State of Decay: Breakdown (2013)
Developer: Undead Labs
Platforms: Personal Computer (Reviewed), X-Box 360
Available: Black Friday 11/29/2013
So there I was, rescuing a missing neighbor. Me and a member from his zombie apocalypse survivor group went looking from one house to the next, securing the perimeter from those nasty zeds as we went along until we got to the right house and found him standing in a dark corner of the living room doing whatever it was that he was doing. The three of us were on our way out of the house when suddenly, we heard a whimpering cry for help. Just outside, my crew member who had been called in to pick up some food supply from the shed next to the very house that I was in was being mercilessly attacked by a long train of zeds whom she no doubt brought along with her on her way over. Yes, the stupid A.I. is back during my return to Trumbull Valley and so are the other frustrations I found from the original game but this Breakdown expansion was not made to fix what was already there but rather, to enhance the player's experience.
Breakdown is all about pushing the idea of survival to its most unforgiving core. In the main game, if you survive long enough, you can choose to find a closure to the game because of the narrative-focused design. Well, things are a lot more morbid here where the game doesn't end until you perish. The question then becomes, how long will you last in this zombie apocalypse? You play the game until you eventually die. I prefer this mode than the original game because hey, if the world is really all that messed up and even the military can't do anything about it, you know it's only a matter of time before you become zombie food. Now bear in mind that this is not a faster or a more arcade-style version of the game for it is very much still the same game as the original where you will spend many, many, many hours building up your community scavenging supplies, upgrading your characters and home base, as well as taking care of the many different tasks to be found in the game world. You will be prompted to find an RV to fix up so that you can escape the map when you are ready but that is exactly it, you can do whatever you want until you are indeed ready to leave: You are free to fully pick the entire Trumbull Valley clean of all resources before moving on or if things are not challenging enough for you and you are one of those sadistic people who just can't wait to get tortured, you can then just leave the map immediately.
I am not sure if it is a good idea to leave your group's survival to chance.
You see, every time you leave the map, an event that is made more interesting because you can't bring everyone and all of your supplies along, you will arrive at Trumbull Valley again! Whoever was driving that RV apparently had too much to drink. Yes, it's the same exact map, only this time, there are less resources to gather on top of an increased zombie threat. The difficulty continues to rise every single time you leave the map, so the longer you can survive, the harder it is to keep yourself alive. To make things more interesting, you get a score sheet when you leave a map that calculates your performance based on "Violence", "Skill", and "Leadership", and if you like improving your scores, this will certainly make you jump back into the game from the very beginning when your survival adventure reached its horrible end. Now returning to the same exact map may seem disappointing and it does lessen the realism of your journey but the advantage here is that by the time you have spent a lot of hours playing Breakdown, you will know the map so well that it will help you plan and do everything a lot better. New to Breakdown is the introduction of hero characters. These are characters you encountered in the main game that you can now immediately recruit into your group. They would show up randomly in the game world for you to rescue and they bring much relief thanks to their vastly superior character statistics. You can choose to start the game using these characters as well, as long as you have them unlocked by completing specific tasks that are clearly laid out in your journal. Sure, you will still have to babysit them when they are tasked as runners but at least you don't have to worry about having them getting immediately destroyed on the higher level maps when you control them.
Trumbull Valley: Everywhere you go, there will be zombies.
It is very easy to see that the Breakdown mode is better than playing through the original release. You don't have to worry about that haphazard story line while you create your own harrowing tale of survival. Breakdown is what State of Decay should be in the beginning - a very evil sandbox zombie survival game - because the focus on continued survival works really well with the game's established mechanics, not to mention that it makes the game infinitely more playable than before. This expansion is an essential addition that transforms the original game into something more substantial. I would even encourage those who are new to skip right into Breakdown for you won't be missing much from the story mode. Breakdown will cost $6.99 and it will be available this Friday on Steam. Are you ready for your eventual annihilation?
RATING: 4 out of 5
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Steam key provided by developer.
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