it sold cheaply. To be fair I was as impressed as I was unimpressed.

Being as equally astonished at it's the game ingenuity as I was with it's blatant stupidity......

I seems like free roaming zombie sandbox game similer to the GTA series.

Especially as you can just go round stealing vechiles.

So you can raid houses and shops for supplies while meeting and collecting other survivors that you can take back to the church. Your established base. while fighting off often lone, two or three or four zombies, sometimes zombie hordes.

The need for food, medical, ammo, building supplies as it's important to feed, heal, arm and barricade and build extensions to your base for other survivors. I haven't really had any of my characters build up enough influence for building yet.

Cars don't appear to respawn and are nearly always found where you left them. Which is a point in game realism. I have had one flaming wreck and another car explode on me.  Sometimes, I just have my character walk or run around. One mission requires him to do this.

The world shows a degree of persistence as you heal and your other character sod things and go on their own missions even when you have stopped playing. I do like this feature. Though, I'm not sure how much game time passes for real time in this regard.

I do think it's unrealistic that you can't attack other survivors, even accidently and thought the game was too easy when even after being bitten a few times my character lived on.

This was until he got killed, while alone and without a weapon by a few zombies that jumped him. Pulled right apart. This happened to the next eight characters he and they were replaced with.

Apparently my first character was the best fighter of them all so far and some of the rest had extremely weak staminas. Then I also noticed that being bitten by zombies does have a effect on health causing sections of your character's red health bar to go grey. I'm not sure if going completely grey is complete zombiefication as I always had characters gets ripped apart before that ever happened.

Like I said this game does have some very good points and then some equally bad ones.

I think I will continue playing............

[ThryllSeekyr]

It says I need to build a workshop at the Church, but I'm not sure how to do this?

Logan Swartz has now accrued enough influence to get Building Advice, but when ever he asks, he is told Lilly Ritter isn't currently building anything????

I have also noticed that Logan Swartz respawned back at the Church as my new character after getting torned apart by Zombies or Zeds as they call them.

Is this because I have run out of other survivors to spawn into? We are just the core group now.

Anyway, I was playing the other girl survivor (Forget her name!) who is friends with Logan and after doing missions all morning with her. I was about to retire her when Logan calls her out on a mission where he is waiting in a field somewhere close to town wanting to kill the Big-un. The big fat ogre-like zombie that I think is officially called the Jugganaut. I've never fought one of these properly before in the game and have only seen one keel over finally expired after being shot a dozen times in the head from someone up in the church watch tower. I had tried running over one three times with a vechile. It just gets back up. Each time this resulted in my vechile being trashed. The second time, I could no longer drive the vechile as all four tires had been blown. It thumped at the car a few times before I got the girl to vacate it and run away looking for another one. I had one catch up to Logan when running from one and picks him off the ground squeezes most of the health out of him and then throws him.

Anyway, this time the girl wasn't quite ready to face it again as we had just run out of all the descent medical supplies for healing and she had already lost most of her health. The first time we had both hop in a car to get away from it. Anyway, back at the church, as we had already started that mission. The game wouldn't save, so we had to finish it. So back out we went. I had then equipped a the girl with a SMG, but I chose the wrong bullets even though they said SMG bullets on the label. So I couldn't use the gun. I also loaded her up with one of those napalm like devices and about nine molotov cocktails.

The thing is that, it doesn't say anywhere how to use these properly. Not even in  the official wiki. You can't normally equip them. I had only done so accidently when carrying a few and dropping one at my feet while in melee with a couple of zeds. We ended getting badly burnt losing most of our health.

This time I tried managed to equip the bomb by pressing the Y button with either X or A at the same time and couldn't for the life of me even launch at the Big-Un until I did so accidently, but throwing it wide of the big creature. What a waste of ammo!

I then decided to cut my losses again. This was after thumping it with a two-handed wrench a dozen times.

Meanwhile Logan who is in melee with it is killed. How disappointing after all the work over the last three days with that character. I have the girl run around in circle away from the large zombie and then pick up Logan's fallen pack and race for the car.

Now seeing as the mission was never successfully completed. The game didn't save.

So I exited the game without saveing and restarted to see what had happened.

The game restarted at the point just before going out to accept the mission and Logan is still alive. Maybe he never dies.

Though it's good to know that your other survivor characters don't die if your restart the game without saving. 

Although, I think that only applies to characters you currently not controlling.

As I tried rage quitting when my first character Marcus Graham was torn to bits by Zeds and he yet remained dead. He was replaced by the female survivor he had travelled with to the small town with the safe house church. I think her name was Marie Torrez and she was only torn apart by Zeds not long afterwards and the girl that her as well and the next three or four characters.

Though, I must know how to equip and throw Bombs and Molotov Cocktails.

[CheechFU]

This is coming to steam in the next couple of weeks for the PC master race 

[ThryllSeekyr]

As I tried rage quitting when my first character Marcus Graham was torn to bits by Zeds....

Sorry, that is meant to be Marcus Campell.

Marcus Graham is a Australian actor who I saw live on stage back in the naughties.

As for the game, I have gotten about as many people killed as I have saved. Though, I now have seventeen people safe at the Church Safe House now. Saving four in one gaming session after losing another two.  I usually lose a person when bang the vechile up so much it explodes and they have to walk to the nearest other vechile. One of the last times I ,lost a vechile was when I was on a survivor run and going cross-country. I drove over a unseen embankment and rolled it on it's roof. So, I had to abandon that one find another. Mean=while my two survivors were up to their necks in zeds and one of them was a Big-Un. So I ran to the nearest farm house. Where I recall leaving a Taxi near a dry creek bed and hopped in it. When I drive back to run over the Big-Un. It has disappeared and most of the other Zeds have been beaten. So those two survivors were ready to jump in the car as well. Both of them were girls, but I lost one of them a few days later.

I have also worked out how to build a workshop and a gym and to use the radio to find other survivors or more supplies.

I can practically drive around Spencer's Mill and the other nearby town blind folded.

I still gotta complete The Wall mission. I lost two survivors the first time I attempted it. One of them was the Ex-Cop Gunderson.  That was such a sore loss.

[ThryllSeekyr]

This is coming to steam in the next couple of weeks for the PC master race 

I was looking at this on Steam and from the previews the PC version does appear to have better quality graphics, but they also say you need a X-box 360 controller to play it.

As I wondered at the compatibility, I found out on another website (Elite - Dangerous) that you can download the drivers for controller from Microsoft website.

I haven't tried this yet and I'm unsure how a wireless controller would work with a PC.

[Theblazeuk]

Wireless 360 controllers dont work for the PC.

The wired ones work fine. Tis what I use for Mirrors Edge and other such games.

[Rog69]

Wireless 360 controllers dont work for the PC.

The wired ones work fine. Tis what I use for Mirrors Edge and other such games.

You can buy a receiver for about £15 to connect a wireless 360 controller to a PC (or about £7 if you want the unofficial ebay Hong Kong version).

There is also a bundle with the wireless controller and receiver for around £35.