If Mirrors Edge had a baby with Dead Island.
User Rating: 7 | Dying Light PS4
The previews of this game admittedly suckered me into buying this game for the full price tag and it was ALMOST worth it. The gameplay is very smooth, you can run, jump to different buildings and the combat is great but it was missing something. And that's identity and a rich story to keep you interested. The first few minutes in, you start off infected and from a writer's perspective, it opened up plenty of opportunities to create an interesting and emotional story of struggle and empowerment. But the game never does it! Then you see the character forced to make a good or evil decision and you think: "At least I can choose a side." But you can't! Instead you watch helplessly as Crane chooses the most cliche and predictable decisions possible, forcing the game to spiral downward to a boring tale we've seen retold again and again in zombie flicks. As for the gameplay, well that mirrors the last gen game of Mirrors Edge. I loved Mirrors Edge so I tried to press on, hoping Crane will start playing more like Faith as he levels up. He almost got there, heck, you can even run up the walls but it takes ALOT of level grinding and you'll never be able to rollover for safe landings or monkey swing on poles like Mirrors Edge. Until then, you have to settle for just leaping and climbing while watching your stamina. As cool as it is at first, it gets old once you see how easy it makes escaping from zombie mobs. These aren't the 28 Days Later zombies, these are the slow and dumb Night of The Living Dead zombies. So running them over and jumping over their heads is a breeze. Just don't run at night, then the game turns into Minecraft where you must seek shelter to avoid ridiculously overpowered monsters that can kill you instantly. Sounds exciting! But for the pacifist gamer, you can easily avoid it altogether by using the large number of shelters not even hidden throughout the world. Even if you're nowhere near one, just crouch ontop of a rooftop and wait it out for a few minutes. Guns are rare and ammo is impossible to find until you get to a certain point in the story but luckily, melee combat is really fun and really violent. Crane's voice is the same actor who dubbed Resident Evil 5 Chris Redfield and the current voice for Sonic the Hedgehog. He's a great actor and he shines very brightly among the less experienced cast around him. And the music is well, generic overall but it doesn't really put much emphasis on it anyway, so, whatever. But the graphics do look great! Great framerate, dynamic weather effects and it really shows off the PS4's powerful draw distance. The character models are very well refined too but the lipsyncing could use some work. Overall, Dying Light is a fun little roller coaster. If you played Mirrors Edge, you would be able to spot the inferior platforming. But if you haven't, then you'll probably enjoy this game a bit more. I guess I'm spoiled. But even so there's just not enough depth and it's too repetitive for the 60 dollar price. Graphics: 9 Story: 7 Gameplay: 8 Sound: 8 Value: 6 
