It has been quite the year for big budget video games. We have been graced with new entries in the Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Fallout, and Witcher series. These high-profile games have kept the open world genre rolling with amazing graphics, unique quests, and entertaining action. Honestly, it’s impossible to argue with the sheer fun and quality of these games, so I won’t. Instead, I will spend two articles focusing on under-the-radar games that provided a lot of unexpected fun. Part one revolved around Mad Max’s Australian apocalypse and really cool cars, but now it’s time for part two.
Let’s talk about Zombies…
You may not realize it, but Dying Light was the actual sequel to Dead Island. Don’t pay any attention to the rushed Dead Island: Riptide because that game was a special kind of terrible. Yes, Techland did develop Riptide, but the Polish developer didn’t seem to put any effort into fixing the first game’s bugs or repetitive moments.
Thank goodness that Techland actually put love and effort into Dying Light. While Dead Island had interesting combat and a great first act, it failed in later sequences with narrow corridors and boring side missions. Dying Light actually fixes most of these issues by sticking with more open areas and adding parkour abilities. There are a few corridors to traverse, but these are few and far between. You actually spend most of the time jumping from rooftop to rooftop, which is a lot of fun.
Now, I do have to say that Techland unfortunately removed the manual combat from Dead Island, but they enhanced everything else by adding jump kicks and other ridiculous moves. Early on, you can unlock a perk that lets you run at full speed, jump into the air, and launch a baddie with your feet. Kicking enemies off rooftops never stops being funny. This move is also extremely helpful when dealing with huge zombie hordes or when you can’t risk alerting zombies with loud noises.
Like most zombie movies and TV shows, Dying Light forces you to refrain from running around with a shotgun simply blasting enemies. Any excess noises bring a more powerful type of zombie, so you rely on standard melee weapons or those with special additions like barbed wire or electricity.
That being said, sometimes you have to make noise to direct zombies to specific areas for strategy or entertainment. Have a lot of zombies on your tail? Throw a firecracker to get them in one spot and then chuck a shrapnel grenade. The resulting zombie shower is always hilarious.
Now, you may think that stabbing and kicking zombies to death may get boring after 20 hours, but this is where Techland changes the game. Dying Light operates on a day/night cycle, and the mutated zombies that roam at night are almost impossible to kill. These insanely fast and powerful creatures can only be hurt with UV flashlights or explosions. Punches and kicks do almost no damage so all of your night missions rely more on stealth and running. Luckily, you get double experience points by playing at night, so dealing with these tough bastards actually pays off in the long run.
Dying Light may not be a perfect game, but it’s a vast improvement over Dead Island. The central character is actually interesting, and the story makes a lot more sense. Granted, I stopped paying attention to the story about 15 hours in, but that’s only because I was having so much fun roaming around doing the random side quests. That, and one of the main characters is irritating, but mostly the side quests thing.
Dying Light also plays better than Dead Island. The parkour makes roaming around the open world very entertaining, especially when you combine the running and jumping with fast-paced attacks. Sure, I was sad to lose the manual combat from Dead Island that let you control the angle of the attack, but this sadness only lasted until I made my first hazmat zombie fly around and explode. That just made me happy.
If you are looking for an open world game to check out after finishing The Witcher and MGS V, I would definitely recommend Dying Light. It’s just one of those games that you can just play around with from time to time. It doesn’t require 20-30 hours straight of dedication, unless you want to focus your time.
Hey, here’s a handy link to the Amazon listing. Go buy it!
