1. Gameplay
State of Decay is a very simple game. Your main task is to simply survive. There are side “quests” that you can engage in, such as attempting to save as many people as possible and progressively moving from area to area in search of new resources, but the game only ends when all of the playable characters are dead. If you’re looking for a deep story or complex scenarios, this is not the game for you. Almost the entire game is spent collecting resources. This is a game designed for the perpetual packrat. You hop in a car, drive to a potential resource site (homes, businesses, warehouses, etc.), you raid it for everything you can find, then you return home with the goods. This game isn’t perfect. There are plenty of bugs and elements that a larger studio would have ironed out. Car handling is often difficult and it can be extremely difficult to distinguish between which objects are destructible and which ones aren’t. But the designers clearly focused on making the game fun and the combat, in general, rather smooth. There are a few parts of this game that left me frustrated, mostly with the designer’s choice of game mechanics (I discuss this in a bit more detail below in the “Frustration Factor” section), but for the most part this was a pretty enjoyable experience.
There is a great amount of replayability in this game. I played the main game and the second expansion pack for a total of over 26 hours. I only stopped after my frustration got the best of me. If I could improve some of the major issues I had with the civilians and have greater variety to the quests, I could play this game for a hundred hours fairly easily.
Part of me really, really hates sections of this game. Any part where I was on my own or with a military-trained character were fine, since I was able to hold my own against almost all zombie types (especially once I had enough ammunition to use weapons effectively). However, saving random civilians, especially during the DLC, was an absolute nightmare. They had a habit of picking the worst locations, drawing a ton of unnecessary attention, and spending way too long trying to gather supplies. I stopped during the second DLC when my main character was killed trying to save a civilian. I was one siege away from ending the game when I went to help a random civilian. The civilian called in a horde of zombies and, while I was busy trying to help him, I was jumped by one of the stronger, nastier zombies who immediately tore my character apart. Because there is no respawns or loading saves, my character was dead. I wasn’t happy about this. I might go back and finish the game later, but for now I’m far too frustrated to want to play for any more time. 2. Parental Notices
Violence is, by far, the most noticeable factor in this game. While the player will spend time gathering resources and managing the home base, almost all of the player’s missions, actions, and scavenging runs will involve fighting off the undead. The player can kill the undead in a variety of ways, but generally they can be broken down into melee, ranged, vehicular, and “other”. All hits will result in a significant amount of blood and many can result in some gore. Ranged hits, for the most part, will only result in gore if the player gets a headshot. When this happens, the zombie’s head will explode into blood and pieces. Melee hits can also result in gore. Both blunt and sharp weapons have a chance of destroying a zombie’s limbs (sharp weapons seem to do this more often). Sometimes an enemy can be knocked down, leaving them vulnerable for a melee execution. When this happens, the player will crush the zombie’s head, either with a melee weapon or with his hands or feet. The most common way that the player will kill enemies is with a vehicle. Hitting zombies with a car is so common that my car was more often damaged by hitting too many zombies than by running into hard objects. When this happened, zombies would explode into a shower of blood and guts, leaving red streaks like paint on the car. There were a few special circumstances where violence was even more dramatic. If the player isn’t careful his character (or any character for that matter) can be killed by the zombies. When this happens, the zombie will tear the character in half. The top half will become completely separated from the bottom half, leaving a severed spinal column and a few connecting strands as the zombies eat what’s left. It didn’t happen often for me, but it was pretty gross when it did.
In one of the optional missions two characters are somewhat romantically involved. The girl mentions that the two of them got drunk one night and had sex. Other than this, sexuality is not included in this game.
Substances do play a minor role in this game. There will be two types of substances that the player will use somewhat regularly. The first are painkillers, which restore the player’s health when used. There is a surprising variety of painkillers in the game. Everything from generic “painkillers” and aspirin all the way up to morphine and codeine. I almost always preferred the lighter painkillers since the game seemed to indicate that there was a chance of getting addicted to the harder painkillers. The second most common is food and energy drinks, which restore the player’s stamina. I used these much less frequently, since stamina restores when the player isn’t performing a serious physical exertion (running, combat, fast climbing, etc.). The final type of substance came in the form of “trucker pills” and other stranger drugs. I’m still not 100% sure what these did since I never had a reason to try them and the game indicated that they were highly addictive. However, it did seem to indicate that the pills would keep the player’s stamina extremely high, allowing the character to perform serious physical feats beyond what a normal character could allow.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factors
There are mods available for this game but my search did not reveal any that increased the adult content in any way.
One of the first safe house locations is a church. There are also a number of other churches and religious structures that can be found throughout the worldspace. Some of these can have religious symbols, but all are extremely subtle and easy to miss. Some of the civilians talk in a stereotypically extremist religious tone, but since the civilians are randomized it is possible to miss these completely.
Civilian law has completely broken down in this society. While there are some groups that try to maintain the illusion of order, the reality is that there is no specific group that can actively enforce local laws. As a result, anti-law is not a factor in this game.
There are no multiplayer modes to this game.
While the characters will be able to fall huge distances without dying and drive like a maniac with little consequence. However, none of these qualify as “extreme”, and as a result extreme sports are not a factor in this game.
Magic is not a factor in this game.
Human Disfigurement The human disfigurement element should be fairly self-explanatory. The walking dead are all mutated versions of people. However, there are also special mutations that are severely modified. They were definitely human at one time, but they are barely recognizable in their final forms. Weapons of Mass Destruction In the “Lifeline” DLC, the player can save a character who eventually activates a nuclear bomb that can be used to destroy the city. The player can choose to abort the explosion if the right mission is completed. Suicide
In one of the DLCs, an infected character takes out a gun and shoots himself in the head before he turns into a zombie. There is nothing the player can do to prevent this.
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