Fort Zombie Initial Impressions.

[loktar]

I bought the game today from gamersgate for $9.99 and was pretty excited to play. I installed the game and attempted to play it and it would immediately crash, no big deal figured it was a common issue so I checked the forums and saw that I had to get the new XNA framework.

Technical

So I get the game running, and crank everything up, I mean I can handle Crysis maxed out, and any Source engine game, so why would this game tax my system? I was mistaken. Initially the game ran fine outside there was a stutter in the beginning which is forgivable I understand alot of games load resources on the fly. The rest of the portion getting to my base ran fine. I really started to experience problems once I went inside other buildings on my first mission. This made the game pretty much unplayable for me.

Gameplay

First thing I tried to do was rebind my keys... well you can't rebind your keys, so I was stuck using WASD which I know is the norm, but Im an old school arrow/numpad kind of guy.

So I continued on to making my character. The game has many skills to choose from which makes customizing your characters abilities fun, although it would of been cool to customize your actual character. Maybe that will come at a later date its not a show stopper by any means. I finished up my character which was a soldier, with an added first aid bonus. I then set out to find my base. I saw my first group of zombies which ran at me, I hurriedly ran past them and assumed the whole group was chasing me so I decided to wait before looking back. Once i did look back however none were behind me.. was a bit of a bummer. As I continued on my way I noticed the zombies get stuck REALLY easily. They take a straight path towards you, the developers seemed to have really skimped on AI. So when they began to chase me I would just position a light pole, box, ect. in between our paths and not have to worry about that zombie any more.

Finally I made it to my base and cleared out the 2 zombies and found a tactical shotgun. I give the makers credit for actually showing all of your equipment on your character, something a lot of games do not do. I really like the inventory system as well, its pretty close to the system that STALKER and Diablo use, im partial to these systems. I then ended my day and on the next day took on my first mission to find more weapons. I ended up in a firehouse where the zombies would just be stuck at the top of the stairs on a railing. (I could also see zombies trying to get me from outside by clipping the back wall thus verifying to me the zombies just take a straight path towards the character) I couldn't shoot them either even though the railing was only waist high. This also really showed the cameras shortcomings. It was extremely hard for me to aim when next to a wall, my character had the tendency to look the other way. This is where I quit however, the game was stuttering to a point of unplayability. When I hit escape however the game was instantly smooth. So I believe it might have something to do with the AI.

Also there is no multiplayer. This game I think would of gone a lot further with the zombie community if it had even 2 player coop included.

Sound

Zombie sounds are there, weapon sounds are there, but there are some things missing like footsteps, and reloading sounds. Minor issues but its weird watching your guy load a shotgun but yet hearing nothing click.

Graphics

The game looks decent overall. The buildings and streets are nice, and the main character is modeled nicely, you can tell alot of time was spent on the main character. The zombies however didn't look so good. Textures and models were very bland, although there is a great variety in zombie types.

Final Thoughts

Its nice to get another zombie game especially for $10, but it would of been even nicer to get a more optimized complete one. I think the developers rushed this one out the door much too fast in order to capatilize on Halloween. Without multiplayer and the major optimization issues I wont be playing this much right now. Once the first patch or two are released however I will definitly come back and give this another go. If you are looking for a zombie game with a bit more depth than the current ones out there I suggest this title, but I suggest waiting for at least the first patch to be released. If this game ran perfect had some better AI and a better camera I wouldn't of had a problem paying $30-$40 for this game.

Im going to with hold an actual "score" right now and try to play it some more and wait for at least the first patch. I know Im not painting a pretty picture at all for Fort Zombie but I really WANT to like it, and I see it has huge potential for being great. Its just going to take at least a patch or two.

[tommo8993]

and my thoughts from the other topic.



well my first impressions are very bad.
after taking 1 hour to download about 3-4 minutes to install all seemed well
until i deiced to play the game after installing it(obviously didn't expect me to do that) it then decides to crash. after retrying and reinstalling i go to there tech support then after 30 minutes fixing it it then works.
then after the 1 hour panic getting the game to work i then launch the game.
to then discover my PC that can max out the likes of company of heroes, HAWX, empire total war , and can play crysis on high-medium, is then brought to its knees and urinated on by fort zombie i then drop the settings as low as i can, to then play a PowerPoint slide show a game. i got about 1 level done and then gave up for now.
there tech guys are panicking at this and it seems im not the only person with this problem.
im sure there is a reason why games have beta testers.

my advice leave it for a while see what happens.

[gendo666]

So I was all excited about this and low and behold when I bought it from Driect 2 Drive it was missing the (slim) documentation.
and also crashed mightily.
The game installed INVIDIA PhysiX properties which needs to be installed for the game to run..
maybe that's the problem.. despite the 512 specs I am running it on a 1 GB RADEON card.
The controls are not the best and the game went into slow motion as soon as the actual missions started. - then crashed.
I had - if not high then medium hopes for this and although it was 9 bux - well that's still money.
I'll delete the install and wait and see if this is patched any time soon - otherwise - sadness.

[damunzy]

May I humbly suggest the mod Out of Hell for Unreal Tournament 2004?

http://www.moddb.com/mods/out-of-hel...t-of-hell-2009

[hypey]

No you cant. The only thing it has in common is it has zombies.
Its not a zombie defense game.