ComplementGaming

The War Z - Game information
http://www.thewarz.com/

Developers: Hammerpoint Interactive
Publishers: OP Productions
Platform: Windows
System requirements: 2GB RAM, video card supporting Shader Model 3.0

Genre: Open world, survival horror
FPS (First Person Shooter): Yes
Third person: Yes
Mode: Multiplayer
PVP (Player Versus Player): Yes
PVE (Player Versus Environment): Yes
Closed BETA: October 2012
Released: December 2012
Steam: Yes, not available to buy

F2P (Free to play): No
B2P (Buy to play): Yes
P2P (Pay to play): No
Price: $15 minimum, approximately 95 SEK

 

Some friends of mine asked me to get this game and since I've been watching one of them streaming it for hours, I decided to get it. I usually don't get too excited about fps games since my motion sickness but this game don't only offer fps view but also third person! Yay I say!

So I spent around 15 bucks on this game and have been checking it out for a bit, unfortunately in low quality with this video card. Even though I haven't really played any similiar game like The War Z before, I do think that there are a lot of room for improvements.

 

 

You could buy The War Z after its release December 17th on Steam, although they did take it off just two days later due to player complaints. There have also been some struggle between this game and the similiar game DayZ with players claiming that The War Z is just a rip off. Other players thinks that DayZ is just a game on a simulator. I guess it's up to you to decide!

 

The first impression I got was that the game does have a pretty simple layout that's easy to understand. Although, you can pretty fast see that there are room for improvements and  one of the first things I noticed was the lack of adding a friend or any communication "outside" the game.

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So as you can see, the layout is simple with capital letters. There you can find your characters, global inventory, marketplace, community, options such as sound, video and key bindings and also the button where you can log off.

 

The characters in the game are called survivors, which I guess is a fitting title when you're supposed to survive a zombie apocalypse. You can create up to 5 survivors and the only gender you can start with on your character is male. You can choose between 4 different faces, shirts and pants. However you can unlock more outfits and even the female gender by buying them in the Marketplace with coins that you collect in game.

You can delete and use the same name on your new character as the old one if you would like to do that. You get great stats and overview of the selected survivor, telling you how many zombies you've killed, how long you've been surviving and so on. You can also check your characters inventory which also leads you to the global inventory.

 

 

 

In the global inventory, you can put items on your selected character or remove items from it to the global inventory. You can store everything from food to weapons there.

 

In the marketplace, you can buy stuff with either in game coins or with Gold Credits which you can get by buying the packages. You can buy Gold Credits in game by clicking the Marketplace button and choose what kind of payment you would prefer and how many GC you would like to buy.

 

 

Haven't really checked this tab out yet, I would guess that since the games lack of communication outside the game, you won't find anything of interest there. Perhaps a link to the forums.

 

As you can see, you can either just quick join a server or you can browse one yourself. You can choose to play on either the US, European or Russian servers. As I mentioned earlier, the lack of communication and a friend list disables the options where you can "Play with friends". This doesn't mean that you cannot choose the same server by browsing on your own.

There also seem to be an option where you can rent a server but I guess that'll cost some bucks.

 

 

 

Your character needs food, perhaps some water or juice and if you're wounded some medical supplies. In the lower left corner of your screen, you can see an image of a person in red, that's how much health you've got. Around that image you can find two other bars in white; hunger to the left and thirst to the right. If your character is really thirsty or hungry, the small images will turn red. You should always keep everything as filled as possible!

 

If you by any chance gets your ass whooped by zombies or players, you'll lose every single item that was on  your survivor. You'll also get kicked out from the server after 60 seconds and will be starting at the game Menu. Your survivor will then have 58min respawn time which basically means that you can't log on to that character.

Your character does have some kind of sprint bar, when this one is empty your character wont be able to sprint before it's filled. The more it's filled, the longer your can sprint. Otherwise your character will run in normal speed.

Beware! The more noise you make, the easier enemies can find you and hunt you down.

 

 

It's simple, the more sound and noises you make, the easier it'll be to get a bunch of zombies after you. Don't let the zombie free areas fool you tho', remember this is a PVP game where some of the players might not be as nice as you thought.

Keep a good eye on the sound bar at the upper right corner of your screen! The more sound, the more red filled the bar will be.

 

How many items you can hold depends on what size and kind of backpack you have. You can find bigger backpacks and other items at different places. Take a look around and see what you can get! You can stack consumable items.

 

NOTE: You cannot move items from your survivors inventory to your global inventory if you're outside the safe zones.

 

 

You use to start with a flashlight, a can of soda some bandages and a Granola bar. You'll find a lot of items spawning in cities, buildings, vehicles and some might even get dropped by players. Be careful though, there might be some unfriendly players or a bunch of zombies near!

For the screenshots below, I decided to run to a zombie-free place between the south safe zone and a city called Fallsdale

 

 

They don't like you and you shouldn't really start a love affair with them either. You can run away from them or fight them. I do not recommend fighting a bunch of zombies with a flashlight. Zombies will hear and see you if you're close or making a lot of noises.

 

 

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I do think that this game could improve a lot. It would be nice adding and team up with your friends and have some other kind of communication option except for one global and nearby chat. Although I've been reading the patch notes and you should be able to create a clan if you would like to do that. I haven't really checked that out yet.

 

Vehicles - They should really consider vehicles, I spent about 30min running from one town to the closest safe zone for some days ago, I mean c'mon! At least they should put another safe zone at West.

 

Spawn bugs - There are also spawn bugs which can make zombies stacking up at one place together, fooling you that there's just one zombie there.

 

Character respawn time - Even though I do understand the concept with 58min respawn time, I think that perhaps 30min would be enough.

 

Missions/Quests: I haven't found a single one of them yet. I guess they haven't released it.

 

The game is fun to play though and they've done a pretty good job with the menu layout, the map, and respawns of items and to prevent players to camp. They've managed to make the day and night graphics pretty good; during nights it might be hard to see where you're heading and detect players and zombies without nightvision.

 

They've also made the game playable for everyone that has at least 2GB RAM and a video card that supports Shader Model 3.0. This basically means that you don't have to have the most heaviest computer to play this game which is a big plus.

 

As I know, The War Z is still under BETA and as mentioned before there's a lot of room for improvements. Hopefully they'll be adding more features soon!

 

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Please leave a comment and let me know what you think about this review or maybe you've been playing this game and got something you would like to add or discuss! Hopefully you guys enjoyed my review of The War Z.

 

Hugs, Cat

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DISCLAIMER: I do not own the game, all rights reserved to their proper owners. The review were written by me and I took the screenshots in game. This was made out of pure fun.