World War Z | PS4 Review

Publisher: MadDog Games & Focus Home Interactive

Developer: Saber Interactive

PS4 Review

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Age Rating: 18

*Disclaimer: I was sent the code for this game in return for a review, all opinions are mine and mine alone. 

I'm not the biggest fan of zombie games as I get scared easily but when I come across a game like World War Z the scare turns into excitement, as a fan of the movie I had high hopes for this game and those high hopes were met once I intentionally got past the issues with the connection which made the game impossible to play at times, this isn't down to the game I think it's more to do with my connection at the time. The rubber banding got so much I ended up waiting until my connection was better and once it was it became a joy to play through. I wasn't sure what to expect from this game as I had limited myself to only seeing one trailer, I didn't want it to cloud my judgment and either put me off or get me too excited so I went in not knowing what kind of game this would be.

Upon playing WWZ for the first time, I wasn't able to play connect online straight away as it was taking a while for the game to fully install. I didn't mind because it gave me the option to play the first campaign offline and once the game was fully installed I was able to play all the campaigns on and offline. There are 4 main campaigns and within each, there are 3 steps to each campaign except for the last one set in Tokyo, you can play them in any order you want, I played them in the order they're listed. If you're worried about difficulty settings don't worry too much, it comes with 5 different difficulty modes each one adds more zombies to the mix which makes it harder to survive and get to your target, these modes are, easy, normal, hard, very hard and insane, what I would usually do was to swap between easy, normal and hard.

What's it about? WWZ is a survival game from a third person perspective, your main objective is to survive the horde of zombies coming your way, there has been an outbreak, this outbreak is turning people into zombies. Luckily it's not air born and can only be passed on if bitten by someone who is infected. The game can apparently support up to 1000 enemies appearing on screen simultaneously because of this you have to always be on your guard and ready to fight. There are spots within the game which you give you ammo and weapons, they are marked clearly on the map which in turn makes it a little easier to try to survive. 

Leveling up is simple, playing through either campaign or multiplayer (PVP) you earn expo to help you level up, it doesn't take long before you start leveling up either. At first I thought I would get bored playing through the campaign but I enjoyed it a lot more than the multiplayer, mostly because I'm horrendous at multiplayer but towards the end of the games I end up getting into the flow of things, it often takes some getting used to before I can say I'm any good at it, the added element of hordes of zombies appearing whilst playing PVP makes it fun, especially when you would get points for killing both players and zombies. There are 6 different multiplayer options to choose from:

Quick Match: this will search for any game online and add you to it.

Swarm Domination: this is my favourite out of them all, you have to capture the zones and earn points for your team.

King of the Hill: the name of it says it all really, capture the hill and control it to earn victory points

Swarm Deathmatch: you go head to head with 2 teams and fight to the end.

Scavenge Raid: the aim of this is to collect resources around the map or take them from enemies who have been killed to earn points for the team and get a victory.

Vaccine Hunt: This one is so random, you have to pick up a vaccine and hold it in order to earn points for your team.

I enjoy Swarm Domination the most, probably because it's the easiest one for me to achieve and I was put on teams that work well together so far (unlike in campaign mode when people kept teabagging me). Not only do you have a choice of 16 characters to play as, unfortunately, this is only in multiplayer mode, in campaign mode you only get a choice of 4 characters to choose from. When it comes to classes in campaign mode you have a choice of 6, each time you switch class and play with that class you can earn expo and level up, doing this will only level up that one class you're playing with. My main class is Gunslinger the others you can choose from are Hellraiser, Medic, Fixer. Slasher and Exterminator, they all have their own perks once leveled up and unlocked. Multiplayer has 9 different classes you can choose from, they are: Survivor, Trapper, Specialist, Warfighter, Phantom Demonlisher, Striker, Support, Assassin and Shadow again they have their own perks which you can upgrade once you level up.

Weapons are a huge part of WWZ and the more points you get the better weapons you can buy and equip, I mostly find myself using an SMG, chainsaw and frag grenades as they seem the most effective when it comes to the hordes of zombies running at me, the downfall of the chainsaw is that it can break so you have to find another or switch back to your gun. I find this gives me an urge to go back and play the campaign over and over again and I don't get bored of having to do this if anything playing with different team members each time to see how fast we can get through a campaign is great fun especially when each time I go back I get grabbed or attacked by zombies in different spots making the game less predictable each time.

World War Z stands out amoungst other zombie games due to the sheer amount of zombies coming at you, it has stayed true to a lot of the mechanics of the zombies like in the movie such as the zombies climbing on top of one another in order to get over an obstacle and the panic of trying to stop them makes me all the more hyped to get through that campaign. I challenge myself in my head to try and avoid getting caught or hurt by the zombies, the bulls in particular because them guys are ruthless and usually kill me before I can get help from other team members in time. In preparation for the battles, we are given a time slot to get defenses ready but in between them zombies manage to creep through and get you, this makes the prepping that much harder depending on what level you are playing on, the harder the level the more zombies that will be running at you and the more you have to prioritise which weapon will kill them the fastest.

Once you have unlocked characters in the game you can see their story and how the events of the outbreak happened for them, having a mix of old, young, male and female characters were very welcomed. I admittedly do like playing as a female character, being able to survive and kick ass as a female in a game is usually something I choose to do in games that have the option to play as a female character, for younger female gamers this is inspiring as it shows females can do something just as well as men. I found myself very drawn to Oksana Orlovskaya, there was something about her that stood out to me, she seems very fearless. She had a dream to become a doctor but the outbreak put an end to that and turned her into a badass female fighter who is willing to do all she can in order to live. 

My overall rating for this game is 4/5 due to the fact that PVP can be frustrating to play at times, players who are a higher level have a lot more power over the lower levels and it makes it difficult to get any kills, my other gripe with the game is that there isn't that much of a variety of zombies, it seems that the game has a set amount and it would have been nice to see them come up with more unique looking zombies. Split screen would have been a good touch too, this way my partner and I can play it on the console together instead of playing on separate consoles.