Zero Punctuation: Dying Light - Yay, More Zombies

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Zombies are fine, but a rather stale enemy anymore. I mean the best zombies ever were from Doom/Doom2 because they shot back. With out that all they have are numbers, and that's fine so long as the ammo holds out and you got a good melee weapon on hand. It's just lazy any more really and the faster specialized zombies are just played out. So unless they do zombies that shoot at you again it's unworthy a play for me anymore. On that thought the only reason to have zombies that shoot back is to justify shooting human like targets, but we also have Nazis for that.

I played some Dead Island, and it kinda sucked. Just kinda. But if Dying Light is better, that only makes it mediocre. So looks like a pass to me.

 

[Tim Chuma]

I have seen Dying Light played on Twitch and the people playing it seemed to be enjoying themselves. Will wait to see if any good Youtube videos come out of it as I can't really buy any new games at the moment.

 

[Vinylshadow]

I enjoy zombie games a lot more than I should
Probably due to getting joy out of being able to murderlize millions of people and get away with it

 

[Cerebrawl]

I kinda liked Dead Island, despite the flaws... but...

There's a different reason why this game should go on people's boycott lists. The developers patched the game, and have a DRM specifically to prevent modding(it bans you for modding), and issued DMCA takedowns against mods. Apparently removing the filmgrain filter was too much of a crime against their artistic vision or something.

So, as anti-consumer as they are, they're not getting my money.

http://www.gamnesia.com/news/dying-light-developers-and-esa-apologize-for-mistakenly-banning-mod#.VNxOMvnF_uM

Turned out to be a case of stupidity, not malicious intent. They have issued retractions and apologies for what happened.

Honestly we can't be sure either way: either they were malicious, or they trippled down on stupidity(patch away mods, measures to ban modders, and DMCA against modders). It makes me think of the old quote: "Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." In the former case they just backed off because of the backlash, and lied about it not being intentional, for damage control purposes, in the latter case they're extremely incompetent(and how do you send out DMCAs by accident anyway?)

 

[Thanatos2k]

Then again, there are lots of things I don't understand. Like tank controls, the most intuitive controls for static camera angles where you can steer your character with d-pad, and people have problems with it. I tried to get my friend to play Resident Evil Remake, it was agonising watching him play. It's such a simple concept too...

Er...what. The tank controls of Resident Evil are intentionally unintuitive and clunky. They're made this way so that you're much more likely to make a mistake when startled/scared. They're not good controls, and the devs implemented them knowing this.

Honestly we can't be sure either way: either they were malicious, or they trippled down on stupidity(patch away mods, measures to ban modders, and DMCA against modders). It makes me think of the old quote: "Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." In the former case they just backed off because of the backlash, and lied about it not being intentional, for damage control purposes, in the latter case they're extremely incompetent(and how do you send out DMCAs by accident anyway?)

Yeah, the ESA claimed "potentially erroneous DMCA notices had been transmitted by one of its vendors."

Which is obviously complete lies. And making "erroneous" DMCA claims is illegal, so, you know, you'd hope they'd check them before they violate people's rights.

Also, which vendor? This vendor and the ESA are either blatantly lying or enormously incompetent. I'm not sure which is worse.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Oooh that Diana joke. I loved that.

So like Dead Island but better. I liked Dead Island (with a friend), so I guess I'll like this even more.

Yes I must admit I cracked up totally for a couple of minutes at that line and had to rewind. Yes I'm going to Hell

Yeah, he's got the common opinion on this, Dead Island, but better, but I'm really not looking for yet another zombie game right now, if I was, this doesn't look like a bad one.

 

[barbzilla]

I kinda liked Dead Island, despite the flaws... but...

There's a different reason why this game should go on people's boycott lists. The developers patched the game, and have a DRM specifically to prevent modding(it bans you for modding), and issued DMCA takedowns against mods. Apparently removing the filmgrain filter was too much of a crime against their artistic vision or something.

So, as anti-consumer as they are, they're not getting my money.

http://www.gamnesia.com/news/dying-light-developers-and-esa-apologize-for-mistakenly-banning-mod#.VNxOMvnF_uM

Turned out to be a case of stupidity, not malicious intent. They have issued retractions and apologies for what happened.

Honestly we can't be sure either way: either they were malicious, or they trippled down on stupidity(patch away mods, measures to ban modders, and DMCA against modders). It makes me think of the old quote: "Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." In the former case they just backed off because of the backlash, and lied about it not being intentional, for damage control purposes, in the latter case they're extremely incompetent(and how do you send out DMCAs by accident anyway?)

They were trying to control anti-cheat measures, and part of that is doing an automated search for programs written for your online game. It seems to me like they ran the automated search, then submitted the full results for DCMA rather than individually verifying the results.

 

[Devieus]

First person parkour can be done right, Mirror's edge is a fairly good example, but I'd rather have Dishonored's system; fuss up a jump? Why bother, blink, same parkour stuff, no platforming nonsense.

Also a shout-out to Deadlight, for not being Dying Light or Dead Island despite the similar names.

 

[ZiggyE]

Princess Diana joke?

Too soon, Yahtzee.

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

I kinda liked Dead Island, despite the flaws... but...

