State of Decay 2

Hi everyone,

I hope that you all had a Happy New Year! Today I am going to review the survival game, State of Decay 2! It is for the Xbox One, and is developed by Undead Labs.

I had played the first one for both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One, but I really did like it. It was a lot of fun, and I had beaten the game on the 360 version. Well, today I will talk about the story and the gameplay of State of Decay 2, and there is a lot of that.

Story:

The world ended, I guess. You are a survivor (and its community) who need to survive the end of the world. There are other people who you can help or hurt. That is all up to you. You need to take care of your community in order to make sure that you do not die, but thrive. There are plenty of zombies that will want to kill you, so be careful.

There is not really a story to this game. It is just to survive. There are cameos for the people who played the first game, but it is really minor and can be missed.

Gameplay:

The game has a bunch of different ways to play. There are weapons, and their durability can break. There are guns and crossbows with the same mechanic as the weapons. The problem is that you can also be too loud with your guns, and more zombies will come by. It is a sense of “balance” that the game tries to employ, but can fail. Sometimes it is decently implemented, and sometimes thousands of zombies come after you. That’s where using the gun sucks.

The problem with weapons is that they break too easily, and the guns don’t do much damage, unless you use all of you bullets or get lucky and hit the head. If you don’t, then you are in for a world of pain and sadness my friend.

The game also introduces “Plague Zombies”, and they are the biggest threat, more so than “bigger” types of zombies, like “ferals”, or the big, Incredible Hulk style ones. These zombies have a “Plague Meter” that builds up when they hit you. If you get hit enough times, you get a disease that can turn that character into one of these “Plague Zombies”. You can build a cure though, if you have enough “Plague Samples” that can cure your character. Otherwise one of your members can kill him or her off, or even outcast them just to be safe.

The game also has you switching characters often. This is in case they get tired, or they get too injured on the job. It is a nicely thought out mechanic, but poorly implemented. The characters are constantly getting tired, and take WAY TOO LONG to recover. I understand that this is similar to a real outbreak (if it was remotely possible) and all, but this is a video game. The game is almost unrealistic.

I want to be engaged with the game, but sometimes my characters sit out for too long. I want to be in the game, exploring the world, and getting in on the action. But that doesn’t usually happen.

You also go into different buildings, such as houses, or garages, and take different loot from them, and then decide to use that however the community sees fit (usually displayed in the upper left corner of your screen). There is a search option (usually with the Y button), or a fast search (hold Y first, then LB). The fast search option makes the searching obviously quicker, but can attract large amounts of zombies.

There are missions for your community to do also. They consist of helping neighbors out, or gathering materials. They can be fun, but are usually repetitive. They can be from helping out with a still (to which I have helped one and could have redone twice), to giving medicine, which I won’t do because I need it for myself.

If you don’t help out your neighbors (who are also called communities), then they may be mean to you, or leave the world entirely. They can also be recruited into your community, but it all depends on the game. You can then use each unique characters’ skills to help you survive.

Personally, I am not a big fan of the neighbors because the missions are annoying, and they don’t do much for me. Granted, that can change, but usually it does not. Plus they are boring.

There is a Co-Op part of the game also. It is just a friend from a different console helping you out with your world. They get their own loot too, which is nice. No griefing and whatnot. It makes the game more fun then just by yourself. I didn't play much with a friend, but it was always nice. 

Overall:

This game is well made, and well though out, but the game does not give me a lot to do, along with the characters being terrible to micromanage. I wish that I could play as more of them to get back into the action, but some of them just sit out for way too long. The game would be a whole lot better if I could just play as them.

I give this game a 3 out of 5 stars.

The picture is from https://www.bestbuy.com/site/state-of-decay-2-xbox-one/5322200.p?skuId=5322200