Reviewed on PlayStation Vita
→ April 21, 2014It's hard not to appreciate a developer like Housemarque. In an industry where lots of studios lack consistency, Housemarque has it in droves. It outputs high quality, critically acclaimed and commercially successful products with regularity, such as PlayStation's Super Stardust series, the multi-platform side-scroller Outland, and PS4's best game, Resogun. The oft-overlooked Dead Nation also deserves to be in the conversation, and thankfully, its re-release on PlayStation Vita puts it back on the radar.
Dead Nation on Vita is pretty much identical to the Dead Nation that came to PlayStation 3 back in 2010 (in fact, if you own it on PS3, it's yours for free on PS Vita). It's the same addictive, difficult twin-stick shooter, though it lacks the built-in DLC that came with PlayStation 4's iteration of Dead Nation, which is disappointing. Vita's smaller analog sticks means controls aren't quite as tight as they are on PS3 and PS4, as well.
Thrust into a zombie-filled post-apocalyptic world, your task in Dead Nation is simple: survive another day. Survival requires you to work your way through an urban sprawl littered with the undead. With powerful weapons at your disposal -- think assault rifles, flamethrowers, and grenades -- you can get creative with how you kill your foes. Shoot them in the head with a powered-up rifle shot. Blast a nearby car to make its alarm go off, drawing their attention, allowing you to pick them off unawares. Throw a flare and watch them gather around it, then unleash a shot from your blade cannon, slicing them all in half. The possibilities are many.
Dead Nation does a wonderful job of playing with your emotions, flooding your screen with myriad enemies only to return glimmers of hope with access to plenty of firepower. Its beautiful lighting and use of shadows tend to make things even scarier by regularly obscuring your view while cleverly hiding nearby enemies. You may clear a street and backtrack to explore, only to walk past a decrepit 18-wheeler, where you find yourself assailed by a new wave of enemies. All may be quiet following a 5 minute-long firefight, but then you find out that it was just the first of four waves of enemies in that area. Dead Nation isn't only about shredding the undead; it's about surviving the seemingly impossible. This very setup makes getting through each subsequent stage, whether on your own or with a friend, ever more satisfying.
Making matters more dire, not all of the zombies you have to deal with are slow and dumb. Some of them run. Others take tons of damage to fell. And then there are the massive foes that can kill you in only one or two hits, enemies that can jump on top of you from across the screen, hulking zombies that can slice you in half with their sharpened arms, smaller, pesky zombies that can scream to call endless amounts of backup, and others that can shoot green liquid that stays on the ground, giving you nasty chemical burns. There's real diversity when it comes to Dead Nation's roster of enemies, and the further you get into the campaign, the more unexpected and dangerous the combination of zombies become. You'll often find that killing these stronger enemies is paramount, even if you're taking damage from the cannon fodder around you.
Evening things out a bit is Dead Nation's emphasis on upgrading and customization. Your standard assault rifle -- with unlimited ammunition -- will always be your fallback weapon, but eventually, you'll be able to add flamethrowers, rocket launchers, mines, and more to your arsenal. Better yet, each and every part of your arsenal can be upgraded using gold found during missions. Since not everything can be upgraded fully, you have to think carefully about how you spend your hard-earned loot. You'll also have to carefully consider how you equip the many pieces of armor you find, since speed, strength, and defense often come at the sake of one another.
All of this boils down not only to one good playthrough of Dead Nation, but many. You can chase Trophies and high scores, of course -- Dead Nation is a master of the metagame, with intricate worldwide leaderboards and granular stat-keeping that pool player stats by country -- but it's also fun to up the difficulty level, focus on upgrading different kinds of weapons, all the while using various pieces of armor. You can even play with your friends via ad hoc or online.
More...
→ April 21, 2014It's hard not to appreciate a developer like Housemarque. In an industry where lots of studios lack consistency, Housemarque has it in droves. It outputs high quality, critically acclaimed and commercially successful products with regularity, such as PlayStation's Super Stardust series, the multi-platform side-scroller Outland, and PS4's best game, Resogun. The oft-overlooked Dead Nation also deserves to be in the conversation, and thankfully, its re-release on PlayStation Vita puts it back on the radar.
Dead Nation on Vita is pretty much identical to the Dead Nation that came to PlayStation 3 back in 2010 (in fact, if you own it on PS3, it's yours for free on PS Vita). It's the same addictive, difficult twin-stick shooter, though it lacks the built-in DLC that came with PlayStation 4's iteration of Dead Nation, which is disappointing. Vita's smaller analog sticks means controls aren't quite as tight as they are on PS3 and PS4, as well.
Thrust into a zombie-filled post-apocalyptic world, your task in Dead Nation is simple: survive another day. Survival requires you to work your way through an urban sprawl littered with the undead. With powerful weapons at your disposal -- think assault rifles, flamethrowers, and grenades -- you can get creative with how you kill your foes. Shoot them in the head with a powered-up rifle shot. Blast a nearby car to make its alarm go off, drawing their attention, allowing you to pick them off unawares. Throw a flare and watch them gather around it, then unleash a shot from your blade cannon, slicing them all in half. The possibilities are many.
Dead Nation does a wonderful job of playing with your emotions, flooding your screen with myriad enemies only to return glimmers of hope with access to plenty of firepower. Its beautiful lighting and use of shadows tend to make things even scarier by regularly obscuring your view while cleverly hiding nearby enemies. You may clear a street and backtrack to explore, only to walk past a decrepit 18-wheeler, where you find yourself assailed by a new wave of enemies. All may be quiet following a 5 minute-long firefight, but then you find out that it was just the first of four waves of enemies in that area. Dead Nation isn't only about shredding the undead; it's about surviving the seemingly impossible. This very setup makes getting through each subsequent stage, whether on your own or with a friend, ever more satisfying.
Making matters more dire, not all of the zombies you have to deal with are slow and dumb. Some of them run. Others take tons of damage to fell. And then there are the massive foes that can kill you in only one or two hits, enemies that can jump on top of you from across the screen, hulking zombies that can slice you in half with their sharpened arms, smaller, pesky zombies that can scream to call endless amounts of backup, and others that can shoot green liquid that stays on the ground, giving you nasty chemical burns. There's real diversity when it comes to Dead Nation's roster of enemies, and the further you get into the campaign, the more unexpected and dangerous the combination of zombies become. You'll often find that killing these stronger enemies is paramount, even if you're taking damage from the cannon fodder around you.
Evening things out a bit is Dead Nation's emphasis on upgrading and customization. Your standard assault rifle -- with unlimited ammunition -- will always be your fallback weapon, but eventually, you'll be able to add flamethrowers, rocket launchers, mines, and more to your arsenal. Better yet, each and every part of your arsenal can be upgraded using gold found during missions. Since not everything can be upgraded fully, you have to think carefully about how you spend your hard-earned loot. You'll also have to carefully consider how you equip the many pieces of armor you find, since speed, strength, and defense often come at the sake of one another.
All of this boils down not only to one good playthrough of Dead Nation, but many. You can chase Trophies and high scores, of course -- Dead Nation is a master of the metagame, with intricate worldwide leaderboards and granular stat-keeping that pool player stats by country -- but it's also fun to up the difficulty level, focus on upgrading different kinds of weapons, all the while using various pieces of armor. You can even play with your friends via ad hoc or online.
More...
