Zombies. We can’t get enough of them apparently. They come in a few different varieties, and so do the games that feature them. While the video game industry has seen its fair share of ‘zombie shooters’ and the like, zombies have rarely been implemented mainly as a theme rather than a core mechanic – and for that alone Deadlight merits some praise as being an interesting spin on the genre.
Deadlight is a cinematic, survival-horror, sidescrolling platformer (phew) and the keyword here is cinematic. This game is pretty damn good-looking. It strongly reminds the indie phenomenon that is Limbo, having a bleak and foreboding atmosphere with the player, NPCs and most of the stage as silhouettes against a backdrop of beautifully rendered squalor. The ruined cityscape of Seattle serves as a constant reminder of the chaos that was wrought by the undead, and all of it is bathed in sublime lighting that, despite the completely different tone of voice and themes, reminds me a bit of the stunning visuals of Trine.
The game is set in Seattle, 1986, and you play as Randall Wayne, a rather grim fellow who’s looking for his wife and daughter. He’s with a group of four other people, trying to reach a Safe Point where he hopes he will find his family. The game starts with him killing one of the members of the group who had been infected, already setting the tone for what’s to come… although I daresay that was about the grimmest thing that happened in the game without spoiling anything.
The gun Randall had fired had drawn the attention of ‘Shadows’, (which is just a wannabe fancy term for the undead) and as the survivors make their escape the ladder breaks and our stalwart hero (anti-hero?) becomes separated from them. He urges them to leave and not waste time and that he will catch up at the Safe Point. To get there, he will take on a free-run parkour throughout the Emerald City – on the streets, through residential area, or even through, and over, myriad skyscrapers – jumping over cars, fences, walls, deep water canals (because for some reason he can’t swim *cough* gameplay *cough*) and, of course, the ever-present glowing-eyed walking dead. Sometimes, however, Randall will need to fight his way through.
To help him achieve this, he will acquire an axe for all things melee, and a pistol for much-needed headshots, and for solving a few simple puzzles. He even gets a shotgun midway through the game, which is ideal to deal with clusters of Shadows. The game, however, discourages you from getting him into fights and instead would rather you avoid them unless necessary, because it is dangerous business.
Headshots will deal with the shambling ghouls easily, but the ammo count is limited and serves more of a last resort option than an actual staple for combat (at least that’s how it felt like, so I used guns sparingly). The axe, on the other hand, is what you would normally have Randall use, whacking Shadows down and executing them with a downwards swing. But he is severely handicapped by a rather scant amount of stamina, drained away with every swing of the weapon. After several strikes, he will start to get tired, barely able to muster the strength to fight back and will require a moment to catch his breath. Dealing with more than a couple of Shadows in close-quarter combat can easily get Randall killed.
When Shadows are in large numbers, Randall will generally have the option to bypass them if he doesn’t have the firepower. This can be achieved with a taunt to draw the zombies to him, sometimes causing them to cross an electrified pool of water, or lumber towards a precipice or, as is most often the case, to give Randall the opportunity to vault over their heads. While this is nothing revolutionary it ties in with the platforming element as moving obstacles that you can manipulate to a small extent.
Randall is a parkour specialist from what he pulls off in the game. He climbs and leaps and slides and rolls and grabs onto ledges – you name it. These skills allow him to navigate the game space, and sometimes he will have to solve puzzles to be able to continue, which brings me to the point that struck me the most. Puzzles. Goddamned puzzles! Maybe it’s me not being very good at them, but some were quite maddening – not because they were hard, but because they felt unintuitive. This may not necessarily be a bad thing because some people do love a challenge, but to me it was just frustrating.
Something else that rubbed me the wrong way was the inability to cancel animations. When you’re being assailed by a group of Shadows the last thing you want to happen is to have Randall stuck rummaging some corpse’s pockets. You want him to get the axe out and start hacking away so that they give you the time to get your pistol out and deliver some headshots. Being stuck in animation sequences can mean the difference between life and death, and I died plenty of times because of this.
In the end, however, I did have a good time with the game. The story was kind of predictable but it wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. As expected from a zombie apocalypse, Randall will run into the general type of trouble common to the genre, but nothing that was poorly executed. All in all my playthrough of Deadlight was a rather enjoyable experience despite the frustrating parts.
