Deadlight

I stumbled upon this game a couple of weeks ago and even though I think the zombie craze has gone a bit overboard, I figured that this looked like the kind of game that I could get into, even if it had zombies, or infected people, or whatever people want to use to say zombie but without actually saying zombie. You will be playing the part of Randall Wayne a man who has lost everything but is willing to slug it out to help out others with whatever time he has left on this earth. This game was created by Tequila Works.

Graphically this game shows what the Unreal Engine can do when making a 3D/2D game. I say it that way because although there's definitely depth in the game you're always going to be on the first layer. This game's style kind of reminds me of Shadow Complex. You'll be able to see enemies becoming aware of your presence in the background and then they will eventually come to the foreground and attack you. I also liked the fact that not every area had that same look to it, there was the neighborhood area, there was the industrial area, there was the sewer area, and there was the military camp area, all of which had difference that really made you feel like you were traversing an entire city.

The audio in the game was good when it worked, I kept having issues where the audio would completely cut out during cut scenes and very rarely during gameplay. I did like the voice acting, though I did feel like some of the voices mailed it in.

The controls are an interesting thing to talk about. If you're playing this game on the XBOX 360 you probably didn't have many issues. If you are playing this game, like I was, on the PC you might have had some issues, ESPECIALLY if you tried to play this game with the keyboard. Sure there was the ability to play with an XBOX 360 controller, but I wanted to play strictly from a PC users perspective. The controls lag when it comes to using the keyboard, you almost have to anticipate your next action if you're going to get through some of the areas. One of the most difficult parts, and the part that by far requires the most precision is the part where you're having to deal with the Rat's trials and having to time your jumps, its DAMN NEAR impossible to do it. I even stooped as low as to watch a video walkthrough and even that didn't help because of the disclaimer that this was being done on the 360. I never got used to the controls throughout the entire game, and I think that's why even though the game did move, the controls hindered it.

Alright so lets get down to it. You are Randall Wayne, a guy who is trying to find his daughter and wife, but there's something weird going on where he keeps having flashbacks to a time that he kind of remembers but can't quite figure out. For the first part you're going to be traveling alone trying to just survive and avoid the zombies as much as possible. It isn't until a good chunk of the game is done that you're going to be forced into a team up that of course will make you choose your actions differently and will also cause you to have to watch out for another person's life. You will be fighting most of the time simply by avoiding, but there will be times where you might be able to find ammo for some weapons and those weapons, if you aim for the heads can save your life more times than not. One of the things I did like about this game is the fact that it wasn't simple a platformer but there were some puzzles that crept up from time to time that you had to really think about before you could advance through to the next section.

At the end of the game when you finally reach what is considered Safe Haven, or is it, I wanted more, I wanted the story to continue, I'm not sure why, maybe it was the simple desire to see what happens next, but if you can get past the controls of this game or you pick it up for the system I'm pretty sure it was meant for, the 360, you're probably going to find a pretty solid game. Lets just hope you don't have the audio issues that I had. That being said this game is getting a 6.1 out of 10, in my book.