Real Talk By: KJ

Deadlight is 2D side scrolling adventure part of this year’s Summer of Arcade lineup. Past seasons featured platformers such as LIMBO, Shadow Complex, and Braid. Each had memorable traits, none of which included the undead. This is the survival story of Randall Wayne. A Zombie outbreak has occurred, and he is just trying to figure out whats going on. Randall explores the wasteland of 1980’s Seattle. What happened to his family? How is it all going to end? The game will keep your interest for the duration. You meet a few friends along the way. One of your allies will put your survival skills to the test.

The Zombies in this game are known as “Shadows” and they are vicious indeed. You can’t let them crowd you, or expect immediate death. Wayne has limited resources to dispose of the shadows, so a lot of the game will involve running and jumping. All of the levels are well designed and will set you up for sweet moments. The game relies a lot on how the player controls their stamina meter. This is similar to ‘I Am Alive’, but it never gets out of hand. Wayne’s primary weapon is an Axe, but it requires energy to wield efficiently. Firearms come into play later on, but ammo will always be limited making sure the player makes every shot count. More fun can be found when hitting the ‘Y’ button. Wayne will yell at the zombies to get their attention. Doing this, will allow you to set them up for fun deaths. Lots of times the player will send them off of a cliff Lemmings style.

Thanks to the unreal engine, the visuals are on par with any ordinary 60 dollar title. The presentation may be the very thing that sells the game for most players.  This 2d game has plenty of  legit ‘I almost died but didn’t’ moments. The suspense level is always high. The game’s soundtrack is used sparingly, but when it’s on, it’s on. Zombies will come from the foreground and other places, making the game unpredictable at times. Still, while it has some challenging areas, you will blast through the game.

The motion comic cut scenes keep the story moving. A faction known as ‘The New Law’ has taken the world into their own hands, enslaving people who do not accept their ways. So zombies aren’t the only threat in the game. The story is way deeper than I expected, and certain moments seem to channel Alan Wake. Like many games, elements are borrowed, but they seem to all pull together nicely.

You can beat this game in a  little over two hours. A New game plus, or more levels of difficulty could have catapulted such a game higher. There’s collectables that Randall can attach to his diary. He keeps a log of everything going on, and does narrate his experiences. Players can check it all out, and play again to find each piece. There’s three playable mini-games, but it’s just for novelty purposes. The player may want to run deadlight again to try to scoop up all the extra swag. It has avatar awards too. Just saying.

Deadlight is a thrill ride. While it may not last as long as other downloadable titles, it’s certainly the only game so far worthy of being in this year’s Summer of arcade lineup. The metacritic scoring doesn’t reflect the effort Tequila Works put into this title.  Previous SOA games had the same amount of game length, yet they fared way better. Not many survival games have moments leaving a player in suspense anymore, they all seem to have taken the Resident Evil approach. This is a big achievement for 2D gaming.

Deadlight Gets

Out of five

What’s Legit?

+Awesome Presentation

+Story

+Major Thrilling moments

What’s Perpetrating?

-Over Very fast

-Replay value is almost non-existent

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