Editorials
‘State Of Decay’ Review: Survival Of The Fittest
The zombie genre is bustling right now. You can’t turn a corner without bumping into a Resident Evil, The Walking Dead, DayZ, Lollipop Chainsaw, ZombiU, The Last of Us, Dead Island, etc. Some might even say there are too many zombie games out there right now, that the market has, or is about to become, oversaturated with the undead.
With that said, even if all of the above is true — and it may very well be — if we keep getting games like State of Decay, I’m completely okay with it.
When developer Undead Labs first began work on that game that would eventually become known as State of Decay, it was known as Class3. They were vocal about their goals to start small, with a simple idea — a single-player zombie arcade game — as a concept, before releasing a more ambitious game called Class4. If that mysterious game is still in the works, I have some ideas for it that we’ll get to in a bit.
First off, let’s talk about this game.
For the unfamiliar, this is a XBLA exclusive action RPG set during a zombie apocalypse. You control a survivor — one of many — who’s been tasked with gathering your fellow survivors so you can all survive together against seemingly endless hordes of the undead.
I’ve sunk roughly twenty hours into it and I still feel like I missed a lot. The amount of content Undead Labs has thrown into this game is extremely impressive. You have the main quest-line that progresses the story, but in order to complete that you’re going to have to spend quite a bit of time with the side quests.
The side quests include helping defend neighboring groups of survivors, or enclaves, lending a hand to individual survivors, scavenging for supplies when your base is low, clearing dangerous infestations, and much more. The optional missions are randomly generated, and they don’t last forever. That means if someone is in trouble and you can’t find the time to assist them, there’s a chance they’ll die.
In State of Decay you have a home base that can be fortified with a shooting platform, dojo, library, shooting platform, garden, workshop, kitchen, etc. Each base can only support a certain number of buildings, so you’ll have to decide which ones you choose to build and upgrade for even better bonuses.
To keep the area surrounding your home base clear it’s necessary to claim outposts. This can be done by clearing out a building and sending in a Runner — more on these guys later — to fortify it with traps so it’s safe from the hordes.
Oh, did I forget to mention the hordes? Essentially, they’re groups of zombies that walk, er, shamble together. If you make any noise near them, they’ll all be alerted at once. Unless you’re in a car, if you alert a horde it’s best to run.
When you first start off, the hordes are very intimidating. My first couple hours with the game involved a lot of me waiting out hordes as they passed the house I was exploring. However, as you continue playing and your characters become more capable, you’ll eventually become more confident.
There aren’t skill trees in State of Decay. Instead, you have basic skills, like combat, fighting, shooting, and leadership. You become more adept with guns, melee weapons, running, and managing fellow survivors the more time you spend doing it. There are also random features that are unique to your character and are determined by their personality. I met a soldier whose friend had been killed by dogs, so one of her traits was a “Fear of Dogs.”
There’s an incredible layer of depth in State of Decay that you don’t see in many retail games, much less arcade titles. I’ve only scratched the surface.
On top of all that, you have the human element to keep in mind. When you’re not busy scavenging for supplies, fortifying your base, completing side quests, making progress on the main quest, or just driving around hunting for hordes to run over with your car — so fun, by the way — there are people you’ll need to manage.
First off, you’ll need to keep everyone happy. You can accomplish this by being good at everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph. If someone starts to get angry or afraid, you can step in and take a walk with them to calm them down. Finding new survivors and making sure everyone gets enough sleep and plenty to eat also helps. Basically, it’s like managing a 10-20 Tamagotchis at the same time.
On one hand, I liked this. It kept me busy at all times, and that’s how a post-apocalyptic scenario would likely play out (only if I were the one in charge we’d all be living in a Best Buy playing video games and eating Cheetos. We’d also all be dead in about a week.) On the other hand, there were many occasions where I’d embark on a mission and by the time I returned three people would be sick or injured, two would be missing and a horde would be at our doorstep.
You won’t be the only one who gets tired of all this. The character you control will become fatigued, lowering their maximum stamina (and health, if they take enough damage). Thankfully, you can switch between the survivors in your community who you’re friendly with so they take over. This is a neat way to break things up if you’re getting sick of playing as the same character for so long. Just switch to someone else and play from their perspective for a bit.
It’s intense having so many virtual lives in your hands, but at times it can border on the frustrating. All I want is that damned illusive achievement for getting fifteen survivors in my community, and it took way longer than I wanted it to because these idiots kept getting lost or killed.
Speaking of stupidity, the AI isn’t particularly smart. Enemies and friendly NPCs would get caught on objects in the environment, or in one case, a survivor I had just saved got stuck on my car’s rear bumper. Nothing else was nearby, she just couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around the whole “go around the car” bit of our hasty escape plan.
Overall, the game looks great. The day/night cycle is a fantastic addition. I would’ve liked a bit of weather, too, but that’s not a big deal. The enemies are moderately unnerving to look at, even if they’re a little too familiar. You have fat zombies, fast zombies, zombies that explode, zombies that scream, alerting nearby zombies, etc. It’s not particularly original.
Adam’s Wish List For State of Decay 2/Class4:
A Mass Effect style conversation system. I hated every word that came out of my survivor’s mouth. Give me the option to choose.
Dawn of the Dead style car customization. I want to be able to reinforce my car with kneecappers, a stronger frame, more lights, a cow/fat zombie/ catcher, etc. I also wouldn’t mind a little weapon customization.
Give me something else to hunt. Zombies get boring, even when they come in a variety of flavors. Outside of birds, there’s zero wildlife in this world. I want zombie bears, cougars, whatever.
Co-op. The entire time I was playing this game all I could think about was how much better it’d be if I had a friend to experience it with.
Deeper combat. The combat in State of Decay is deeper than I thought it would be. You can distract zombies with loud noises, evading attacks is easy, and you can easily push them away. There’s a light attack, strong attack, lunge attack, executions, but even with all that I often found myself knocking a zombie down so I could finish it with an execution. If I had an arsenal of moves to choose from, possibly ones I learn from the dojo, that’d give me a way to mix things up.
State of Decay is a fantastic game. The issues I have with it are minor, because in the end, Undead Labs has made a true survival game with a dash of horror, RPG, and human drama. It’s insanely addictive, sounds great — thanks in large part to an incredible soundtrack by Jesper Kyd — plays exceptionally well, and for $20 (1600 MSP), it comes packed with more than enough content to keep you busy for a very long time.
The Final Word: This is a zombie fan’s dream. State of Decay expertly combines elements from RPGs and survival horror, mixing in human drama and an engrossing story into a neat post-apocalyptic package.
This review is based on a code for the XBLA version of State of Decay, which was provided by the publisher.
Have a question? Feel free to ever-so-gently toss Adam an email, or follow him on Twitter and Bloody Disgusting.
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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