State of Decay

State of Decay is an impressive open world zombie game that can actually rival blockbuster zombie games like Dead Island.

For anyone even remotely interested in what might be like to survive the zombie apocalypse, State of Decay is an absolute must-play.

A good zombie-invasion survival simulator game will please not only the hardcore fans, who forgive the game's questionable technical issues. [Issue#231]

This is a hulking beast, a deep, engaging experience and already one of the year’s standout titles. Xbox Live has offered gamers many gems since its inception and this is one of the more precious.

When you realise there are dozens of addictive hours to enjoy, State of Decay proves itself a tempting purchase for zombie lovers and fans of survival-horror alike.

The game never judges you, offering no morality system despite the frequent dilemmas and difficult choices its systems organically generate. But it certainly tests you. This is as close as we’ve come to putting our lazily daydreamed zombie survival plans into effect.

In theory this is one of the best zombie games ever made, but in practise it’s riddled with technical flaws that fail to put the necessary meat on its undead skeleton.

State of Decay is an impressive open world zombie game also Zombie-survival RPG Simulated with Unforgiving perma-death and built creating a safe place, by defending it, gathering supplies for your groups of survivors also character building system Well done undead studios!!

Really cool mechanics. One of the most ambitious zombie games for its time.

It's been a while since I played, but I remember bugs and lack of control being the biggest downsides to this game. For example, you couldn't keep your cars where you wanted since the ai characters would magically drive them around and park them elsewhere while you were away. I even remember there was a chance someone from your community could die while you weren't playing. There was a lot of unique and ambitious aspects of the game, but I think the current 2023 version of State of Decay 2 is a better overall experience.

As a fan of zombie media in general, this game is nothing short of clunky and lifeless. How dull it is is itself an achievement. 40/100

State of Decay is at best a good idea gone wrong, half-baked and ultimately unsatisfying. There are obvious negatives to state straight away; the engine, the less than ample frame rate, screen tearing, general gameplay irks that feel unresponsive, however, many seem to think these problems are excusable due to the small production team. Okay, that's fine, We'll let them go. But for clarity's sake, they're still there. The main problem here is not so much the game fails to do anything right, more than it fails to live up to what felt like such a promising idea; that of an 'open world zombie survival game. ' Let's take every word present there 'Open World' Well, the map is hardly small, but it's not exactly on par with its contemporaries. And while the towns are padded with buildings, there's very little else of interest to see, let alone interact with. The three towns are padded out with a central countryside linking them, most of it dense and forgettable. For an open world to feel as such, you need to be able to look around and feel a part of something that's currently living and breathing, yet all you see in SoD is obligatory buildings that need to be raided, and the odd, glitchy horde of undead that can either be run over or avoided. 'Zombie Survival There's no denying that the first 5 hours of the game can lull you into enjoying this aspect of the game. If you don't know what you're doing, and go out at night, desperately seeking supplies, surviving the undead seems fierce and tense. But once you learn the mechanics, the game soon turns into trivial combat, much like Dead Rising, with the added irk of being clunky and unrewarding. The game's micro managing aspects of the zombie survival are perhaps the most interesting inclusion, or, they would be, if the core game outside was anywhere near rewarding. This is frustrating, because there are genuine moments where the game hits a chord, usually when you're back at base, and feeling the fight getting to your group. Having to decide which of your survivors to go after when they get lost, deciding who should rest and who should fight. Unfortunately, the game just doesn't glue it all together. The combat mechanics are woeful, as is the 'RPG' characterization. Whilst I praise the base micromanaging, some of the game's mechanics in this area are mindboggling at best, especially as the game 'plays' while you're offline. You nearly always come back to a low morale and low medicine cabinet, making your efforts beforehand a little pointless, and your return slightly bitter. On top of all this, the game's in game tutorials and explanations are almost comical. In conclusion, Undead Labs started out with a novel idea, but just couldn't commit to realizing it. Instead they filled the shell with arcadey gameplay and half assed attempts to push the survival aspect. While I would never plug DayZ because it's an awful, buggy mess, SoD clearly misses the edge DayZ had when it came to survival simulation. The game just doesn't immerse you enough.