Game News Turn-based zombie survival RPG Urban Strife aims to be a better Dead State

[Tweed]

I finished Dead State two weeks ago.

A game bogged down in minutia, shit combat, mediocre writing level, annoying characters, UI functionality that gives me nightmares to this day, kindergarten level 3D assets, way too fuckin long...

If I would have to choose one word to describe it, it would be a drag.


The base uprades part was interesting, until it god old, with no gameplay implications, just fluff.


Did I mention the fuckin UI?
It was designed by a cretin


I would not even touch another zombie game even with a 10 foot pole.

You should definitely try Fort Zombie.

 

[ItsChon]

Shit looks like ass. If you want to play a Zombie RPG game and don't mind MMOs, play Dead Frontier 1, the MMORPG Browser game. It's pretty deep, has a fun gameplay loop, and there is some really cool weapons and class archetypes you can do.

 

[Mud']

Project Zomboid is already better than Dead State, but it has real-time combat. The number of systems they implemented in the game is mind-blowing, and some of the stuff in it is brutal.



The game is still in early access and has no NPCs, but it is already fun.

Agree with this, since the new animations came out it brought a lot of life into the game, there is a mod to have very very simple "NPCs" that just make the world feel more chaotic and alive too, but what they want to do with the NPC systems sounds great with the traits shaping the personality of a NPC and you having to respond depending on what your traits are.

 

[SenisterDenister]

You should definitely try Fort Zombie.

Thanks for reminding me that existed, and what's more that I wasted money on that in the vain attempt for a zombie survival RPG during those dark times. I am too frustrated with myself from buying that to remain coherent for the rest of this post.

▄█▀ █▬█ █ ▀█▀

 

[Mortmal]

Even before the release of the underwhelming Dead State, there were many Codexers who couldn't stand zombie games anymore, but Urban Strife looks good, really good

So, dead state is underwhelming but its clone with better gfx is suddenly incline?

How is urban strife better than dead state?

Think its more about not liking the people who made dead state or their political views as usual, than the game itself. Still thinks dead state was pretty good. Urban strife looks better on trailer although.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Think its more about not liking the people who made dead state or their political views as usual, than the game itself. Still thinks dead state was pretty good.

This. You have plenty of skill checks, cool dialogues, and an unparalleled amount of companions to choose from. They are unidimensional and interact in soap-opera style scenes, but they are still cool. The main problem with the game is the abundance of quest breaking bugs. This is pretty much expected from sandbox cRPGs, as it is the lack of balance in the combat system (the game is more challenging in the beginning). It's a shame that they didn't fix most of those bugs though.

 

[Fenix]

Think its more about not liking the people who made dead state or their political views as usual

Wait what?

 

[Mortmal]

Think its more about not liking the people who made dead state or their political views as usual

Wait what?

The way early access was handled generated lot of animosity , annie being a woman and no longer posting here probably did not help either.
But most important ! Add to that a bit of sjw writing ,the capital crime here, wich for some reasons make some members here completely mad,threaten them, shake their very own identity.Same reason larian is not liked, same reason xcom chimera is hated , same for beamdog , despite their dragonspear being very good.

 

[Fenix]

But these one disliked for good.
Release good game and everyone will love you.

 

[Pineapple Ferguson]

Dead State was alright.

 

[Elhoim]

Looks too much like Dead State, in fact, almost looks like a rip off, from the art style to UI.

Yeah, it really threw me back to my work on it.

I liked dead state. Going through the apartment building to get to the chopper was pretty epic.

Heh, I really enjoyed making that location.

Exactly like what I was going to write. Although as long as it's a good game I don't really mind. The "rip off" is an issue for the DS developers - which I understand have abandoned the game - so I don't think anyone will really care.

It's alright, at least for me =)

This. You have plenty of skill checks, cool dialogues, and an unparalleled amount of companions to choose from. They are unidimensional and interact in soap-opera style scenes, but they are still cool. The main problem with the game is the abundance of quest breaking bugs. This is pretty much expected from sandbox cRPGs, as it is the lack of balance in the combat system (the game is more challenging in the beginning). It's a shame that they didn't fix most of those bugs though.

Yep, it's a shame...

 

[Galdred]

Now we know why everyone has been stockpiling toilet paper:

Spoiler

Regarding Dead State, it was cool in the beginning, but I think the game would have worked much better against something else than zombies:
Exploration + turn based combat against zombies gets tedious rapidly. They don't get new tricks to play with, and adding more zombies only makes battles drag on.
I found battles against humans much more interesting in Dead State.

 

[Haba]

Project Zomboid is already better than Dead State, but

The game was first announced on April 25, 2011
As of November 8, 2013 it was released on Steam's Early Access

It is year 2020.

The game is still not complete.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

It is year 2020.

The game is still not complete.

Considering the feature creep ridiculous amount of systems and refinements the delay is understandable. The important thing is that it is already fun to play and polished. Still, so many time-consuming features, like cars, that add nothing to gameplay. The game was so much better without cars.

 

[JarlFrank]

Now we know why everyone has been stockpiling toilet paper:

Spoiler

Regarding Dead State, it was cool in the beginning, but I think the game would have worked much better against something else than zombies:
Exploration + turn based combat against zombies gets tedious rapidly. They don't get new tricks to play with, and adding more zombies only makes battles drag on.
I found battles against humans much more interesting in Dead State.

Also Dead State's big issue was that once you got into combat with zombies, it would process the turn for each and every zombie on the map even if they haven't spotted you and don't react. Humans didn't do that. If you start combat at one edge of the map and there's human enemies unaware of you at the other, they'd not even appear in the turn list. Zombies though? Add half a second to turn processing time for each zombie on the map, no matter where they are.

Maps with dozens of zombies became tedious because of that. My usual approach to dealing with zombies was to approach them from behind, manually enter combat before they noticed me, then kill the zombie with a backstab in the first turn so combat ends before the enemy turn even starts. Picked them off one by one this way whenever possible, just to prevent the tedium of enemy turn processing.

 

[JarlFrank]

Interesting. But why zombies, there is nothing more bland, generic and boring than zombies.

I used to hate zombies too, blandest and boringest setting imaginable... but by now I find generic high fantasy so much more boring and bland, even zombie apocalypse RPGs are refreshing in comparison.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I used to hate zombies too, blandest and boringest setting imaginable... but by now I find generic high fantasy so much more boring and bland, even zombie apocalypse RPGs are refreshing in comparison.

I wouldn’t say is the setting per se, but the implementation of it. When you talk about “generic high fantasy” you are already suggesting that developers are repeating tropes without any nuance. The same thing holds for zombies. You can make the theme interesting or boring. This is more pronounced in fantasy settings because we have too many. It's like watching films from a certain genre. If you are a fan of sci-fi you don't get tired of watching sci-fi movies. You get tired of watching generic action movies that pretend to be sci-fi movies.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Lack of enemy variety was definitely a big issue with dead state. Something this game learns from, hopefully.