Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

I am a late-bloomer to the DayZ world myself, but I've been playing for a couple months now.

DayZ is unique from other games. It is an MMO that doesn't give you the restrictions of most MMO's, you have a freedom that just doesn't exist in most MMORPG's let alone Games in general.

Arma II was an interesting game to play, but DayZ compliments Arma II quite well. It is a game that takes a hold on you and doesn't let go easily.

For the few who may not know what DayZ is.. or what it is about, I will briefly describe the idea.

You are a survivor in a post-apocalypse, in Russia, torn apart, inhabited by thousands of zombies, but... the survivors/Players have learned how to avoid and best the zombie threat. That doesn't mean they're in the clear, in fact far from it. Other players can be known as "Bandits" (People who scour the land looking for unfortunate travelers, dealing them a cold goodbye from this world, taking their supplies no matter how little they may be). Your task is to survive in the way you think is best. Avoid bandits (Or become one). Stay clear of the zombie infestation, and live as long as you can.

The average survival time is not much more than an hour since DayZ is rather difficult. One little mistake and you can kiss survival goodbye, not to mention that DayZ is configured where if your "Survivor" dies, they are "Permanently" dead. You will lose that survivor forever, in most cases lose everything your survivor carried. Lets say you spent a good three hours one night playing DayZ, and lets say you were very fortunate, you found an Assault Rifle with a couple magazines, some food and water, and medical supplies. You are getting ready to log off, and then while you walk down an open field, you take a shot to the leg. Your leg is broken, all you can do is crawl, you're hopeless, you can see the dirt fly into the air as the bullets fly past your head, and with the anxious feeling in your stomach, the final round pierces your skull, ending your game. Forcing you to start over from the beginning.

As action packed as sequences like that can be, DayZ is a moderately mellow experience for the most part. In fact, action or violence of any kind is usually pretty rare if you're careful.. You may go through an entire game not seeing a single survivor, but then there are those stressful times where you do, and you do not know what to expect.. They're other people, they can make any decision they want.. Are they armed? Are they hostile? Maybe they're part of a bigger gang of survivors, and maybe they're communicating to they're friends that they've seen you. You could run, you could face the potential threat, the choice is yours. Also beware, your worst threat can be your greatest ally, maybe you're bleeding from an unfortunate turn of events during a zombie encounter, perhaps the other survivors have medical supplies.

Maybe you find yourself sitting in a bush, watching as a large truck drives down the road towards you, will these people let you get in their truck, perhaps let you into their group, or will they shoot you down the second you become visible?

DayZ is a game of the unknown.

Similar to sims, you have meters for hunger, thirst, blood, body temperature, and your weapon. You must do your best to manage these and keep them "green" (they will begin to turn red over time and [besides the weapon] can result in death if depleted). Which leaves the possibilities for freezing to death, starving, death from dehydration, and bleeding out.

You're fragile in DayZ, your body needs constant care. All it takes is one bullet, without medical supplies.. and you'll bleed and bleed till you start passing out, and eventually... die. You can even die from one swipe of a knife, or a blow from a crowbar, maybe one hack from an axe.. the possibilities are plenty.

Seems good right? It is.. but along with all the great things in this game, there are also faults.

Plenty of movement issues, crawling animations can look rather fake. When crouched, looking side to side can sometimes result in a stretching of your neck that makes you sorta look like a Necromorph, if you are not aware of what that is.. search "Necromorph in Google images" and pay close attention to the neck, bent over, long.. it can wind up looking like that.

The game is rather massive which results in lots of lag at times, which can take away from the experience. Sometimes lag results in death because of the fact that your actions are delayed.. I've got a good computer, runs it smoothly, joined a good server, but lag is inevitable at some point, because of the massiveness of the game. This delay in your actions can be a problem when (for example) a partner of mine got shot, and so did I, I went to get my bandages, and it took 2 minutes for my character to recognize that I wanted my bandages.. due to delay, this can be frustrating since you have the power to stop your death, and keep all of your progress, but it slips through your fingers due to a fault in the game.

Zombies have some pretty corny looking movements when chasing you, they will zig zag side to side behind you, yet maintain the same speed, sometimes they will chase you endlessly, which is frustrating.

Character animations for climbing ladders and falling from heights of any kind, look completely awful.. you can dismiss it, and the game is still fun, but they truly are just terribly faulted.

When bleeding, it looks like circles of red dust are falling rapidly from your body and in a straight line... for example, when you are running, you can see just a straight line "stream" of blood circles quickly flying out of your body, and that is supposed to be "blood".

When your legs are broken, if you do not move, you can briefly stand, and you can crouch, but you cannot walk, you can only crawl.. if this were realistically created, you wouldn't be able to stand on your legs, yet only have the ability to crawl.

When attempting to open doors at times, you can walk right through them before they open. The aiming system is rather artificial looking, and difficult to perfect... the slightest movement results in a complete unrealistic arm swaying, while it should result in shaking and adjusting.. If you were to put an assault rifle's stock firmly into your shoulder, and move back wards, you would not be swinging it around.. DayZ seems to think so.. which can result and quite a bit of frustration in heated situations.

There are a couple more things such as "hackers" making you explode, or things like that, these things can sometimes be avoided by joining a server with a good anti-hack program, and a good admin.

Overall, for a Mod... DayZ is a job well done, even though it has its faults and frustrations, we have to remember this is only a Mod of Arma II, plus it is free if you own Arma II, so you get what you pay for, and even though we paid for nothing when it comes to DayZ, we get quite a lot.

BRIEF PARENTAL SECTION

I've only continued to create these "Parent Sections" in case a parent is reading this review, and quite possibly is wondering whether the game is appropriate for their kids. I think its better it being there, and not mattering, then the opposite.

So DayZ is a mod without a game rating, but it is a mod for a game that was rated Mature, Arma II.

The content in DayZ alone is not worthy of an M rating, the bleeding is completely fake, and only occurs when you are damaged.. no dialogue at all, the occasional violence depending on how things turn out, and a rarity in weapons of any kind.

You'll find weapons if you search long enough, but not in abundance.. usually you only find one or two weapons in your characters entire time alive. (Which can differ depending on the circumstances and your strategy). However, you are online, with people who can say or do anything.. they can kill you quickly, or try to help you, they could easily start typing up profanities or using their mic to shout them at you or others. It depends on the people.

DayZ is an eerie game at times for some... It gets rather dark during the night, and zombies still lurk in all the towns and such.. the zombies don't look horrifically terrible but you get the idea... and the idea that they can run at you either on foot or on all fours.. well that might be a little too much for a kid.. however it doesn't look very realistic and would most likely end in laughter because of its supremely corny look. (Or it will terrify your kid, you can't know for sure).

The game lacks mature content, but players can make up for that if they wish. just depends on what you think.. there is unavoidable profanity everywhere, this just happens to be one of those places.

Thanks for reading my review, I appreciate it quite a lot.

-ARBALON