Dying Light Reviews
Dying Light is an interesting mix of standard, now over used gameplay features but with a (mostly) well-implemented parkour slant.
Dying Light stands out from the other zombie survival games with the unique course element and if you play it together with others is certainly one of the better zombie survival games on that huge mountain. Maybe future DLC will prevent the game from being at the bottom of everyone's pile in a few months.
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Gorging on detail, starved of originality
Dying Light has its moments. It has a great concept and that concept is executed relatively well, with a few minor drawbacks. I still say the villain seems awfully familiar and the story is just way too predictable, and some of the main missions feature design choices that are definite head-scratchers.
As a piece of zombie fiction, Dying Light isn't the most original tale. As a way to experience the undead apocalypse first-hand? It's hard to beat.
The core experience of Dying Light is a good time. For the most part, I enjoyed my time running from or dodging my way through the undead. But beneath the surface, the game drags itself down by futilely trying to fill a checklist of expectations.
As a follow up to Dead Island, Dying Light represents an improvement on the technical front, but has lost some of its knockabout charm in the process. It shares its predecessors pace and shape, as things start on a relative high as you explore into the game's systems, but then tail off the hours tick by. Dying Light mixes up Techland's own recipe to enjoyable effect, but can't fully disguise its regurgitated flavour.
Despite a clunky story and technical performance, there's a lot of fun to be found in dashing and dodging through a zombie-filled city.
Dying Light has plenty of rewards to offer as long as you're willing to overlook its frustrations.
Dying Light is a sum of its inspirational parts. It brings together Techland's previous Dead Island with a bit of Mirror's Edge and Far Cry 3. At its best, leaping across the rooftops with zombies milling about below, it surpasses those titles. At worse, it has mechanics that needlessly pad out the game's running time.
Dying Light often boils down to "Zombies: The Videogame," but it's fun to flip around like a ninja and cause havoc while you shuffle from one mission to the next. For many of you out there, that's basically all you'll need.
Although a sound game, Dying Light just falls short of greatness. Compared to its predecessors it looks stunning and has picked up a raft of new and interesting ideas. Several hours in, however, and a familiar sense of fatigue will inevitably set in. Unless roaming Harran with friends in tow, Dying Light isn't one of those games you can comfortably sit and play for hours on end. Zombie enthusiasts are still in for a treat though, as well as anyone looking for an unconventional first person action game.
Unfortunately, Techland is still unable to deliver a story worth telling. I didn't feel any emotional attachment to any of the characters, nor did I care if they ended up surviving or not. The addition of an overall weapon durability was also something I could have done without as I prefer to cut down my enemies without having to worry whether or not my weapons will disintegrate in my hands.
'Dying Light' hides all of its best gameplay behind a frustratingly steep learning curve and boring fetch quests, but shows potential once players dig a little deeper.
Excitement was high for Techland's full Dead Island team to put a new game, and for good reason. They are clearly a group of very talented individuals that know how to create some enjoyable gameplay mechanics. In Dying Light's situation, their great mechanic, the free running movement, can be overshadowed at times by climbing frustrations. It feels as if they need to take the ideas from Dead Island and Dying Light and mesh them together into a wonderful product. Dying Light features some truly serene moments as you glide from building to building, but once that serenity halts, so does the player's enjoyment.
If you're a Dead Island enthusiast, zombie addict, or free running connoisseur, Dying Light is the game for you. Its parkour is addicting and the way it eases your character into power is something other games can learn from. But if you're looking for a story that isn't frustrating, weapons that don't break after ten swings, and basically anything else that makes a game great, you're better off keeping your wallet in your pocket.
Dying Light had the potential to be great, but it just wasn't in the cards this time around. What we've received here is certainly solid, but is marred by frustrating traversal issues and a lack of creativity in other areas.
Despite taking cues from other open world games, ones nobody could ever accuse of being fresh, Techland has molded these borrowed parts into something that is occasionally formidable. Dying Light never quite shakes off the spectre of these other games, but it doesn't play it as safe, presenting a world that is infinitely more deadly and fraught with tension. It is at its best, though, when the game doesn't get in the way of itself; when there are no calls on the radio or breaks in combat for a rest and a cup of tea.
Dying Light's core gameplay is solid and offers a uniquely thrilling sort of fun, but for every moment you spend having a good time, you'll spend just as many frustrated by its shortcomings.