Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green

So this is my first review on any video game, and I chose this particular game – Land of the Dead: The Road to Fiddler’s Green, a first-person shooter zombie survival game – because I think this is one of the most underrated games out there. But first, I’d like to tell you about my criteria, cus we all have different standards for judging video games. But I’d just like to share something about one part of it. And that is…

Graphics. Graphics are usually the first aspect in video games that gamers pay attention to. Graphics are, of course, essential in developing the atmosphere in a game and giving that “Woah” factor. Look at Doom 3, now that’s a great game, with great graphics. However, for my part, I don’t pay too much attention to graphics in games. Why? Well, in the world we live in now, where something gets old after a year or so, graphics this year might be seen as SNES graphics 5 years from now. Okay that might be an exaggeration, but you get the point. I think this: what’s the point of having good graphics if the gameplay sucks? Look at all the games that have “poor graphics” by today’s standards, but are still timeless classics – Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft, Civilization III (yeah CivIV came out, but I’m still stuck to Civ III!), Metal Slug, Contra. As long as the game rocks, regardless of the graphics, then it’ll live forever. 

So back to the review.

I’ve been playing zombie games since I got my first PlayStation in 1998. I remember I got Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Resident Evil 2, and some other game. And from then on, I loved zombie games. Land of the Dead: RTFG is a zombie’s game, as in this just captures the essence of zombie video games. If you read The Zombie Survival Guide, it can actually help! Fear factor, Satisfaction, and Humor, this game has it all! 

I’ve always been skeptical about these game-movie tie-in’s, much more if the game was in first-person. But as soon as I started playing, all that went right out the window and into a horde of zombies. After playing all those 3rd person zombie games, like the Resident Evil series, maybe Silent Hill (?), I found this 1st person perspective awesome. You couldn’t see what was behind you! In 3rd person, you would know if a zombie is creeping up behind you, but in 1st person, you’re only limited to what’s in front and beside you. One time in the game, I came upon a shed with a tuned radio, so I stood there facing the radio listening to the news. Then, suddenly, as I turned around, this fat zombie was staring me right in the face! I literally shouted, it scared me to the bone. Usually when a zombie spawns right beside you leaving you with not enough time to react, they say “Ugh, this is stupid! *ctrl+alt+del*, but I pick up my shovel and start killing zombies. It was amazing!

Another strength of first-person is when you open doors. Usually you tend to look at the door when you open, as we do in real life. So I was trying to open this door, I went near it, and looked at it, pressed the use key, THEN THIS ZOMBIE JUST BREAKS THE DOOR FROM THE OTHER SIDE AND STARTS ATTACKING ME. Oh my god. This is just sick.

The fact that zombies here could spawn anywhere adds to the fear-factorness of the game. Another experience: I was walking around my house, then I went to look for some health packs, then as I was going down the stairs, I saw a zombie in my kitchen. ZOMG!@#. Where’d it come from? And talking about scary places, check out the cornfield stage. 

(ZOMBIE 3 o’clock!, wait….you can’t see them :->)

This game scared me to the bone. But aside from that, the fact that you can take on around four zombies with a fire axe can give some satisfaction if you just want to kill zombies (!!!). Or if you wanna go Rocky Balboa, shift to your fists and knock down those zombies. In the humor aspect, these zombies are the kind in “Night of the Living Dead” meaning they’re STUPID and the humor would be in dying to their hands, or teeth. Charging into a pack of zombies with a shovel and trying to be Yu Law is pretty hilarious. 

Shoot them and run the risk of not killing them all in one clip? Why waste ammo? Blades don’t need reloading!
rating: TEN SKULLS!

Steps for getting the ideal playing atmosphere:
1. Watch “Night of the Living Dead”
2. wait till 2am, and turn off the lights, but leave a distant light on, preferrably somewhere down the hall. so you can imagine a zombie walking there. 
3. Set for hardest difficulty
4. turn up the speakers. LOUD!
5. pause. check the place where you had the light on.
6. when the sun rises, SAVE and QUIT.
7. repeat till finished.

you can check out the gamespot review too:http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/landofthedeadroadtofiddlersgreen/review.html?mode=gsreview