This was THE game that drew me to the Xbox 360 back in the day. Not Halo, not Gears of War, this. Just the idea of a sandbox game that let you pick up basically anything to use against hordes of zombies was so enticing to me.
The mall itself has cemented itself as an iconic video game location. There's so many secrets to find, whether they be from boss fights that unlock weapons you can keep using for the rest of the playthrough, or shortcuts you can unlock via saving certain people (or completing the main quest to a certain point) to secrets that are 100% unmarked.
There's definitely a balancing problem though, like the fact the single best weapon in the game is dropped by one of the very first bosses. And you can get books to extend its durability so high you'll basically be set for the rest of the game if you pick up 2 of them.
Survivors and Psychopaths are full of personality. The former of which might play into how to recruit them, like needing to give them food, or having to hit them a few times before they'll join etc.
The worst part of the game bar non is the terrible survivor Ai. Trying to save them is a fucking chore. They're extremely slow, incredibly stupid and get caught by zombies so much you wonder how they survived this long in the first place. The worst part is I don't even think this was entirely due to bad programming, since there's a book you can unlock from a boss that will slightly improve their ai (it's still kinda bad, but passable). You can't even unlock the book until half way through each playthrough. They should have just made that the default and then made the book make them like super survivors or something I dunno. Or have the book stay dropped once you pick it up once for NG+ playthroughs.
Another super annoying thing is whenever you get some info on a new scoop or case, you can't do ANYTHING in the time it takes you to listen to the info, so you can't defend yourself even if you're surrounded by zombies or in a boss fight. And worse, if you get hit once while the call is happening, it'll stop and you'll have to listen to it all again while also being chewed out on ending the call early. Between that and the survivor ai, it really ruins the whole "saving survivors" part of the game. Luckily the story parts, boss fights and sandbox make up for it, since saving survivors is optional (but a great way to level up).
Overall this was basically like the best zombie toy box game. Surpassed only by its sequel.
The mall itself has cemented itself as an iconic video game location. There's so many secrets to find, whether they be from boss fights that unlock weapons you can keep using for the rest of the playthrough, or shortcuts you can unlock via saving certain people (or completing the main quest to a certain point) to secrets that are 100% unmarked.
There's definitely a balancing problem though, like the fact the single best weapon in the game is dropped by one of the very first bosses. And you can get books to extend its durability so high you'll basically be set for the rest of the game if you pick up 2 of them.
Survivors and Psychopaths are full of personality. The former of which might play into how to recruit them, like needing to give them food, or having to hit them a few times before they'll join etc.
The worst part of the game bar non is the terrible survivor Ai. Trying to save them is a fucking chore. They're extremely slow, incredibly stupid and get caught by zombies so much you wonder how they survived this long in the first place. The worst part is I don't even think this was entirely due to bad programming, since there's a book you can unlock from a boss that will slightly improve their ai (it's still kinda bad, but passable). You can't even unlock the book until half way through each playthrough. They should have just made that the default and then made the book make them like super survivors or something I dunno. Or have the book stay dropped once you pick it up once for NG+ playthroughs.
Another super annoying thing is whenever you get some info on a new scoop or case, you can't do ANYTHING in the time it takes you to listen to the info, so you can't defend yourself even if you're surrounded by zombies or in a boss fight. And worse, if you get hit once while the call is happening, it'll stop and you'll have to listen to it all again while also being chewed out on ending the call early. Between that and the survivor ai, it really ruins the whole "saving survivors" part of the game. Luckily the story parts, boss fights and sandbox make up for it, since saving survivors is optional (but a great way to level up).
Overall this was basically like the best zombie toy box game. Surpassed only by its sequel.