The sense of being thrown in at the deep end with everyone else is palpable, and creates feelings of genuine tension when someone doesn’t return from a supply run you sent them on, or worse, goes down in front of you because you simply couldn’t get to them in time. You’ll hate some instantly, others you’ll eventually warm to, some you’ll immediately trust with your chosen avatar’s life. One of its greatest strengths is the script, which, although unlikely to trouble Hollywood any time soon, does a solid job of making you emotionally connect with the cast of characters. After meeting ex-soldier Maya Torres, you lead your bitten friend Ed to an enclave of survivors holed up in a church within the city, from where you strike out into the infested suburbs to scavenge and explore. Initially thrust into the shoes of Marcus Campbell, a twenty-something regular Joe returning from a fishing trip to find his city overrun by zombies, you’ll actually play as a smorgasbord of characters throughout the narrative, body-swapping regularly to allow tired or wounded survivors time to recuperate. The Microsoft-exclusive zombie survival sim takes place in the fictional US city of Danforth and the surrounding countryside of Trumball County. However, after two years, a stack of hot-fixes, two expansions and one console generation, State of Decay is finally, tantalizingly, mouth-wateringly close to Undead Labs’ original vision. It seemed that no matter what Undead Labs tried, their reach was simply exceeding their grasp. Inconsistent textures, immersion-breaking pop-in, poor lighting, disappearing zombies, erratic AI and horrendous framerate drops plagued State of Decay, and even the raft of patches and add-ons couldn’t panel beat the game into shape. The vanilla version hit Xbox Live in 2013 and was mostly held back by the glaring and multitudinous technical issues. State of Decay has been something of a labour of love for Undead Labs.
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