STORY IS EVERYTHING…EVEN WHEN IT’S MISSING.
As most of you may know, I’m all about the story in any genre of gaming. When World War Z was announced, I first expected a game adaptation of the 2013 World War Z film. With names like Brad Pitt, Peter Capaldi, Matthew Fox, and more this would be a great way to see their on-screen characters follow up the events of the film, since Paramount Pictures officially canceled World War Z 2 earlier this year.
Well, to my surprise this was not the case for World War Z. We are presented with four episodes that consist of three levels per episode. The episodes are set in Tokyo, Jerusalem, New York, and Moscow. Each episode, we meet four new playable characters with their very own backstory cutscene. You can also choose classes for each character that will also provide an upgradeable skill tree with said classes. The classes you can use are Gunslinger, Hellraiser, Slasher, Medic, Fixer, and Exterminator.
Although this was not the meaning of the classes, I only used certain classes with certain characters, depending on their back story. I thought doing this could have added a bit more flavor to the story that was missing. For Example, one character was named Tashaun Burnel, he was a NY Firefighter that suffers from PTSD. He once saved lives, but now he only wants to save his own…so with that, I decided to play as him with the Exterminator class.
This class would start you out with a shotgun and 2 Molotov cocktails. I felt this class best fit his character because, since the outbreak, all he wants to do is stay alive and kill all in his way. Although the addition of the backstory for each character was cool to add in the game, I still felt like I had no connection with the characters that I was playing with. This made me feel like the “story missions” we’re literally just like any other game that had the point a to point b mission placements.
With that said, even though the story was pretty much nonexistent, what really grabbed me about the game was the high octane, non-stop action. There has yet to be a zombie game released in the last 10 years that I would say could give Left 4 Dead a run for its money, from what I experienced with World War Z’s crazy gameplay…this very much could be the game we have asked for, for so many years.
HUGE HORDES WITH A SMALL AMOUNT OF FEAR
What’s great about World War Z is the overall scale of the Z Swarms. Though we have seen games like this in the past, WWZ stands out on its own with the scale of zombies that can run attack you at once. When you are playing through the missions, you and your team will come upon certain areas that will let you set up defenses before the start of a Z Swarm.
Setting up defenses like an electrically charged fences, auto-turrets, and mounted heavy machine guns are fun, but I felt it took you out of the action. I think finding and using heavy weapons like rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, heavy auto-shotguns, chainsaws, and more really put you closer to the action and made the gameplay a bit more enjoyable for me.
With that said, I do believe this is swarms you face off against are some of the craziest zombie swarms I have seen in a game. Looking from one side of the level and seeing bodies pour over the edge of a cliff or out of a sewer drain is pretty gripping and really sold the experience Saber Interactive was trying to accomplish with this title.
In my opinion, they weren’t trying to make this game stand out or be some crazy unique game you have never seen before. They took a risk at making a licensed title like World War Z and it seems like all the dev team wanted out was for people to have a ton of zombie killing fun. I will say, they have succeeded at this and really made me want to keep playing the game, even though the “story” is somewhat bland.
COOP GAME ARE FUN WHEN YOU FIND THE RIGHT TEAM
The multiplayer modes will give you the most bang for your buck in the title. With modes like PvPvZ which isTeam Deathmatch with the addition of a crazy zombie horde attack everyone on the map, Swarm Deathmatch (which is exactly what it sounds like), Swarm Domination, and King of the Hill. All of the games I played in multiplayer really made me appreciate this game for what it was. STRAIGHT UP FUN.
As said earlier, it seems like the dev team really wanted to make a game that was more than fun than anything. It has been some time since I really enjoyed playing a multiplayer mode in video games. World War Z, on the other hand, has made me want to really deep dive in the multiplayer scene of this game and play it every day. With all those good points, I now have something bad to say…about the CO-OP mode.
Playing the story episodes was really fun when I played with the AI Team given to me in the offline mode. Playing with four real co-op team members though was something very different. I feel that if you play this style of game you should have your headphones turned up and mic turned on. If you play online co-op, it makes the experience better if you can communicate with your team, strategize, and talk about what is going on in the game.
From what it seemed, almost every online co-op game I connected to would either match me up with people that did their own thing, didn’t talk, or I would get connected to a game that is halfway through the level. This really upset me and made me want to only play with the AI in co-op mode, which can get a bit stale at times with the somewhat boring dialogue the characters would use.
OVERALL
World War Z is a strange bag of fun gameplay mixed with very stale dialogue and many missed opportunities. The zombies and hordes are so cool, but I really think the team could have created more unique zombies for this games, instead of using zombie classes we have seen time and time again since Left 4 Dead.
I do believe the game is fun and if you can find the right people to play with online, could possibly be one of the best co-op zombies games on the market today. Another thing great about this title is the price and multi-platform release. With a game like Days Gone now out, but only on PS4, this is a great substitute for Xbox and PC players. Also, with the price only being $39.99 it really is a great experience for what you are playing. We want to thank Saber Interactive for the chance to review this title, please check back soon for more on this title and all thing gaming!
