Dying Light [Gameplay #4]
0Dying Light is a really cool game but it doesn't have anything resembling the clever storyline or attention-grabbing style and personality of, say, the recent Far Cry or Saints Row titles. This is an unapologetically po-faced representation of zombie apocalypse in realistic-looking Central Asian environments. As such, it's going to be easier for the OCD generation of game commentators to get distracted and simply miss out on the finer points of Techland's latest stab at open world greatness. Indeed, there have been quite a few rather condescending reviews lately, and some of the most common (not to mention most lazy) reactions I've seen have been along the lines of "good for a Techland game, I guess?", "Dead Island total conversion, anyone?" and "well, there are no *other* big games coming out now, right?".
Despite some undeniably boring fetch quests, it'd be a real shame if people missed out on the understated but surprisingly sophisticated excellence of Dying Light. It's full of little improvements which together make this a much better game than Dead Island ever was, and Techland can certainly teach its AAA competitors a little something about how to offer tangible progression in an open world game without overpowering the player in the process. Both the melee and parkour mechanics continue to develop throughout the campaign, and it's a testament to the structural soundness of Dying Light's underlying systems that the risky inclusion of ranged weapons doesn't end up dominating the gameplay as you might think it would.