Ill start by saying that the game has many flaws of which stop it technically from being a 5 start game. But, this is very deceptive, the game itself, the experience is nothing short of top grade fro which i give it 5/5 stars for fun. This is really Far Cry 2 with zombies, a beautiful blend of free roam survival, with, a genuine fear factor in the zombies which is something ive never experienced before in a video game.
The game fails to live up to its now infamous trailer, withe the family. The games big weakness is that of story, this is something that usually for me brings an experience right down. But, its not that simple in this game, the game is a survival game where the story is wishy washy with no real wow factor, but, as i just said, the key word in this game is SURVIVAL. This is not dead rising humor where zombies are to be honest at time, rather hilarious, this is not left 4 dead 2 which is just a bit of fun, this is a game which is about the core experience of of surviving and using whatever means necessary to to survive, ie, kill a zombie with a boat paddle. As you progress through the game you get a more destructive arsenal of weaponry, some you get to create. The weapons are truly awesome to use, most of which is based around melee combat, though, there are guns in the game. The game controls are suitably heavy, and realistic, unlike left 4 dead 2 where you felt like you were some kind of terminator. Through my experience with the game, i felt suitably under powered yet not so much so that it becomes annoying.
Graphically, the game has glitches. Overall, the game is very beautiful, and the locations are at times stunning. Figure models are good but nothing to write home about, by environments and zombie animations, weapon animations etc are truly great. The only flaw really is that after load times (which arent that many as most of the game is seamless with transitions from outdoor to indoor) the graphics take much longer to load than they should, textures taking a while to kick in making it look like an early ps2 game texture wise till it loads. Now, sound, this is one of the bi successes of the game, its brilliant. No annoying music as in overused, and the zombies always make there presence known each class with there own call. It is awesomely tense when you know what awaits round the corner. It is worth pointing out that in this game, unlike so many in its class, the zombie classes are ridiculous in nature, bigger more powerful zombies are very tough and powerful, but, you dont feel so powerful you want to slam your controller on the floor. The balance, mostly, is very good.
This is a must buy for anyone who remotely likes horror or zombie fests. I nearly missed out on this game due to reviews id seen published beforehand, i agree with many of them, but, as i said at the beginning, its really not that simple. It has glitches which just technically take it down a notch, but, the experience is simply brilliant.