Deadlight takes place in Seattle in 1986 where society is on its last legs as a new virus outbreak that gives the ability to bring the dead back to life and turn them into wild hunters that only hunt living beings to devour the raw flesh and meat straight from the bone. You play as Randall Wayne a park ranger and survivor from a small town in Canada called Hope which was also hit by the virus outbreak, during the devastation and confusion caused by the outbreak Randall has been separated from his wife Shannon and young daughter Lydia.
Randall heads to Seattle because of reports that held within the city is the last “safe point” on the Pacific Northwest and this is where he believes he will find his wife and daughter. Randall sets off on the journey with his friend Ben Parker, Randall and Ben join with a small group of three other people; Sam an elderly retired police officer and two sisters, Stella and Karla.
The game opens up with Randall shooting Karla in the head after being bitten by an infected or known in the game as shadows, he does this because he knows that in only a short time Karla herself with turn into a shadow and try to kill him and everyone else in the group. As the rest of the group return to the building they were hiding in a group of shadows breaks in and as they climb up a ladder to escape it breaks, Randall tells them to head for the safe point and that he would meet them there.
Randall escapes from the warehouse and must now make his way to the safe points through the rundown city of Seattle, whilst making his way to the safe point he learns of a militia group calling them self’s the “The New Law” who kills anyone that does not join them or opposes them and Randall gets a first row view of them doing just that. So now Randall must avoid the militia as well as the shadows to make it to the safe point so he can be with Shannon and Lydia.
The controls for PC didn’t seem that smooth to me so I plugged in my 360 controller then they seemed a lot smoother and the character movement was a lot better I don’t know if it was just me that had that feeling or just because it was made with the controller in mind. The platforming aspects of the game where nothing new but still what you would expect to see, jump up and over obstacles, press buttons, move objects, use tools to access paths and obstacles. Sometimes jumping to grab ledges can be tricky as you will need to be only a small step in front of it then other times you could be a couple steps away from it which did cause a couple problems.
The game is very linear where you move mostly from one side of the screen to the other as well as going up and down at some parts to get to the current objective. There are some puzzles for you to solve in order to continue on or get to a certain part of the level these include, shooting locks, moving climbable objects, using you’re slingshot to activate and loosen objects and activating buttons for drains for example.
The health system for the game see’s you start out with three bars of health which can be fully restored by picking up health packs and upgraded by collecting health upgrades you can find in game, you also have a stamina bar that gets deleted when you run, jump, hang from ledges and uses melee combat, it will however regenerate over time and can also be upgraded by picking up the collectable upgrade. There are other collectable through the game such as handheld games you can actually play, pages from Randall’s diary which is a must read it gives a great bit of information to the backstory to the game and gives Randall himself more of a personality and the other collectable’s include ID cards.
The enemy A.I for the shadows makes them act like zombies you have already seen for example they will chase you when they realise you are there by moving past them or making a noise, they will follow you blindly and by this I mean they will fall down holes, off ledges and other dangers just to try and get the chance to feed on that fresh flesh on your body. Now I know what you may be think they don’t sound that bad but you still want to be careful if they catch you they will grab you and if you get caught in a corner they will make sure you will have the hardest time to get it and if there is a group of them you probably won’t get out so be careful, something that might not seem threatening can surprise you at times.
There is not a lot weapons in the game you get an axe, revolver and a pump action shotgun and I know you might not be too happy with this but during the game you will want to get away from the enemies as fast as you can because if they get close to you with three or four of them they will kill you quite quick. You don’t hold a lot of ammo for each gun but I don’t know if it was just because I didn’t use them all that much I didn’t find myself complaining about the lack of ammo in the game.
If you do need and just want to use the weapons I would suggest you use the axe on one or two enemies and the want to knock them down then hold the attack button to kill them with the axe, keep the pistol for three or four enemies spread out and always go for headshots to make the most of your ammo and if there is a group of enemies bunched up shotgun is always a good call.
I am a fan of using 3D models but playing in a 2D perspective and Deadlight does a great job of this, the foreground objects are done in an all-black silhouette look where as the backgrounds or a lot more detailed and use a good bit of colour which helps distinguish what is in the foreground and can be interacted with and what is in the background. The background at one point in the game showed a city with different building’s all different in shape, size, colour and even damage which gives you a sense of scale to the city and was nice to see that even if the models where not highly textured that they could still add a nice bit of detail to the game and it does not go unnoticed.
