Days Gone - Playstation 4

It took me a couple of hours to settle into this game but now I truly love it and can call it one of my all-time favorites! And talk about getting your money's worth! I've been playing for like 3 months and just came as close to finishing as I could. To set the stage, I definitely like a certain type of game. The games I love and play over and over are: 1) The Last of Us (My all-time favorite. Joel and Ellie are my people.) 2) Uncharted (all of them) 3) Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition 4) Rise of the Tomb Raider (Very disappointed in Shadow of the Tomb Raider) Games Other Gamers Love But I Ended Up Returning Are: 1) Red Dead Redemption II 2) Beyond Two Souls 3) God of War 4) Witcher III 5) Anything with the name BIOSHOCK on it I also tend to like linear games more than open world games. So I was fully prepared to be disappointed by DAYS GONE. But man, there is just SO much to do! The storyline ends up being touching, as do Deacon's relationships with Sarah and Boozer. The voice acting is great and even the facial acting is amazing in spots. The shoot-outs with the bad guys are awesome with a variety of weapons and solid mechanics reminiscent of UNCHARTED. The battles with the swarms and especially the hordes are positively chilling. Sometimes just choosing to ride your bike at night when it's most dangerous is positively thrilling. My nerves stayed on edge a LOT while playing this game. They have fixed most of the earlier glitches you'll see mentioned in some of these reviews. It did take me DAYS to figure out how to start the LIGHT A CANDLE mission! (Just go and stand right inside the gate at Lost Lake until you find the right spot.) Every now and then something really funny will happen like a zombie "frozen" in place on the road or from the corner of your eye, you'll see a zombie tumble right out of the sky. One of the coolest things is that once you finish the main storyline, there's still a ton of stuff to do so you don't have that "let-down" you usually feel after a great game ends. When I finished the main storyline, I had only killed 18% of the freaker "hordes" so I spent the next several days hunting them down. Plus the different camps STILL keep radioing you with new missions after you finish the main storyline. Once again, you get your money's worth. Anyway, I've enjoyed every minute I've spend playing the game and now I guess I have to pick up the pieces of my real life and move on. (Got a fright the other night at the tennis courts when the sound coming from the nearby baseball park sounded just like a horde!) I think this game was worth every penny and I'll probably play it again someday. Preferably on the new "New Game Plus" mode where I get to keep all of my skills, credits, and weapons from my first play-through so I can kick some SERIOUS zombie patootie! (Plus skip the cut scenes.) Enjoy!

There are a few things that I want in a game: reasonably good story, good gun play, decent animation, and more than 20 hours of play. I think that Days Gone fits the bill. While it has some familiarity with other open world/mission based games like the Far Cry series, I thought there was sufficient difference to stand out. If anything, it feels more like Dying Light as there are pros and cons as to when you approach a problem. The story is fine. Deke's relationships with Sarah and Boozer matter, and the other NPCs are engaging as well. Iron Mike, Addie, Rikki, all have a part of the story to tell and your occasional missions with them don't get in the way. The characters are well animated and the facial expressions add to the stories. The gun battle is pretty easy on the normal setting, especially once you get your focus levels up (the equivalent of bullet time). But each approach to a battle is different enough. This is especially true of the horde missions which, for me, were the hardest to pull off well and efficiently. Maybe I'm not a great planner. The other shooty stuff is fine. The guns you can choose from are swell but there are no DOOM like super powered armaments. You sort of have to keep tabs on your bullets and reloads, but not unfairly. The leveling up is pretty easy as well and make the game more fun. I felt like I was constantly having to harvest stuff in Far Cry. Here the burden feels more reasonable aided by the skills tree. The game is great for the casual gamer - you can play for hours or just run a quick mission. I would guess I have 40 hours in. There is value running further missions after finishing the main story. I don't love the selection wheel. It's easy to miss what you are looking for in a tight battle, but the focus time helps. Mostly this ran ok on a PS4 slim with the occasional stutter here and there. I think the game is worth the time and $ involved. It's involving, entertaining, pretty at times, even relaxing (once you get a feel for the motorcycle) and the stakes are pretty low - you don't really lose anything when you die and it isn't all that hard to start with - except the hordes.

I pre-ordered this game as soon as I saw it at E3. I played about an hour when it arrived and put it down due to all the bad press I saw it getting. Critics tend to be overly critical about things. You never really see games in the middle, it's either a 10 or a 0 with very little in between. How critics are able to complete games of this size within what I assume is less than a week and portray an accurate picture of the game is beyond me. In fact I'm pretty sure most of them never complete the games in their entirety. And people on here posting 1 star reviews when they haven't barely played it is ridiculous. How can you review a game that can take 60 to 80 hours in a day's worth of playing it and have any informed opinion of it? Thankfully I picked it back up again and played through it over a month. I heard about all the bugs and things people found wrong with it. Frankly I think some people complain just for the sake of complaining. As gamers we have become spoiled. If a game doesn't release on the date it's supposed to we complain, if it does release early to satisfy gamers we complain about the bugs they didn't have time to fix. As a software engineer myself and one that works in quality assurance I see a ton of bugs and almost every day something is broken. It's not because the people at Bend are not good at their job, it's because software development with lot's of employees and tight deadlines causes mistakes. That's just the nature of the business. Too many cooks in the kitchen. But games of this size need large studios to do the work so sometimes you have to overlook the flaws to find the good these people have done. After waiting for a while before starting again, it gave them time to fix bugs. Other than the image freezing every now and then to load things into memory (playing on original PS4 and wasn't a game breaker for me) I never had any other bugs occur. I enjoyed the combat, the motorcycle upgrades, the beautiful graphics, the characters, the realism (no wacky/goofy weapons) and the story was a lot better than some people let on. I wanted a AAA game like State of Decay but actually good. This delivered for me in a market full of crap zombie games. Yes the game loop got repetitive (think Assassin's Creed) but the story kept me engaged. And if you look really hard enough, every game out there has a game loop. That's how they are made. If studios had to craft every element of a game to be a unique style of play that didn't repeat you'd be waiting for a decade for a game to come out. Don't believe all the negativity out there. Try things yourself and form your own opinions. Critics are not always the best source of information as everyone has their own opinions about what they like.

