Zombie Carnage in: Dead Pixels

The Basics: Retro Art zombie survival with RPG elements

Previous Time Spent: 10 minutes

Expectation of learning Curve: low

Why I bought this: 2011 zombie craze?

First Impressions: This game is in love with a sort of grindhouse aesthetic, and opens with a film-grainy, retro looking production company logo, before settling into a sort of top down, zombie shooting/beating action rpg. This was clearly released at the height of the low-res/retro indie craze of the early 2010s, so all of the zombies and the main character have a blocky vibe remniscent of something from the NES. And my first 10 minutes gave me a sense of comforting, gory and fairly stupid fun.  

My 3 hours: I played through the intro campaign for my 3 hour test-run with the game, consisting of 20 levels in a forgotten and zombie plagued US city in the 80s or 90s. It opens with a standard-issue b-movie explanation for the zombie apocalypse and gives the main character a clear goal, reaching an encampment of survivors who are 20 streets away. In the parlance of the game, a street is a level, which appears to take up some 5 or 6 city blocks , and includes a slowly escalating zombie threat, houses to loot, and a trader who sells weapons, ammo and medical supplies. Additionally, the trader seems to be the only place you can save, so reaching the trader in each level feels like a bit of a milestone.

The main challenge in the game comes from resource management and crisis aversion. Much of the time, you'll be encountering small groups of zombies, but as levels go on, they form larger and more dangerous mobs. Knowing when to slowly take them out with melee attacks, and when to use firearms to take out larger groups more quickly seems to be the key to success here, and it provides a pretty satisfying sense of continuity to the longer campaign. I found myself constantly tempted to use melee, and by the end of the game had a crazy stockpile of ammunition (but had taken a pretty large number of hits). I think there are probably other legitimate strategies to be used. 

Character advancement adds an additional layer here, and allows you to figure out styles that work fairly well for you over time. Based on my playthrough, a player earns enough points to upgrade several, but not all skills up to their maximum. The upgrades that I took early on significantly changed the way I played the game, allowing me to be quicker, and better at melee takedowns. When I reached the waves of zombies in the final level, I felt like I had earned the ability to blast my way through hordes of zombies and reach my eventual goal. 

High

My Highlight: The game really came together for me when I had a huge stockpile of ammo, the ability to move quickly, and a shotgun with a high rate of fire. Being able to decide to shred my way through hordes of the undead and then mop up with melee felt pretty satisfying.  

My Verdict: This is pretty satisfying for mostly shutting down the brain and getting out some violent urges in a cutesy retro world, so I'd recommend it for a steam sale purchase.

Next post will be on September 4th, covering Divinity: Original Sin