26Oct
So the next few reviews that will be coming out, I'm aware I'm super late on. In this case the review is Days Gone for the PS4. Days Gone is a 3'rd person story based shooter. It features a large open world, Story and side missions, different things to upgrade and craft. Developed by the Bend Studio the game came out in April of 2019 and just made its way to the PS4's streaming service Playstation Now. In short go check it out, its a fun shooter with plenty of filler and things to do, its biggest draw being the massive amount of on screen enemies the game can handle (Even better on the PS4 Pro).
Story: One of the first things that caught my eye was the story, I liked the idea of a zombie survival game with some kind of actual goal, while it isn't the most gripping story upfront its implications and lore is what drew me closer. The story does lose some flair due to some poor animation in cut-scenes as well as some frustration due to the story triggering just because you got to close to an area. The characters are interesting in the form of Deacon StJohn and his buddie boozer, side characters also play a large role although I will say I took some issue here. In the main story there are 3 camps at first, you do jobs for them to progress the main story and unlock craft able items and gear, Most of the time there is a good balance here but the more you progress the more you see 1 of the 3 camps kinda fade off, their reward system is also different from the other 2 camps, but their camp controls some of the better weapons. This forces you to do some of the more meaningless side quests and basically achievement hunt to unlock the 3rd level of weapons in that camp. The big tie in here and this is not really a spoiler since it has nothing to do with the gameplay and this current games story, but during one of the later mission you can discover this game to be linked to Syphon Filter the Playstation 1 classic! I really love what that subtle hint does for the face of the Days Gone franchise and I hope the team at Bend continues the story.
Gameplay: The gameplay overall have some interesting mechanics, crafting, stealth, suppressors, exploration and driving with Deac's iconic bike. Gameplay loop's are a thing and this one while fun is pretty basic, grab mission, kill as many stealth as you can and then finish of the rest for a medium sized array of weapons. This includes guns, melee objects and craft able addons to those weapons. I would have like to see some light survival mechanics here in the terms of weapons, they always work and there's plenty of ammo to go around. Having something like durability or ammo crafting might have given us some more to do. Now for the impressive part, the hordes. Days Gone features zombie hordes that form and roam around the map. Once they spot you they will flow like water around objects and gaps chasing you. You can always sprint just faster then they are but if you run out of stamina you might as well reload the game. I had a lot of fun tackling the hordes but in all honesty it gets kinda easy once you start maxing out the skill trees in the game. As you kill bad guys and zombies you will gain XP, and when you level up you gain a skill point to be used in the games skills trees honing out StJohns survival skills. I would have like to see more done with the camps, customization on the weapons and such but over all its decent. The last thing here is the bike Deacon is a biker so naturally upgrading you bike is a thing in the game, however its limited to thing 1 2 3. No real customization other than in the looks department, even that gets old.
Overall the game is good, I think the biggest draw is that Syphon Filter reference for me being a lore nerd. The gameplay is solid however and the addition of Horde Mode where you face off against a endless Horde of zombies competing to be top of the leader board gives it that pick it up now and again vibe even after you had done the main story. A few quickie notes here,
There is end game - You can play when it over.
Game has stop and think sections, letting you know when the story will progress.
Its on PS Now (As of writing)
Its fun but not overly complicated as some of the trailers make it look.
Here at Nationfusion we score Days Gone a 7/10, good game, nothing amazing but fun enough to play through and just innovative enough with the hordes to keep your interest.
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