Topic: Ice Station Z

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I got this title as soon as it was available and here are my thoughts on it:

Single player is infested by zombies. Perhaps a bit too much.

Online multiplayer has almost no zombies, I have just found a couple after about six hours of gaming.

Houses and other places are scarse in comparison to the map's size. Maybe there doesn't need to be more places, but then there should be more vehicles to travel those distances faster since they are also scarse. Expect a running simulator because of this.

Talking about vehicles, some are big enough to carry more than one person, but only one per vehicle is allowed, which is weird.

Resources can only be found in buildings and while that makes sense, there's no reason not to find a few in the wild (as if someone dropped it) or in the zombies you have killed. Resources are too concentrated in these places and need to have a better distribution, or at least respawn faster.

Most guns and weapons can only be found in a few places and if someone decides to do some pvp in that area and camp the rest of the people are at a huge disadvantage. It happened in some of the games I joined.

The game crashed when I reached an area, and from what I heard in the chat with others, it's a frequent bug. It seriously needs to get fixed quickly.

The mini games to use the matches, sleep or cut the logs are quite nice, however I had some trouble while cutting logs since it was a bit hard for it to detect the cuts. Nothing serious though.
Menus when choosing a game really need a "back" button.

At the state it is now, this game will probably get a 5 or a 6 by the reviewers even at that price, but the truth is that it has a lot of potential and it would improve a lot by just patching some of those things I mentioned. I know games should be judged by what they are and not what they could be, but the game is quite new and the developer seems to attend these kind of stuff with his other games. He made this game by himself in a year, so it's quite impressive to deliver a game like this despite the mistakes. If you have the 3.99 dollars to spend and you can live with those things I criticized, please give this game a try. Developers like this guy need to be encouraged and I'm not expecting you to do it for charity. These are the reasons why the game is worth it:

The voice chat works amazingly well. Other than pokemon I don't know any other game that uses this feature.
The menu disguised as a smartphone has been done before, but it's really well done here. Taking care of the food, water and health while being able to check the map as if it was google maps and use chat as with any other smartphone is quite sweet.

The controls are responsive. The button layout is easy to manage and while the movement and shooting could get a bit polished, they work well. Crawling is a bit too slow for my taste.

Playing with other players when you have an organized group is really fun, and I really mean it. I found a mexican player (like me) and we were exploring together and gathering resources for the first days. Some guy shot me and I survived and killed him with my shotgun and then he apologized and asked for a truce, which I accepted. Then, another player that was talking in english was asking for help (my friend and I were talking in spanish) so I told him that I also speak english. I helped him gathering resources, met a few more players and soon I was commanding a team of 5 players. I was actually moved when after one of the two zombies I saw in the online multiplayer attacked me by surprise and killed me, they were searching for me and joined me at my respawn zone to give me some of the equipment they had. I have never been the leader of a group in a multiplayer game, and normally I wouldn't like it, but this was a really nice gaming experience. Unfortunately, a little time after that we reached the area where the game crashed. While it lasted, it was quite enjoyable to travel with others and even made plans in case someone betrayed us. For example: while the guy that shot me and asked for a truce was part of the group, I had my buddies behind him to shoot him at any moment in case he tried anything funny again. When the zombie killed me he was the one that picked my gun, and my friend asked me : do I kill him so that you can get your shotgun back? I said no, but at that moment I felt quite powerful lol.

The atmosphere of the game is quite good in my opinion. The game felt creepy and desolate and the sound of the wind blowing, specially at night, really helped with the immersion. There's no music and it's better that way .

Graphics may be simple, but they work with this game.

The mini games I mentioned are good and the hunger, thirst and health deterioration of the character are handled really well. The developer just needs to make things spawn faster, since many players will be consuming a lot of items, even more than they need. While the urge for discovering this items is part of the tension a faster respawn would make these already enjoyable features even better in my opinion.

The structures you find ( I don't want to spoil much even if it could be a small detail to most people, but let's just say that not everything is a house or a similar building) are simple, but interesting, specially the ones on the coast.

Conclusion: If you want a game where you can pvp, chat and work with others, this is the best option at such a low price, however, you have to keep in mind the problems I mentioned and prepare to spend long times without finding nothing and it can happen quite frequently, specially at the beginning when you don't know the map. At the moment the game is a 6 most of the times and an 8 when you have a good group to work with, with the posibility of being an 8 or a 9 at all times if they improve those things. I hope my excuse of a review helped you guys. Feel free to ask anything.