Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddlers Green

[thegayhare]

Now if you have seen the Romaro movie Land of the Dead you know the basic plot of the game.  However The Road to Fiddlers Green is a prequal to the movie.

The game starts out With Jake, the main char of the game standing in a fiddlers green penthouse and the whole game is played out as a flashback on how he got there. 

It starts out with Jake on his farm when the power goes out, Thatsnot to unusual for this area but he can't reach the power company over the phone.  It's then that he notices a stranger in his yard.  The man seems odd,  He's just standing there staring off into space.  the game starts as you walk out to see what the man wants. 

After the first zombie attacks you the game starts prompting you.  You are given goals to fallow leading you on threw the game.  for example after your attacked, since it's hard to punch a zombie to death the game sends you up to your attic to get your gun.  Then you remember a revolver in your shed...

the game plays out like that but the goals make sense and they do move the plot along.

the in game scenes are played as a first person shooter,  but the cutscenes are third person and narrated completely by Jake.

early on you make your way to a neighbors farm and there you learn about the Zombie plague.  soon after running low on food you head into the city looking for help, and supplies.

threw out the game you run across radios, these help advance the story and eventually you learn of safe houses and  a city of the living.

For the enemies the game stays very true to the movies,  there are no bosses, no king zombies or giant monsters.  There are just zombies.  There are 5 types of zombies.  Walkers are your basic shambling corpses,  they are for the most part slow but can sprint incredibly fast for short distances, the bite and punch to cause damage.  Skuttlers are zombies that go on all fours, they are faster then walkers and can sprint even faster, when attacking they will claw at you in fast swipes as well as bites.  Putrids are simply walkers but they exude a greenish gas,  they will vomit up a stream of poisunus bodily fluids as an attack and sometimes even explode in a toxic cloud.  Screamers arn't a threatin an of themselves, they won't even fight back if you get to close. Instead once they see you they start screaming at the top of their lungs,  this causes other zombie types to spawn in the area aslong as the screamer is alive. The final type of enemy are what I call Swingers,  these zombies have learned to use weapons, the same sort of melee weapons you yourself carry, they are tougher then your average walker but not terribly so.

The intersting thing about the enemies is that the models are shared between all enemy types (with some exceptions fat body types like the farm women, don't show up as skuttlers, and military types don't turn up as putrids). You will run into teenagers, old folks, doctors and nurses to cops and soldiers.  Basically you'll see a large variety of zombies.  The models also have limbs destroyed.  you can blast the arms off a zombie, removing some of its attacks, you can even destroy the jaw making biting impassible. take off it's legs forcing it to crawl.  and of course destroying the head is an instant kill.

Your weapons are fairly realistic and they tend to keep the fighting realistic as well (no duel wielding pistols here) you are allowed to carry one Melee weapon but you can swap them out when ever you come across anouther one.  The melee weapons range from claw hammers, shovels, baseball bats, and lead pipes.  You've got two attacks a fast swing and a slow power shot, the powerful blow also knocks a zombie off there feet.  myself I prefure the Fire axe since it's the only edged weapon, also if you aim right you can lop off limbs or even destroy the head.

The firearms in the game are for the most part fairly realistic.  The only problem I have is the magizine size and thats for one weapon,  your first weapon is a lever action 22 rifle a very weak gun,  it takes 4 headshots generally to kill a zombie (fairly realistic I think) but the rifle only holds 4 shots,  most 22's hold alot more bullets. from there you get a revolver, glock, sniper rifle, shotgun, and m16.  You also get two explosive weapons moltov cocktails, and grenades.  The realism of the explosives is pretty good to (cept for the blast radius of the moltovs)  moltovs won't go off if you  toss it in water and they are very dangerous to yourself in close quarters.

For the most part I was able make it threw the game using the melee weapons (love that fire axe) to kill walkers and occasionally switching to firearms to take care of the other types. 

overal it's a fun game and worth a shot.

[pyrohamster]

sounds interesting...

[thegayhare]

a couple things I learned

Some weapons won't damage limbs.  Weapons like the 22, or glock won't destroy a limb so it takes the same amout of shots to kill a zombie with them if you hit there foot or plug there heads.

I've also found out there is a secret super melee weapon.

if you can find a kungfu book (it won't highlight like other items) you can use the fists of fury super technique.  Regular attakc is five rapid fire punches, if you land each one it'll kill a zombie.  power attack is four power punches each one will knock a zombie down and it only takes 2 to kill a zombie

[pyrohamster]

Molotovs wouldn't work on a zombie because it cant feel pain therefor burning it wouldn't do anything in the short-term battles. my way:zombie comes, you set it on fire, 10 minutes later it is too burned to walk.
games and movies ways: zombie comes, you set it on fire, it dies instantly

[Toric]

I've heard of this game. It contains a shotgun that shoots everywhere but where your cursor is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7bP-vuFSNo I wonder if it played better for you than for this guy.

[thegayhare]

First off the guy is wrong about Otis and the Escort missions.  There are only two levels with Otis escorts.

second Otis does fight and will kill zombies.  hell in the video you can even see him shooting.  his AI is alittle wonky and some times he won't shoot zombies but for the mst part he does a reasonable job protecting himself.

the shotgun is broken however the pellets dispers way to much and will actualy just disapear after about 11 feet.

it's a close range weapon, aim center mass at close range and it works fine.  in the video he was aiming too high, and was too far away

Pyrohamster
In the game Moltovs work prety much as you say they should.  If you set a zombie on fire it can take along time for them to burn to death, and during that time they can still attack and even set you on fire.  But the explosion from a moltv is two powerful when one goes off it can toss a zombie across the room.  Unlike the grenade one moltove won't kill off a zombie it takes two blasts.

[pyrohamster]

are we thinking of the Molotov I'm thinking of (in the bottle with the rag)
or some other type of Molotov

[thegayhare]

are we thinking of the Molotov I'm thinking of (in the bottle with the rag)
or some other type of Molotov

yep thats what I'm talking about.  And why I say the esplosion is too powerful
real moltoves wouldn't explode like that