Lastly, there is an alternate ending to the game that adds a whole new dimension of 'what-the-frack' to the story, acquired after beating nightmare mode that is unlocked when you finish the game once. This is something I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole because the checkpoints in each chapters are essentially removed, forcing you to restart a level completely regardless of your progression through it. This is assuredly going to give me a rage-induced aneurysm, so I’ll pass and leave it to the more hardcore gamers out there.
Have fun!
The game is set in Seattle, 1986, and you play as Randall Wayne, a rather grim fellow who’s looking for his wife and daughter. He’s with a group of four other people, trying to reach a Safe Point where he hopes he will find his family. The game starts with him killing one of the members of the group who had been infected, already setting the tone for what’s to come… although I daresay that was about the grimmest thing that happened in the game without spoiling anything.
The gun Randall had fired had drawn the attention of ‘Shadows’, (which is just a wannabe fancy term for the undead) and as the survivors make their escape the ladder breaks and our stalwart hero (anti-hero?) becomes separated from them. He urges them to leave and not waste time and that he will catch up at the Safe Point. To get there, he will take on a free-run parkour throughout the Emerald City – on the streets, through residential area, or even through, and over, myriad skyscrapers – jumping over cars, fences, walls, deep water canals (because for some reason he can’t swim *cough* gameplay *cough*) and, of course, the ever-present glowing-eyed walking dead. Sometimes, however, Randall will need to fight his way through.
To help him achieve this, he will acquire an axe for all things melee, and a pistol for much-needed headshots, and for solving a few simple puzzles. He even gets a shotgun midway through the game, which is ideal to deal with clusters of Shadows. The game, however, discourages you from getting him into fights and instead would rather you avoid them unless necessary, because it is dangerous business.
Headshots will deal with the shambling ghouls easily, but the ammo count is limited and serves more of a last resort option than an actual staple for combat (at least that’s how it felt like, so I used guns sparingly). The axe, on the other hand, is what you would normally have Randall use, whacking Shadows down and executing them with a downwards swing. But he is severely handicapped by a rather scant amount of stamina, drained away with every swing of the weapon. After several strikes, he will start to get tired, barely able to muster the strength to fight back and will require a moment to catch his breath. Dealing with more than a couple of Shadows in close-quarter combat can easily get Randall killed.
When Shadows are in large numbers, Randall will generally have the option to bypass them if he doesn’t have the firepower. This can be achieved with a taunt to draw the zombies to him, sometimes causing them to cross an electrified pool of water, or lumber towards a precipice or, as is most often the case, to give Randall the opportunity to vault over their heads. While this is nothing revolutionary it ties in with the platforming element as moving obstacles that you can manipulate to a small extent.
Randall is a parkour specialist from what he pulls off in the game. He climbs and leaps and slides and rolls and grabs onto ledges – you name it. These skills allow him to navigate the game space, and sometimes he will have to solve puzzles to be able to continue, which brings me to the point that struck me the most. Puzzles. Goddamned puzzles! Maybe it’s me not being very good at them, but some were quite maddening – not because they were hard, but because they felt unintuitive. This may not necessarily be a bad thing because some people do love a challenge, but to me it was just frustrating.
Something else that rubbed me the wrong way was the inability to cancel animations. When you’re being assailed by a group of Shadows the last thing you want to happen is to have Randall stuck rummaging some corpse’s pockets. You want him to get the axe out and start hacking away so that they give you the time to get your pistol out and deliver some headshots. Being stuck in animation sequences can mean the difference between life and death, and I died plenty of times because of this.
In the end, however, I did have a good time with the game. The story was kind of predictable but it wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. As expected from a zombie apocalypse, Randall will run into the general type of trouble common to the genre, but nothing that was poorly executed. All in all my playthrough of Deadlight was a rather enjoyable experience despite the frustrating parts.
Lastly, there is an alternate ending to the game that adds a whole new dimension of 'what-the-frack' to the story, acquired after beating nightmare mode that is unlocked when you finish the game once. This is something I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole because the checkpoints in each chapters are essentially removed, forcing you to restart a level completely regardless of your progression through it. This is assuredly going to give me a rage-induced aneurysm, so I’ll pass and leave it to the more hardcore gamers out there.
Have fun!
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