![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lonemagpieThis is a novelisation of the sandbox survival horror zombie videogame. It’s a fun and fast-paced tie-in that speeds through a few highlight set-pieces from the game, thugh in a very curtailed fashion – and with a few differences. The aren’t the various different types of zombies that there are in the game, and none of the human soldiers either, but the characters have no problem with ammo, which is most unlike the game, which becomes rather frustrating when the player keeps respawning sans ammo amid a horde of zombies…
There’s a attempt to bring some life to the four main characters, and to include Jin – the girl who acts as a storage device during the game. Of the characters, only Sam B the rapper comes off that well, with Logan starting as a douche and staying that way no matter how often the reader told that he hasn’t. The rest are mere ciphers, which is pretty much what you’d expect from a game novelisation created from basic concepts where the player would be the person adding character to their choice of zombie-slaying avatar.
It’s nice to see how all the characters work together as a group in the book, since in the game you can only control one, which kmeans either play co-op or do everything yourself. Another difference from the actual game is the presence of child zombies – in the game, as in most sandbox games, there are no children to massacre, not even zombie ones. It’s the same in GTA, whose world is full of playparks and swing sets with no kids...
Despite the far easier – and more believably survivable – time the book characters have than the game’s player character, it did actually make me want to go back and get into the game again which I did do – finding myself having left off in the third act’s jungle section that doesn’t exist in the book – and that must be the purpose of a videogame novelisation. Though obviously I was biased by already having enjoyed the game. Anyway, a fun and timely pandemic-themed bit of entertainment.
There’s a attempt to bring some life to the four main characters, and to include Jin – the girl who acts as a storage device during the game. Of the characters, only Sam B the rapper comes off that well, with Logan starting as a douche and staying that way no matter how often the reader told that he hasn’t. The rest are mere ciphers, which is pretty much what you’d expect from a game novelisation created from basic concepts where the player would be the person adding character to their choice of zombie-slaying avatar.
It’s nice to see how all the characters work together as a group in the book, since in the game you can only control one, which kmeans either play co-op or do everything yourself. Another difference from the actual game is the presence of child zombies – in the game, as in most sandbox games, there are no children to massacre, not even zombie ones. It’s the same in GTA, whose world is full of playparks and swing sets with no kids...
Despite the far easier – and more believably survivable – time the book characters have than the game’s player character, it did actually make me want to go back and get into the game again which I did do – finding myself having left off in the third act’s jungle section that doesn’t exist in the book – and that must be the purpose of a videogame novelisation. Though obviously I was biased by already having enjoyed the game. Anyway, a fun and timely pandemic-themed bit of entertainment.