The cut scenes in the game where done as comic book style where it would shift from one image to another as the dialog was playing, there wasn’t that many of them and they didn’t last too long which was good as they didn’t add unneeded time to the game.
The voice acting and game audio where nicely done clean and crisp Stephen Hughes done the voice of Randall as well as Ben and the voice of some soldiers and during the game I could not tell it was the same person that done all these voices, his voice for Randall matched the characters personality very well and the rest of the voice actors also done at least two voice’s in the game and just like Stephen they all done a great job and at the time of playing I wasn’t able to even tell.
Overall I would give the game an 9 out of 10 with me being unbiased but if I was to be biased it would be more like a 10, I’m giving it an nine because it didn’t bring anything new to the platforming aspect and the game is short it will only last you between two and three hours and that’s collecting most if not all the collectables. Don’t let that put you off though the story is strong and gripping, the graphics are great and you won’t want to put the game down like myself I was around half way finished and was going to stop but I didn’t I played the game straight from start to finish collected all the collectables bar five and read all the diary available it lasted two and a half hours and I was not disappointed and the ending was really unexpected. I would recommend this to fans of platformer and zombie games as a must buy and it you are on the fence about it go for it you won’t be disappointed.
Some games require more than one playthrough to fully experience. Here are seven games that are better on the second playthrough.
Red Dead 2 ? Who would ever want to play that slow ass bloated overly long game twice ! Not to mention going through those awfully designed main missions.
I mean, I did. I enjoyed every bit of the 3 times I played through it. Just because you didn’t enjoy it doesn’t mean others won’t. Not every game is for everyone.
But the first game is one of my favourite games ever.. i have no idea what happend with the second game but Rockstar needs to change it’s game design, especially how those main missions are designed. It’s severly outdated. Oh and actually make the gameplay enjoyable and not so slow and clunky.
“But the first game is one of my favourite games ever.. i have no idea what happend with the second game but Rockstar needs to change it’s game design, especially how those main missions are designed. It’s severly outdated. Oh and actually make the gameplay enjoyable and not so slow and clunky.“
Believe me, I recently replayed the first one and it’s worse in both structure and game design. Don’t let nostalgia misplace that. RDR 2 is definitely an improvement but it’s rockstar in general that needs to open up their handholding on missions.
Some games have good incentives for multiple playthroughs but you can never beat experiencing it for the first time. Caelid for the first time? Mindblowing. Second time around it's just Caelid again.
GF365: "A well-written and heart-touching video game can bring almost anyone to tears, and it's not always a bad thing. There are countless titles that have executed the concept of tragedy perfectly. Here are the saddest video game stories."
Deadliest was an awesome game. Glad to see it get recognition. I remember seeing it in ebay physically I had to buy it.
NieR: Automata's focus on existentialism hit me so hard, I legitimately had a brief existential crisis from it. It actually had me contemplating life and death. One of the many factors that contributed to Automata overtaking Chrono Trigger as my favorite game of all time. I've been gaming since Bionic Commando on NES. So I never really thought I'd find a game that could usurp Chrono Trigger for me, personally.
wow.
i mean i love the Nier franchise but to contemplate life and death ... maybe a therapist would help? not being funny about it.
TLOU had a couple of touching moments but the entire story wasn't sad to me. But it was a story of survival so I guess the entire predicament of living in those conditions can be considered sad & I guess the same can be said for The Walking Dead..lol. Sekiro,Spec Op & Dark Souls story didn't seem sad to me nor did Nier:Automata. To each their own to how someone interprets a sad story.
What?!
SPOILERS
Dude, the main characters daughter dies in his arms in the first 30 minutes of the game. Then 2 brothers die in front of you in a horrible heartbreaking way. Followed by the conclusion where Joel chooses Ellie’s life and dooms mankind!
😂 Not sad at all
Sarah’s death was sad, didn’t care about the 2 brothers at all, and I fully support Joel’s decision to save Ellie because mankind was beyond saving at that point anyway, so it was more bittersweet than sad, knowing how it would strain Ellie and Joel’s relationship going forward.
For me, the beginning was sad in TLOU everything else was just touching moments. Again as I stated in my initial comment.."To each their own for how someone interprets what is & isn't sad"
The DRM Freedom Sale is running now at Humble Store. You can get DRM-free PC games like Deadlight and Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut for up to 96% off. The deal runs for one week.
