First Look At Walking Dead First Person Shooter Survival Instinct
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At some point many of us have fantasized or daydreamed about what it would be like to survive a zombie apocalypse, sneaking around, gathering up supplies, machete-ing some undead bastards in the noggin. A new game, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct aims to give you a little slice of this life, with the added bonus that you don’t have to worry about being bitten, dying, and reanimating as a brain-hungry cannibal.
Check out the first look at the game on IGN.
You may be asking yourself, isn’t there already a Walking Dead videogame? The answer to that is a resounding yes. And apparently it’s a very good videogame. There are two main differences between the first game, from Telltale, and Survival Instinct, from Terminal Reality and Activision. The former is based on Robert Kirkman’s comic, while the latter is based AMC’s hit adaptation of those comics. So they’re kind of like stepbrothers or cousins.
Survival Instinct is also a first-person shooter. Sort of. Since shooting is generally discouraged in the Walking Dead universe because it attracts unwanted zombie attention, there’s lots of creeping and stabbing and hacking and crossbowing. And if you run around enough, sweat starts dripping down the screen. That’s kind of gross, but kind of awesome. All in all, this is a more subdued, realistic style of FPS than a game like Call of Duty.
The action in Survival Instinct takes place before the events of the show, near the beginning of the outbreak. And here’s the best part: you get to play as Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus). He’s the best part of the show, and sure you’ll have to hang out with Merle (Michael Rooker) and listen to him be a racist asshole, but it’ll be worth it to get to be Daryl. Hell, maybe you could even stick Merle with an arrow; see if that shuts his yapper.
The game designers openly admit to being influenced by Oregon Trail, which, I have to admit, is more of a selling point than it ought to be. You can collect fellow survivors, though only as many as will fit in your car, leading to tough choices about who to keep and who to kick to the curb. Your entire group shares all resources, and you can even send them out on missions to gather supplies, though there is no guarantee that they’ll come back, or at least come back not wanting to devour your brain. But your survival is linked to theirs.
Choice is at the forefront of The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. The gameplay and story seem like they will be pretty linear and straightforward, rather than a sprawling world that you can endlessly explore. Once you choose a path, you’re on that path; once you choose a mission, you can’t go back and take the other one. This feels like it will give the game potential for a number of replays.
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct should come out in 2013. Here are some screenshots.
