Looking at Dying Light, its DLC's and The Following as a complete package, its one of the best zombie game experiences you can find, but that doesnt mean its without faults, of which there a quite few.
At the very core of the experience is the melee combat which is done particularly well, it has proper weight and impact feel, great amount of gore, verticality, if there's one area whereLooking at Dying Light, its DLC's and The Following as a complete package, its one of the best zombie game experiences you can find, but that doesnt mean its without faults, of which there a quite few.
At the very core of the experience is the melee combat which is done particularly well, it has proper weight and impact feel, great amount of gore, verticality, if there's one area where it stumbles, its when fighting against human enemies because they can block your attacks repeatedly, take lots of damage while dealing you lots of it, however it gets better near the 2nd half of the game when you get higher end weapons and skills. Where Dying Light also struggles is the projectile based weopons like assault rifles, shotguns and pistols, while they can deal good amount of damage if used well, their gunplay doesnt feel no where near that satisfying compared to other triple A shooters. Dying Light offers great amount of melee weapon types and even greater amount of their modifications. The same weapons degrade over time of their usage and have limited repair amounts before they get useless, at times i felt the degradation effect is just too rapid on certain weapons, but you never run of their supply cuz they just keep coming and you want to test out better gear all the time which pushes you to better manage your inventory cuz you cant carry around too many weapons.
Further on some issues relating combat, i was really sick of zombies locking onto you and putting you into button mashing sequence to shake them off, it got so irritating that i came to conclusion that this mechanic was so stupid that maybe devs are just trolling players. Also the bigger tank type armored zombies had a bug where you at times get close to them, they knock you down, kill you without any apparent animation of them doing anything. All and all, many of the zombie types were hugely annoying like the toads or overpowered volatiles which instantly alert other volatiles if you encounter single one, making engaging combat with them not so satisfying.
Another selling point of Dying Light is the parkour system. If it wasnt for Mirror's Edge series, it could be best free running game in business, but sadly it just doesnt reach the level of polish, feel and finesse of free running systems from Mirror's Edge series nor the original 2008 game nor 2016's Catalyst. Physics in Dying Light are too floaty, weightless, the movement system too sluggish and imprecise, overall the free running mechanics just being too dumbed down at times to make it as compelling as free running in Mirror's Edge. Still, it more than adds to the game's fun factor and makes up for some interesting gameplay opportunities. In some story missions you get to climb and scale some high up buildings and structures which do make you feel like youre in Mirror's Edge, at those moments Dying Light can make Mirror's Edge run for its money a bit.
In terms of story, narrative, writing, characters Dying Light is a mixed bag. The guy you play as, Carl Crane is a pretty stereotypical american hero, overly confident, cocky, overall rather generic fella but he does his part, worst case scenario would be if he's highly unlikable, but he's not luckily. In terms of other characters its the same story mostly, but there are a couple of whom who are decent like Jade and her brother for whom i somewhat cared about actually. Some of the better story bits can be found in side quests with fair amount of diverse and interesting characters for whom you need to do a quick job or few. Main villain Rais is weak to say the least and final showdown with him is a bloody quick time event...i guess Techland really meant it when they said this is their first proper triple A game, too bad they used most of the bad tropes associated with that status.
As for the The Following expansion, its a decent addition to the overall package of Dying Light. Its has a short but intriguing main storyline, good amount of side content, which however is quite repetative outside the side quests. Buggy is fun to use to run down zombies with it, for first few hours that is, after that its just a simple means of getting from point A to B. One thing that in The Following didnt quite made sense to me is that at the storyline's end, youre offered 2 choices on how you want to end it, one of which should massively impact the game world's state, but if you choose it, you can continue to play like nothing freakin happaned, very stupid from narrative perspective.… Expand
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