Days Gone
PlayStation 4
Nostalgia Factor:
Days Gone came out about four years ago. I knew little to nothing about the game, other than that it was a zombie game with bikers. The premise interested me, but all the reviews I read on the game were negative. As a result, I put this game on the backburner with the idea that I'd check it out "someday."
Well, it took me a while, but I finally got around to playing the game. And you know what? All the reviews out there were wrong. I had a great fucking time with this game. Read on for my full thoughts.
Story:
As always, I am going to spoil the crap out of this game, so skim over this at your own peril!
This game takes place two years after a zombie apocalypse, except in this game the zombies are referred to as "freaks." You play as Deacon St. John, a former motorcycle club member who now operates as a "drifter". He goes around from survivor camp to survivor camp taking on jobs, like recovering supplies, looking for missing people, and defending folks from Rippers and other bandits that now populate this desolate world.
Deacon's partner in crime is named Boozer. Boozer was also a member of the motorcycle club and was one of Deacon's closest friends before the world fell apart. Through flashbacks, we discover that Deacon's wife Sarah was injured in the outbreak. She was separated from her friends when she left on a helicopter from a rooftop, clinging to her life. There was no room on the chopper for Deacon and Boozer. They vowed to catch up with Sarah later. Sarah is believed to be dead when they come to the rendezvous point and find it has been overrun by freaks.
Deacon has not given up faith that Sarah could still be alive out there somewhere. When Boozer is injured in a Ripper attack, he sets off on his own to find answers. He finds them when he locates O'Brian, the helicopter pilot who took Sarah away. Spoiler alert - Sarah is indeed alive. O'Brian points Deacon in the right direction. Sarah has been taken in by a militant group of survivors who is using her in order for her to research a way to defeat the freaks. Deacon infiltrates this military group to save Sarah. When he find out just how evil they are, and how batshit crazy their leader is, he initiates a full fledged war to take him down.
This is just a barebones breakdown of the story. There is a LOT more to be seen here. Lots of camp drama and side missions. You get a whole lot about Sarah and Deacon's relationship through flashbacks. There is a mission where Sarah returns to her old laboratory to look for supplies with Deacon - and has to fight a bunch of former coworkers who open fire on them. Deacon is betrayed by someone he thought was a friend. I even skipped over the whole Ripper plot, where Deacon goes to war against a crazy, drug fueled survivor group that like sto maim themselves and play with fire. Turns out that their leader is someone who has a past with Deacon, and is looking to get revenge on him and Boozer. There are a few torture scenes in this game that made even a desensitized person like me cringe a little.
All in all, I found this to be a pretty engaging story with characters that I actually cared about. Lots of reviews out there criticize the game's story, but I found it to be quite strong.
Gameplay:
There is so much depth to this title's gameplay, I feel like I'll be writing forever trying to explain it all. But I am gonna do my best!
There is an open world map. This isn't a game where you just pick a direction and go. There are mission markers on the map where you must drive to in order to start a new job. If you are familiar with Grand Theft Auto, or really any open world game out there, you should know how this works.
Driving and maintaining your motorcycle is an integral part to this game. Your bike takes damage when you crash it, and you must use "scrap" from your inventory to repair it. The game also requires you to fill up your gas tank from time to time. If you run out of gas, you can only push the bike along with your feet as you sit on it, which is obviously very slow. So you want to monitor your fuel gauge and fill up whenever you can. I know a lot of people say that keeping your bike repaired and fueled is tedious, but I never had a problem with it. I liked this system, to be honest with you. How is this considered tedious, but all the slow walking and camp management in Red Dead II is praised? Make it make sense.
Combat is a little bit like something you'd see in an Uncharted game. Over the shoulder gun-slinging action. There is a wheel you pull up in combat to change weapons. There is a stealth element, too, where you can sneak up on enemies and take them out quietly, so as not to alert the others. You can use a crossbow or put silencers on your guns to stealthily take people down from a distance.
A big element in this game is the crafting. Normally I don't like crafting in games, but it is easy enough here. Gather things like scrap, rags, bottles, and kerosene to craft weapons or health supplies. You can pick up melee weapons and modify them too. My favorite was the baseball bat with the big buzz saw on on it. Weapons fall apart over time, so you must use scrap to keep them in tip top shape, or you risk losing them when they break.
Missions consist of things like: destroying enemy camps, rescuing missing survivors, destroying freak nests, and gathering supplies. Not gonna lie, things did start to feel a bit repetitive after a while. Take a mission. Drive to the marker on the map. Kill a bunch of freaks or humans. Return to the person who gave you the mission. This is one of the criticisms of the game that I actually agreed with. There was a big chunk in the middle of the game where it felt like I was just going through the motions. It isn't until the storyline picks up that the missions start to get more interesting. But even then they still boil down to the same basic thing.
There are many side quests to keep you occupied. I liked destroying all the nests and taking out all the hordes. The hordes are super intimidating at the start of the game. I used to die in seconds after getting swarmed. It isn't until later after you are leveled up and have access to a big variety of weapons that the hordes become easier to defeat.
There are some RPG elements here, like the ability to level up and assign skill points to your character. You can buy and sell things in the game's various camps. There is always something to do here. And even though the action seems repetitive sometimes, it never stops being fun. The game started off a bit slow in my eyes. Maybe that is why reviewers don't like it. I know that sometimes they only play a few hours of a game before reviewing it - which is completely wrong and unfair. I never review a game until I've beaten it first, which is the way it should be. And I have to say that I had a superb time with this game.
Graphics:
This game looks terrific. I love the setting in rural Oregon. You see lots of lakes and rivers and trees and beautiful landscapes. It's like the whole game takes place "up north" as we like to call it in Wisconsin.
Characters look really good. It's easy to forget they are just animated video game characters and not real people sometimes, as hard as that is to believe. The whole world of the game feels real, too. If a zombie apocalypse did hit the United States, it is easy to believe that things would look like this afterwards.
The hordes are visually impressive. I can't recall a game where I've had so many enemies coming after me all at once. Like, hundreds. The fact that the game runs at such a high performance despite all this is really quite impressive.
Sound:
Not only does Days Gone look the part, it sounds the part as well. It all starts with the voice acting, which is great. I love Deacon's voice, and how it is the same guy from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (which I recently played) and Battlestar Galactica. All the emotional moments between him and Sarah hit hard, and it is all because of the voice acting.
The game itself sounds fine. The music, although forgettable, is never intrusive. It sets the tone during some of the more tense moments of the game, like the horde battles. Keeps you on the edge of your toes. The motorcycle, which you'll hear a lot of, sounds good too.
Overall:
I don't know why people are tripping. This game is great. It takes a while to really get going, which I suppose can be a problem for some people. It wasn't for me. Once Days Gone hit its stride, I was completely hooked. I like this a lot more than some other recent critical darlings I've played, such as the Resident Evil 4 remake and Death Stranding.
As I finished this game up just a few days ago, I started thinking about how I was going to grade it. I knew it deserved at least an A. At least. But would it get the vaunted A+? I think it has to. I have liked this game so much more than pretty much anything I've played in the last year or two. It's that good. It has a great storyline that kept me invested. It has fun gameplay. I like the crafting. I love the horde battles. Even though missions can get repetitive sometimes, they never cease being a blast to play.
So yeah, it gets an A+ from me. And to all the haters, here is a giant flaming middle finger I'm pointing at you right now. How could you not like this game? Your bad reviews kept me from checking this out for four years, and they killed pretty much any hope of a sequel this game may have had. I'm shaking my head over here.
This is an awesome game. Play it. Give it a shot. I hope you like it as much as I do.
THE GRADE:
A+
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