A dusky, post-apocalyptic wilderness. A chiselled man in shabby clothing carrying a rifle on his back. Melancholic strings, and what sounds like the caramel rumblings of Troy Baker. Surely a cinematic trailer for The Last of Us 2, right? Wrong in the extreme – and Bend Studio’s action-packed open world absolutely revels in it.
Gruff protagonist Deacon St John (actually voiced by Being Human star Sam Witwer, not Baker) is a biker/ bounty hunter trying to survive the aftermath of an event that shattered the world two years ago. His surroundings are gorgeous: the Pacific Northwest’s varied locale morphs as Deacon rides through. Sweeping, sun-dappled views of high desert, frigid mountains and shady redwood forests are broken up by sad stories: a wrecked car, an empty home. But we keep moving – we have to.
DEACON IS ON
Our protagonist has a score to settle, leaving his motorcycle to enter an abandoned camp. Creeping through the silence, we pass a disembowelled corpse, round a corner – and run into another man. Two Dog’s the guy we’re after. But before we can even lift our gun, something jumps us.
You can’t have a global pandemic without making a few zombies. Except the sprinting, slavering shells of humanity in Days Gone aren’t zombies. They’re Freakers: very much alive, very much partial to flesh. And there aren’t just a few. There are thousands. After mashing r to shake off (and shoot the face off) Gollum’s even weirder cousin, and following Two Dog to the roof, the sheer scale of the oncoming threat hits us.
What PS4 technical wizardry is this? Swarming below are Freakers upon Freakers upon Freakers. And once we’ve tumbled to the ground with our enemy, leaving him to be torn apart, the only option left is to run. We have to get back to the safety of the bike. Freakers throw themselves at us in an inexhaustible, accelerated conga line of death. Bodies fall easily under fire – but keep coming. The sheer volume of the things means shooting’s nothing more than a way to buy ourselves more time, however briefly.
Dropping off the left side of a walkway, we keep running. A stack of planks to the right looks precarious, so we knock it down behind us… and it seems to slow the horde. Result.
Deacon looks over his shoulder, panting, limping as his stamina drains. We search wildly for our next environmental opportunity. A pile of timber: a crafted explosive on it, remotely detonated, fells the lot. With precious seconds on our side, we light and lob a Molotov cocktail into the fray before skidding into a saw mill.
FREAKER NATURE
Thank God – an axe. We scoop it up, just in time for a stealthier Newt Freaker (a teenager when infected) to hurl itself upon us from the shadows. Our decapitation instincts (they’re a thing, right?) kick in, a Catherine wheel of blood spinning as the grimacing head flies towards the camera. There’s no time to gawp.
The swarm has broken through the wooden walls, and we’re soon in the arms of another Freaker. A buzz saw on our right gives us an idea: we grip the back of its head, slamming its rabid face directly into the blade.
Sprinting outside, we reach for our auto rifle again as we’re chased across a bridge. The wet hiss of our pursuants is at the back of our neck. We take out the bridge beneath them by shooting explosive red barrels, hopping burning corpses as the music thuds louder and we finally reach… a dead end.
The sense of powerlessness is all-consuming. Soaked in sweat and viscera, wild-eyed, Deacon looks as panicked as we feel. Yes, we’ve got messy environmental kills, elaborate setups and a gamut of craftable tools – but it doesn’t feel like much in the face of such extreme pressure. Gaming monsters are scary again
The post Days Gone – Gory Biker Survival Goes The Whole, Horrifying Hog appeared first on Gamers Unite!.
from
http://www.accessibilityforum.org/days-gone-gory-biker-survival-goes-whole-horrifying-hog/
No comments:
Post a Comment