Skip to main content

PlayStation Gamer: Is this the super-addictive PS4 game we've all been waiting for?

PlayStation Gamer: Is this the super-addictive PS4 game we've all been waiting for?

Last week, Sony Online Entertainment – of Planetside and Everquest fame – launched this haunting teaser site.

It revealed itself to be the official web page of H1Z1, a post-apocalyptic zombie MMO set in a vast, forested wasteland where, according to SOE president John Smedley: "the zombies aren't scary. People are scary."

To be clear: that's also the elevator pitch for DayZ, the Arma II mod-turned multi-million-selling PC standalone that's reached Minecraft levels of YouTube saturation and exists in the peripheral vision of those who don't even follow games. It's that, but on PS4.

DayZ overlord Dean "Rocket" Hall has actually said in the past that parent company Bohemia will eventually release DayZ on PS4, but with the PC Alpha still trundling along and a Beta seemingly not even on the horizon yet, you can bet that SOE will be trying to harness that market before DayZ can get there.

Dayz

Release the horde

I strip-mined H1Z1's reveal video and posted the story expecting a wave of cynicism in response. None arrived. Instead: heart emojis. Pleas for imminent release dates and public betas.

One Facebooker summed it up most succinctly: "DayZ for PS4 – F*CKING OATTTHHHHH".

(I mean, I think that means it's good. Is it like quiche, and fetch? Stop trying to make oath happen.)

Almost nobody gave H1Z1 a ribbing for inhabiting the same ballpark – perhaps even the same base within that ballpark – as Rocket's post-apocalyptic zombie MMO set in a vast, forested wasteland where the zombies aren't scary, the people are scary:

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdCU1jhL9fw

Fun game: watch that video without headphones, then spend the rest of your life reassuring everyone who overheard it that you're not going to one day wear their faces as masks.

Apocalypse again

There are differences between Sony Online Entertainment's zombie MMO and Rocket's.

H1Z1 will let you build forts, and also burn those forts down to flush players out. To maintain a driveable car you'll need to find or make fuel, charge a battery ("maybe you'll have to wait for a lightning storm or something", suggests Smedley) and salvage working spark plugs.

That all sounds really original, until you read Rocket's development roadmap and realise all of this is something he's also planned. It's just a case of who can implement it first - will H1Z1 come out before DayZ leaves alpha?

The SOE president also boasts: "We have an engine that can outperform anything that I've seen from other zombie survival games", promising that it'll blaze a technical trail. If nothing else this should mean you'll be able to climb ladders without fear of dying a slow and painful death.

H1Z1

Now, you could argue that at this point iterating on another game's blueprint is fair game. Look at Just Cause 1&2, Dead Space 1&2, and Fallout 3 & New Vegas for notable examples of "Look! It's that game you like, but again!"

The mental leap into a mindset where it's okay for devs to do this with properties that aren't their own isn't Olympian after you've played Bioshock numbers one and two.

But here's the thing. If you write a novel about an enigmatic party host with a thing for girls named after flowers and set it in the 1920s, you're not contributing to the 1920s-party-hosts-in-love-with-Daisies genre, you've written the Great Gatsby.

If you make a movie or TV show starring Jason Bateman about an over-accommodating family man who deals with being taken advantage of by making acerbic remarks, it's not a genre flick – it's Horrible Bosses. Or Identity Thief, actually. Or Arrested Development. Or Hancock. Or The Change-Up. You know what? This was a bad example.

Dead Space 2

Development arrested

The point is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in games, even compared to the notoriously focus grouped movie industry.

Yes, we want DayZ on PS4 and H1Z1 looks capable of facilitating that. But when we get behind a project like this, we're saying "Let's put innovation, progressive thinking and striking creative vision on ice for a bit, and really hammer this zombie MMO thing out until we've got it working properly".

As much as I want to play a refined version of that experience, that thinking worries me. Because if H1Z1 delivers that, what about the unannounced game five minutes up the road which delivers an even more refined version of it? There are still, in the year 2014, studios trying to perfect the WW2 shooter, and that's a sobering thought for us all.

Writer bio: Phil Iwaniuk is games editor at Official PlayStation Magazine UK. Look out for his debut novel, The Great Gatsby, in stores soon.

Gaming on TechRadar
ggg







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Microsoft profits fall despite consumer, business line sales increases

Microsoft's Q3 2014 revenue remained flat at $20.4 billion (about £12.1b, AU$22b), compared with $20.49 billion (about £12.4b, AU$22.5b), in revenue during the same quarter last year. Operating income during the quarter decreased 9% to $6.9 billion (about £4.1b, AU$7.45b), during Q3, despite a decrease in operating expenses of $500 million (about £297m, AU$540m). Microsoft's net income during Q3 2014 decreased 8% from $6.1 billion (about £3.6b, AU$6.6b) to $5.6 billion (about £3.3b, AU$6.05b), compared with last year. The declines were partly the result of a $1.66 billion lift from deferred revenue in the comparable quarter last year, according to The New York Times . The deferred revenue was related to promotional offers Microsoft extended to customers buying new versions of Windows, Office and other products. Without that money, Microsoft's revenue grew 8% and net income grew 5%. "This quarter's results demonstrate the strength of our business, as well as the op...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blip: These people playing giant Tetris on a skyscraper are really bad at Tetris

We hope that any Tetris Syndrome sufferers kept well away from Philadelphia on the weekend, else they'd have come face to face with a Godzilla-size version of the block-dropping puzzler. The super-sized game was played out on a 29-floor skyscraper in Philadelphia, displayed using hundreds of LED lights as players controlled the fate of each tetrimino with a joystick. The organisers hoped it would make people ponder on the potential of technology. For us, it just confirmed that a lot of people suck at Tetris. More blips! Blip, blip , blip The worst video game of all time is about to rise again Guess what happens when you hit an HTC One M8 with a hammer Miley Cyrus, rest assured: Apple's going to make its Emoji more ethnically diverse YouTube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCwhwZRMm5Q
Post a Comment
Read more

Updated: PS4 vs Xbox One: which is better?

Introduction and design Update: We retooled our PS4 vs Xbox One comparison with a focus on specs, graphics performance, new games and firmware updates. We're almost six months into the next-generation of video games and PS4 and Xbox One sales numbers have surpassed a combined 10 million without a clear winner. Both Sony and Microsoft claim to have the advantage in powering gamers through the next decade. To see if that's true, our Xbox One vs PS4 comparison requires an update. GDC 2014 taught us that Sony is preparing for a virtual reality future with its Project Morpheus headset. It's shaping up to be a real challenger to Oculus Rift with a 2015 release date. Xbox One gamers finally received Titanfall , a next-gen exclusive courtesy of ex-Call of Duty developers. It came out in late March and Xbox Live subscribers haven't stopped playing since. We're not at a point where Xbox One and PS4 price drops mean that the average gamer can afford both, so it's imp...
Post a Comment
Read more