What’s your eighth favourite snack? You know, that one you’d never actively buy unless it was on offer but, when left alone with a packet, you’ll eat until your fingers reach for the next and find only crumbs. Now, imagine your cupboards are filled with it – that’s what playing Zombie Army 4: Dead War feels like. Especially if the snack in question happens to be delicious braaains.
In this analogy, the feeling you get as you chomp down – that beautiful weightless moment before the regret and mild tummy ache and the memory that you have a family history of diabetes – is clicking the left mouse button to fire your weapon and hearing the satisfying squish of another zombie’s cranium exploding. As gaming pleasures go, it’s not quite on a par with the solution to a fiendish puzzle clicking into place somewhere in the bottom of your brain or the explosion of possibility that comes from trying something stupid and getting a response that shows the developers saw you coming. But it is certainly exceedingly moreish.
Over the 15 years and six games that have led to this point, starting with 2005’s Sniper Elite, Rebellion has honed this one moment to its sharpest possible point. The kickback on a submachine gun weapon, each shot punching your reticule higher and closer to that all-important headshot, has all the mass-produced genius of a Jaffa Cake’s sponge base. The way zombies tumble quivering to the ground when you hit them with an electrified bullet, delicious as just-slightly-dark chocolate.
Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av PC Gamer.
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Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av PC Gamer.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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BITING BACK
The tooth is out there in adventure TEETH OF GLASS
SMOKE ALARM
THE INVISIBLE SMOKE FACTORY is back in a Flash
MECH ME OVER
Move over Mario, here's mech-based platforming in ARMORED SHELL NIGHTJAR
"I like Pillars of Eternity better than Baldur's Gate III"
PILLARS OF ETERNITY deserves a bigger space in the CRPG pantheon
"A harrowing dark fantasy about hapless, bright-eyed children"
Spelunking into hell with MADE IN ABYSS: BINARY STAR FALLING INTO DARKNESS
THE IMMORTAL LOCK
A massive, meaty game in a single horrific Quake map.
NEW MANOEUVRES
Building a dedicated sim racing space in an average family house
OVERWATCH 2
Save me space girl.
REET GOOD TIME
THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE HERE is a riotous recreation of Yorkshire
THE PLUCKY SQUIRE
How many games let you make friends with a MtG card?