I've never been a big fan of zombie movies. I've always found them so depressing. They're a tale of hopeless and despair as humans futilely try to stave off legions of hungry hordes. Come to think of it, I don't really like most horror movies. I seek entertainment and escape from reality. I like it when good beats evil, not the reverse as is the case for the vast majority of horror movies, since its a too painful reminder of what happens in real life.
So surprisingly, I have loved playing as a zombie in the Half Life 2 mod, Zombie Panic. The premise is simple, yet brilliant. A team of human survivors is pitted against a small handful of zombies. As the humans die off, they return as the living dead, and hunt their old teammates. This has been a tried and true formula in many mods, and its refined in Zombie Panic.
The humans have many advantages. They can run faster than the zombies. They can wield weapons and use items such as first aid kits. They have flashlights to help see in the dark. They start off with superior numbers. Their disadvantages are that ammo is limited and it does not respawn.
The zombies on the other hand, can respawn. They have a feed-o-meter that allows them to sprint. They can regenerate hit points. They have zombie vision that amplifies light to help them see in dark areas. Mobile humans will glow red under zombie vision. Even humans in hiding will glow red after a while.
The carrier zombie, aka whitey, distinguished by its pale white skin, has 50 more hp, and has a 10% chance to infect victims. However, they are much slower than humans and only have a simple meelee attack.
Both humans and zombies can manipulate objects such as beds, sofas, carts, crates, and so on to form barricades. Both can communicate via microphone. Zombies can see a list of whose a zombie and whose not, whereas humans have no clue. This leads to creepy situations where those who are still alive will start to ask "is anyone still out there?" as the human numbers start to dwindle.
And creepiness is a big draw for this game. The levels radiate with menace and are intended to disturb. The power is often out, and even when its on, the lights are dim and flicker. Cars are abandoned in the middle of the street, blood splatter and corpses are strewn across the empty streets. Missions cover a wide variety of areas such as the subway, a biotech lab, a police station, an insane asylum, and even a tanker for good measure.
This is a multiplayer only mod with two types of game play. You have your standard objective based missions. This is exactly what it sounds like. Humans have a set of goals they need to accomplish in a fixed order. Zombies have an unlimited number of respawns to stop them. The other mode is last man standing, which pits humans against zombies (who have a limited number of respawns). In my experience, the objetive missions heavily favor the zombies. The unlimited respawns means they can throw themselves at the humans with reckless abandon, forcing them to use up their ammo. On the other hand, in the last man standing, competent humans who are good with head shots can use up all the zombie respawns quite easily by camping in certain easily defensible areas. For example, the police station level has a great camp site. The ONLY way through this narrow hallway...
is through this boring shooting gallery here.
The dynamics of the game are such that they mirror that of a horror movie. Those who split up and go solo are quickly picked off. Nothing like going out on an ammo hunt only to get brutally taken down. Nothing is scarier than going out with a group of people who fan out, only to realize you've been left behind. Or being the last survivor after a wave of zombies decimated your group. But its not so scary that you can't also laugh at the situation, which is one of the mod's goals. One hilarious moment in the game involved a guy asking for help in the church. Everyone else was camped out by the gas station. One other player commented: "Yeah, that guy's dead". Everyone had a good laugh about that one. The guy was soon killed, as he had no backup.
It was an example of how vital teamwork is in this game. Teams who coordinate their moves and actions do far better than those who don't. Sharing of ammo and weapons is encouraged. The more weapons and items you take, the slower you walk. Its an invitation for zombies to feast on your brains. Luckily, a useful "panic" button drops all your stuff and lets you run faster. Good for when you need to run for your life. Different weapons take different ammo, and its relatively easy to drop ammo for others to use. Hence you have teammates asking via the mic coordinating who needs what ammo.
Playing as the zombies is fun too. You are here to reenact a horror movie, but from the point of view of the blood thirsty horde. Your job is give a good challenge to the humans that ai could never do. Because of the speed and reach disadvantage, a different set of tactics must be employed. A zombie must master is to bait the humans into wasting ammo. Zig zagging, darting in and out of hallways, feinting a rush, all induce trigger happy fools to expend those precious clips. In addition, zombies can hit objects, which sends them flying. This includes weapon and ammo. Zombies who "hide" weapons and items in this manner make life that much harder for humans. After a while, a party of survivors holed up in an area must eventually leave to forage for new ammo. That leads to the next tactic - ambushing. Most head on attacks will fail miserably to head shots. The best way to score kills is to hide in various areas, block off the retreat of the humans, and attacks from multiple angles. On well designed maps, there are multiple entrances to a given position, making it hard for the humans to hold. I remember one time when we all assaulted a cabin, pouring in from the front door and all the windows. It was just like a scene from the movies. The humans shit themselves and we ate them.
This is a great game that still has some balance issues. The zombies are pretty weak in the last man standing and fall prey to camping. There are a couple of things that I think should be improved. Zombies should be rewarded damage bonuses for ambushes. An attack from behind should do more than a frontal charge for example. Ideas being thrown around in the forums include giving the carrier zombie a short ranged attack (that could infect humans) that would help discourage camping. Then again, the humans are pretty weak in objective missions and fall prey to endless rushing. The unlimited respawns are what gets them here. One good suggestion thrown out is that the next objectives are always displayed, even for the zombies. This makes it all too easy for zombies to set up ambushes in the next objective area. For example, in the bio lab level, one of the objectives is to restore power down in the basement. Humans are usually too scared to go down and for good reason. By the time they get there, there's a zombie infestation. A good change to make would be to display the next objectives only to humans. The scoring system also needs work. It is still entirely kills based. Zombies and humans however, should get at least partial credit for kill assists. Zombies who regenerate wounds should be rewarded some points for their patience. Humans who give ammo to one another should be given some points for their teamwork. And so on.
The mod will obviously need further tweaking. After seeing how fun the premise is though, I can't wait to try Left 4 Dead.
In the mean time, here's some advice for newbies who want to play as the survivors. Finding ammo and weapons is critical in this game. If you want to learn where they spawn, its good to play a couple of practice rounds on your own. Here are the simple steps to do so:
1. Go to options, and click the box for enabling console commands.
2. Create a server
3. Pick a map you want to learn
4. Once it loads, bring up the console (hit the tilde ~ key)
5. Type "sv_testmode 1" (without the " ")
6. Press F1 to join Survivors.
7. Learn where all the weapons and ammo spawn
No comments:
Post a Comment