Fun game!

Okay, after seeing so many negative reviews, I felt the need to add my input as an avid PS4 gamer. First of all, don’t EVER expect a masterpiece-I lost count of how many highly anticipated games led me to disappointment. This game is very glitchy, and when I type glitchy, I mean GLITCHY-although, to be honest, most of the glitches were in my favor....It’s important to note that the developer has added several game patches which have helped, and will continue to help, immensely with this issue. And I just have to type that even though some of the glitches have been annoying/frustrating, they brought so much more humor than anything else (see attached photo). Secondly, in my own personal opinion, this is one of those games that awakens emotions. I know, I know. A lot of dissatisfied gamers have commented on this game’s lack of story and character development. This simply is not true. I found that this game very neatly weaved a deep story with relatable characters, and those with an open mind enough to see this won’t be disappointed. I do need to mention though that, initially, I worried that this game was just a remix of past games of its genre, but once you progress through the first couple of missions, you will be happy to find that it slowly eases its way into its own style and grandeur (I LOVED taking on the Hordes-no joke). Thirdly, this game is perfect for those seeking to invest in a lot of gaming time, but not too much. Although I do not live and breathe video games (as much as I may like to), this game took me over two months to complete in its entirety-including the “secret endings”. There are plenty of various side missions and side challenges to entertain you, but not so much as to be labelled the epitome of tedium. In fact, by the end of the game, I only craved more Days Gone. Overall, this game has been a joy to play (and listen to-the soundtrack is AMAZING) and if you, like myself, have played and enjoyed The Last of Us and Uncharted, Days Gone will be a most welcome addition.

It's okay. That's the best way to describe it after playing a few hours (Note: I haven't completed it yet!) But I switched to another new videogame, so that's saying something as I tend to finish one before starting another, but I was growing bored. I'll finish it on and off as I play others because it gets boring after playing awhile. The graphics are cool, but it's really a copy of several games and it's just missing something... It's just not that entertaining, and you can't ride your bike long without needing to find gas, and when you do ride, it's rather difficult on the various areas because of the terrain, and the zombies will follow you nonstop – they literally never leave your side till you kill them, and that's gets annoying when your just trying to find gas! I dunno, I usually don't complain about stuff like that, but honestly it just feels like a redundant videogame and it's clear that not much thought went into plot/characterization/entertainment factor/etc. At least I got a good price on it. I wouldn't pay that much for it, and I think you can definitely find more entertaining zombie killing games out there. I like the your ride a hog, but the terrain isn't great for riding and you spend a lot of time either trying to find it, or rolling it around looking for gas. And I wish the plot was more fleshed out – hours of play and I still don't know much about my character, his crew or why there's zombies around to begin with. If it gets better with more play, I'll update. So far...meh. UPDATE: I have to say that it gets better as you playing longer. I think the story line is interesting, though I wish they would expand on it slightly more. It's actually interesting and I find that I want to know more as I go along. I think the biggest issue is repetitive missions – if they spice it up more for the sequel, flesh characterization out more, and fix some of the storyplot holes, it will be an excellent game. It just needs a lil twerking. But NO glitches really makes me happy! After playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, it feels weird playing a videogame without a billion glitches, in a positive way of course! I recommend! You just have to get past the beginning tedium at first, and then it result gets pretty darn good!

Just got a PS5 for Christmas and building up my library. This is a fun one but super intense with the hordes. Game looks great on my new tv. It's an older game, so you can find it for pretty cheap. (one major advantage of being new to an "old" system)

NO SPOILERS: This was a surprise hit for me. It's an open world adventure very much mimicking the FarCry or Assassin's Creed genre. It is post-apocalyptic (my favorite genre) US Pacific Northwest, and I enjoyed it's slightly more plausible plot (are zombies ever plausible) than most zombie games. The world was well thought out and seemed like what might really happen if a virus zombified our world. I particularly enjoyed that you get around on a motorcycle and have to scrounge for fuel. This seemed likely as the motorcycle is versatile, low gas needs, goes off road, easily hidden, etc. The driving mechanics were great, and upgrading your bike (speed, traction, durability, etc.) is fun. You get the typical plot missions and side missions (which build currency, faction trust, and gain items). The game thankfully has minimal junk missions (like Assassins Creed parkour challenges, or FarCry race for time challenges). These always strike me as contrived. Why would I ever stop the mission to chase a piece of paper floating on the wind? So not only did it keep it more real (I know zombies aren't real, but I want the narrative to stay realistic within the defined world), but it also solved my biggest complaint about open world games by having a plot that is a little more intrusive. Not so much that I didn't enjoy exploring or prioritizing missions my way, but enough that I felt the presence of the well-written narrative. And every time things started to get a little old, the story brought a twist with new environments and elements. It kept me engaged all the way to the end.