The digital delights of Sony’s scrumptious PlayStation Network service know no bounds. Aside from letting punters compete in online gaming, stream films, browse the Internet and more, its premier attraction rests in the copious supply of downloadable games ripe for the picking. From PSN exclusives to PSOne Classics, minis and plain old add-on content, Sony’s online space is chock full of goodies battling it out for your hard-earned digital dollars.
Welcome back to another installment of Inside PlayStation Network, where every Monday – Friday we’ll pluck a PSN release—be it new or old—and put it in the spotlight for a thorough dissection. Fancy getting a new PSN game but don’t know what one to plump for? Perhaps this feature will help. Didn’t realize that a game was available in your region until now? We’ve got you covered. Or, perhaps you were musing over what those lucky Japanese folk were tucking into over in the Land of the Rising Sun? You can be sure our coverage will extend to those rare regional exclusives as much as those firmly embedded on the public consciousness.
Today’s entry sees us cocking our Shotguns and gearing up for a Zombie apocalypse in the blood-curdling undead fest, Dead Nation.
——————-
Developer: Housemarque
Region(s) available: North America, Europe
Players: 1-2
Zombies seem to be rearing their decomposing, maggot-infested mugs everywhere these days. Still, from a development point of view, there’s a substantial market for the rotting fiends. Indeed, perhaps the most lucrative, albeit incongruous example of this comes in the form of the undead’s shambling venture into the Call of Duty universe, which started with World at War’s Nazi Zombies mode before being further solidified in Black Ops. The zombie offshoot proved so popular that it even spawned its own mobile outing. Meanwhile, the mindless meat bags prove equally popular in the online space, with Nazi Zombies attracting a steady shamble of punters like flies to a freshly unearthed cadaver. Dead Nation’s just one of the many Zombie outings to arrive on the scene, following in the footsteps of its contemporaries such as Zombie Apocalypse and Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia.
Coded by the talented chaps at Housemarque, Dead Nation does exactly what it says on the tin: you’re thrown headfirst into the middle of a Zombie pandemic, with your only objective being to survive. Oh, and vanquish copious amounts of decomposing hordes along the way. The game exhumes a casket full of diverse undead to dispose of, each one sporting their own unique capabilities and resistance to damage. From zombified cops, clowns and American Football players to skinny and bloated civvies, you’ll encounter a meaty collection of corpses from all walks of life. And if that wasn’t enough, Dead Nation also throws in a couple of decidedly less-human entities to eradicate to keep things fresh. Blasting the zombie invaders isn’t just good for spraying buckets of claret about the place, though; it also forms a vital part of the game’s score system, allowing you to rack up ridiculously high combos and then show off the fruits of your labour on the online leaderboards.
Concurrently, killing enemies also reward you with a ton of cash, which can then be spent to upgrade your arsenal – which, as expected, consists of a heap of varied guns and other tools of destruction. Among the lead-pumping pleasures up for grabs include flamethrowers, sub-machine guns, as well as the don’t-leave-home-without-it-in-the-event-of-a-zombie-outbreak staple, the Shotgun. As for the upgrading itself, this allows you to augment your chosen weapon(s) with various abilities such as increased fire power, clip size and rate-of-fire among others. Enemies are no pushover, so you’ll need to make sure you’re packing some serious heat in order to survive the inexorable shambling Hordes of Hades. Ammo’s also surprisingly scarce at times, injecting a spot of good ‘ol fashioned conservation not unlike early survival horror titles into the proceedings.
Meanwhile, the environment plays its part in quelling the zombified populous; foes are easily distracted by the wail of a car alarm or a sparkling flare, while objects such as fuel tankers and be shot at and destroyed, barbequing any undead nearby. As you’d expect however, Dead Nation’s main strength comes in its cooperative play. Here, two gamers can team up either locally or online to collaboratively dispatch the zombie masses, substantially increasing the game’s strategic element. Of course, being a zombie game, Dead Nation’s an intrinsically gory affair, with buckets of blood and flaps of flesh decorating the pavement as you tear through wave after wave of rotting enemies. There’s some pretty visceral scenes too, such as when you blow a zombie clean in two resulting in its upper torso crawling after you in search of the one thing our decaying friends love most: Braaaainnnsss! Click here to check out our blood-curdling review for more info.
That’s it for another week – tune in again Monday morning for another poke about Inside PlayStation Network.