DayZ – Day 1
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
One thing you should know about me is that I hate zombie games. I don’t hate zombies, they are important to some games. I hate games that rely on zombies to be interesting. Take the zombies out of Resident Evil and you’ve still got a decent adventure game. Why must every game tack on these zombie modes? How is fighting a brain-dead zombie fun? They don’t flank, they don’t use grenades, they don’t work together, they just swarm. I don’t like them.
Anyway, my dislike for zombie games is what kept me from playing DayZ for so long. DayZ is a mod for ARMA2 that transforms the ultra-realistic military sim into a zombie survival game. It is a persistent online multiplayer game with up to 64 players on a server. You start with a few random items and you have to find food, drink, shelter and weapons in order to survive. The setting is a 225km area known as Chernarus. Average life expectancy in DayZ is 28 minutes.
Day 1
My first try. I’m going into DayZ with very little knowledge of the game, I haven’t read any forums or guides. We will learn together, we will survive together and we will die together.
I started on a beach.
I checked my gear, I had a Makarov pistol with 3 clips, a can of Pepsi, a water bottle and tin of beans. No map or compass.
I had no idea where I was or which way was north. I walked up the beach towards the grassy hills. I found a road which I followed for about 10 minutes. I still hadn’t seen anyone (or anything). The game feels very eerie, it creates a certain tension through its use of a vast empty world with only a scattering of villages and small towns.
Eventually I came across a small barn in the middle of a field. I slowly entered with my pistol raised. There was a man pointing a rifle at me. A human.
I was so relieved to see another player that I put my gun away and pressed the chat key. “Hey, how are y…” BANG! He shot me in the head.
As the screen faded to black I saw him rummage through my bag for supplies… OK, so not only do I have to worry about zombies but I have to worry about bandits. It made me chuckle to think that I was playing a zombie survival game and for the first 20 minutes I hadn’t seen a single zombie but still managed to get shot in the face by a human.
I will try again tomorrow.
-Alt-
Alt
richardarterton
Tab
Alt and Tab 
As far as Zombies go, Alt. I am a big fan, but I can dig your point about some games just not needing them. For me, the ultimate Zombie would be a mixture of Dead Rising and Day Z.
The thing that draws most folks to Zombies is, I think, the ability to run around braining humanoids while telling themselves that its ok because they’re monsters or already dead. Sickos.
But what draws the rest to it, is the survival aspect to it. The hunting and the gathering as such. The hopeless situation and inevitably grizzly death that can be prolonged as long as you have the shelter and supplies. Or maybe that’s just me.
As far as Zombie survival games come to realism, Project Zomboid wins it for me.
As for Day Z, sounds and looks intense. I look forward to giving it a go.
You’re right. The single element that makes the game so different to any other I’ve ever experienced is the survival aspect. I’m not saying they could take the zombies out and It would still be great, but the zombie apocalypse thing has been done too many times now.
This game uses zombies in a different sort of way. They are not the enemy as such, but more of a obstacle between you and food/shelter. The real enemy is the scale of the game. You can walk for twenty minutes without seeing a single man-made thing.
Beautiful. Definately on my list of games to play