There's a different reason why this game should go on people's boycott lists. The developers patched the game, and have a DRM specifically to prevent modding(it bans you for modding), and issued DMCA takedowns against mods. Apparently removing the filmgrain filter was too much of a crime against their artistic vision or something.

So, as anti-consumer as they are, they're not getting my money.

http://www.gamnesia.com/news/dying-light-developers-and-esa-apologize-for-mistakenly-banning-mod#.VNxOMvnF_uM

Turned out to be a case of stupidity, not malicious intent. They have issued retractions and apologies for what happened.

Honestly we can't be sure either way: either they were malicious, or they trippled down on stupidity(patch away mods, measures to ban modders, and DMCA against modders). It makes me think of the old quote: "Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." In the former case they just backed off because of the backlash, and lied about it not being intentional, for damage control purposes, in the latter case they're extremely incompetent(and how do you send out DMCAs by accident anyway?)

Pretty sure it's safe to say at this point it is accidental considering they've officially announced mod tools coming soon, so I really doubt that they're trying to prevent anyone from doing the thing they're openly encouraging people to do. Though to be fair, that announcement was pretty recent, so I don't know if you've taken a look at that.

A little off-topic, but with that old quote, are you suggesting Switzerland is up to something?

 

[Proverbial Jon]

My question is: why does this even need to be a separate IP?

At this point all zombie games just merge into one mess in my head. If all the same dev teams are switching and swapping around titles here why not just combine efforts and focus on making Dead Island 2 a really great game instead of creating Dying Light at all?

Now we're likely to have two sub-par zombie games. And in all honesty, who even needs one really good zombie game? I'm sick of 'em.

 

[sleekie]

Well the PC system requirements sure are scary even if the rest of the game isn't.

 

[DugMachine]

I never played Dead Island but if this is an improvement then I'm all for it. I'm enjoying the game so far but the lack of diversity in the special zombies is disappointing. Also very early on I've found pretty overpowered weapons and I can almost kill everything in about 2-3 swings now. Hopefully the hardmode they are implementing will make it more of a challenge. Also the parkour was OKAY until I unlocked the grappling hook. Holy crap its like a completely different game at that point zipping around and jumping from building to building. It's such a blast

 

[Optimystic]

Whatever happened to that game you going to make Yahtzee? What was it called? "Enough With the Fucking Zombies Already?" wasn't it?

You forgot the "Resurrection." ^_^

Oooh that Diana joke. I loved that.

So like Dead Island but better. I liked Dead Island (with a friend), so I guess I'll like this even more.

You have to remember that, generally, he reviews these from the standpoint of single-player. This is why he found Borderlands boring - the co-op is what makes that game worth full price, in singleplayer it is pretty threadbare. And the same goes for Dead Island - fun with friends, not so much by yourself.

As this title is more inherently engaging (day/night cycle ramping up the difficulty, and parkour) it is going to be better in SP than Dead Island. The fact that it has all that and multiplayer makes it very appealing indeed.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Whatever happened to that game you going to make Yahtzee? What was it called? "Enough With the Fucking Zombies Already?" wasn't it?

You forgot the "Resurrection." ^_^

Oooh that Diana joke. I loved that.

So like Dead Island but better. I liked Dead Island (with a friend), so I guess I'll like this even more.

You have to remember that, generally, he reviews these from the standpoint of single-player. This is why he found Borderlands boring - the co-op is what makes that game worth full price, in singleplayer it is pretty threadbare. And the same goes for Dead Island - fun with friends, not so much by yourself.

As this title is more inherently engaging (day/night cycle ramping up the difficulty, and parkour) it is going to be better in SP than Dead Island. The fact that it has all that and multiplayer makes it very appealing indeed.

That's what I was thinking too. Might find it on sale after I help my friend upgrade his computer.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Whatever happened to that game you going to make Yahtzee? What was it called? "Enough With the Fucking Zombies Already?" wasn't it?

You forgot the "Resurrection." ^_^

Oh yeah right. "Enough With the Fucking Zomebies Already: Resurrection."
Still waiting...

 

[Jaggowrath]

Yahtzee, you said you liked the element and emphasis of parkour in Titanfall, a FPS of all genres. So why don't you think it doesn't work in 'action & adventure'? On paper it sounds ideal.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Yahtzee, you said you liked the element and emphasis of parkour in Titanfall, a FPS of all genres. So why don't you think it doesn't work in 'action & adventure'? On paper it sounds ideal.

The answer to that is really simple; lack of jet-packs! We all know where Yahtzee stands on this subject too: "Jet-packs make everything better."

 

[4Aces]

Yahtzee did not say parkour cannot work, just that they could not be bothered to make it work in this game. It is a matter of perspective, and first-person does not give enough dimension to accomplish this. When you do not have an innate sense of how tall your character is vs the distance to jump vs the size of the platform to land on, you tend to miss more than you should if you have all those wonderful parkour-fu skills. I hate to say this, but for once they just need to remove the player-based skill and automate the system. Move to ledge, check for skill level, wait for button press, and either perform maneuver or tell player they are not quite ready to commit suicide in that manner.

+1 for Jet packs or wingsuits (+2 for both).

 

[Kameburger]

I liked Mirrors Edge... Thank god experiences are subjective.

Great video though, I"m so glad ZP is still around and not going anywhere ever because reasons...