Deadlight Review

I was meaning to tackle Borderlands next, but I finished Deadlight just recently and wanted to take it on while it was fresh in my mind.  Deadlight is an XBLA game featured in this year's Summer of XBOX Live Arcade lineup.  I wanted to review Deadlight due to the popular misconception that it's akin to the Metroidvania style...it's not even close.  For the sake of discussion, I'm going to post MAJOR spoilers after the review just to share them with anyone else who may have played it, because I feel like the main thing this game has going for is it its story.



Deadlight is a zombie apocalypse game set in 1986.  Since calling them zombies is so taboo anymore, they are "shadows" in this game.  Apparently Chernobyl exploded and caused a rabies like outbreak, which is also the new zombie trend.  Nothing ground-breaking here, folks.  The game centers around Randall, a rather hermit-like man who lives in Hope, BC, a town not far from Vancouver.  Basically the outbreak reaches Randall's town, they fail to fight it off, and he and a pack of his townees are trying to make it to Seattle where they hear there's a safe zone.  Randall is also looking for his wife and daughter, who are missing at the time of the game.

The game is a 2D sidescroller.  You get some weapons, but they're under-powered and under-armed purposely to stress the survival aspect of this game.  First and foremost, this game is a platformer.  There are also plenty of small puzzles that involve platforming and using your weapons, like shooting a target to activate a bridge.  Standard stuff.  There are plenty of shadows that attack you during the game; many you're supposed to run away from, jump over, etc, but some you have to kill to move forward.  One shot to the head takes them out, but ammo is so limited you're typically left using your ax, the only melee weapon.  They're a pain to kill, especially in groups, so it's better to just avoid them.  At your disposal is also a whistle technique, which can help you draw some shadows into environmental deaths, or line them up to jump over.

The bigggggggest misconception about this game is that it's like Shadow Complex or Symphony of the Night.  It's not.  It's not even close.  This game is completely linear, combat takes a backseat to platforming, and there is barely any exploration.  There is no leveling up, hell you can barely improve your character, and there is no back-tracking, grinding...anything.  If you've played the XBLA Prince of Persia game, it's closer to that.  Closer even to an old game called Flashback.  This is NOT a knock, it just seems that a lot of people don't really know what they're getting into it.

There are some elements that I look for that are present.  You collect things throughout the game, and you can find small health and stamina upgrades for your character.  That's about it.  Again, not knocking the game, just stating that it doesn't fit my "bill."

This game was, frankly, a disappointment to me.  Not because it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but because it's just not a very good game.  If you played the demo and thought it was great, stop there.  You're playing the best part of the game.  I loved the environment and overall atmosphere.  Once you get past the 1st Act, it's all taken away from you and it becomes absolute nonsense.

SPOILERS - Running around the city, scavenging, and fighting for your life is a blast.  Then you find "The Rat," another survivor that offers you aid...but then utter stupidity kills the ambiance.  For no reason, he takes all of your weapons and makes you run through rat mazes.  It's not that these stages are particularly bad (some are actually particularly bad lol), but they just KILL the mood.  You've been running around a devastated metropolis, fighting for survival, only to end up in a sewer dodging spike traps.  Frankly it's just stupid and doesn't fit.  These stages and the helicopter chases just kill the game for me.  They highlight the shortcomings of the controls and just are not fun at all.  I played through Super Meat Boy only blaming myself and having fun the whole time...this is not like that.  You just know they're being stupid.   END SPOILERS

The game is also really short, making it tough to justify the $15 price tag.  The game clock doesn't include your deaths and restarts in the time, so I'd say it took me around 3 hours to beat.  It's not a hard game at all.  The only times I died were when I had to to "learn" what I needed to do, or when the controls failed me.  This is really only highlighted in a few areas, but when it comes up, you're just want to freak out.

The things I enjoyed most about this game slowly were taken away from me, or just weren't there enough.  I bought the game because the demo was great; it was a survival game with a great atmosphere.  Unfortunately this disappears and is replaced with pointless puzzles that really seem added just to increase the length.  It does nothing for the plot, the character development...anything.  It takes what you've earned and makes you re-earn it.  It's literally a blip.  The demo had great pacing, had your heart racing, and had it really feel like survival was all you were concerned with.  If they kept that up the entire game and kept it the same length, I'd have restarted and played it again, because it was done that well.  I don't understand why they decided to take a 180º half way through the game, but it really killed it for me.

The collecting was fun, but I find the game did a little too much hand holding in all regards.  Basically anything you can collect lights up when you pass it an (X) just shows up on your screen.  Same with kicking open doors or breaking walls...it tells you what to do.  The only way to miss collectibles is to run past them because you don't feel like dealing with the shadows, or by missing one of the few "hidden" areas, which are usually painfully obvious.  You collect pages of Randall's diary, which I'll get into later, IDs of certain people, and just random stuff you find.  Also you can find 3 fully playable games, reminiscent of the old Tiger handhelds.

The combat was pretty annoying, honestly, so I'm glad it wasn't featured.  Your meleeing is a crap shoot, sometimes you kill them in one hit, sometimes it takes 10.  Not exaggerating.  Sometimes you smash them on the ground and their blood explodes across the room...like you murdered them there.  Absolute nonsense.  Also their hit boxes make no sense.  They can be standing right next to you and you just swing through them and get attacked.  The same can be said of the guns, you can shoot someone right in front of you and just whiff.  It's really a problem, but it can be glazed over since it's not a constant issue.

The story was the one thing this game did very well, and I'll explain at the end since major spoilers are included.  If this is all you're reading, just understand that the story gets very interesting at the end and after that, and that the developers either made it VERY deep, or people read too much into things.

Here's my recommendation.  If you liked the demo, stop there.  If you loved the demo, wait until the game goes on sale.  It's rare I regret a purchase, I regret this one.  It's just not worth $15.  Go buy Shadow Complex or something better.

Next up: Borderlands.

MAJOR SPOILERS

As I mentioned, you collect pages of Randall's diary.  It's 60 pages long, and covers roughly a year's time I believe.  At the end of the game, you find out that Randall killed his wife and child at their request to prevent them from becoming shadows, and that Randall somehow suppressed this from his memory.  There are clues, however, that show 1) Randall might have been a mass-murderer and 2) This might have all been make believe.  And it's not some crappy Dallas cop-out...they don't even tell you it happened, it's pure speculation.

The first clue is that the IDs you pick up are all named after famous serial killers.  Gacy, Dahmer and others are included in this.  But the real clues come from his diary entries.  Here are some key quotes I've taken out that support this notion:


-2 - Sometimes having someone close is dangerous
-4 - People betray you easily. I will never betray them.
-10 - I'm having this fear of everything coming back again...Sometimes, I also see what happening if I'm awake.
-12 - I know that all deaths are the same.
-15 - Everything is crossed out, followed by "dreams are my reality."
-17 - Everything is inside me, but there are times that it decides to show up.
-18 - If I don't [go home to my family], it will happen. It will happen whether you like it or not. Like the girls in the forest...they are the ones who go to the forest to look for trouble. I can't stop myself from defending it.
-19 - I may still be able to forget everything and be only aware of the good things inside me.
-20 - There is no doubt that a void surrounds me, but I am also sure that I haven't completely fallen into it.
-42 - I need to take care of the problem. In my own way.

Also, he refers to two young girls as poachers, talks about defending his land, then says he has a dream where he kills kittens and carries them away in a bag.  This bag is shown, and it's way too full to include two kittens.  So it seems the developers left the possibility open that all of this was made up by Randall, and that he was a crazed killer.  Best part of this game by far.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed this, and if you want to add in some discussion on this, go for it!