I want to love this game. I really do. I’m a huge fan of the Walking Dead comic and show, as well as the zombie genre as a whole. But this game…oh this game. A mixture of the now cliche Clash of Clans style freemium gameplay mixed with the tactical strategy games of old, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land feels like an ongoing experiment in bad game design, put forth for all to cringe at as the developers slowly massage it into something presentable. Yet beneath the layers of grinding and clicking is the framework for something special. Something that desperately wants to come to life. There is so much room for growth, however, in its current form, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land is a menagerie of lackluster, unbalanced, and lame design decisions, sprinkled with obnoxious pop-ups and ads. The pie chart below shows how I find my time is typically spent in this game, with an explanation of each slice. At a high-level, you will notice a trend where I argue that the most interesting features are where you spend the least amount of time, and vice-versa, which is primarily a failure due to the lack of content and feature diversity. Upgrading - Behind the safety of the town wall, players can build crops, storage areas, and stations for upgrading players and gear. While on the outside of the wall, with a recently added feature, players can now add and upgrade a walker pit. Supplies are spent to upgrade buildings, gear, and characters. Supplies which are obtained overtime and by scavaging. After the first couple of days of play I found that building and upgrading is an activity that is extremely infrequent, even after spending hours grinding to gather additional supplies. Story Mode - The story mode is, by far, the most interesting aspect in the game, and unfortunately it’s what players will find they will spend only a tiny fraction of time participating in. What gets so utterly frustrating about the story mode is how infrequent it can be played, because the difficulty curve is an insanely steep arch. Rather than including more levels that can be played more frequently, the developers opted for a drought of content that is stretched so thin that it cannot even be enjoyed. Raiding Outposts - Every time there is an update I get excited again, hoping for some fun, new features. And occasionally there are new features that, unfortunately, always feel flat, like a quarter of an idea, birthed from the womb far too early. Outpost raiding is one of those recent additions, where players build their own defensive outpost and raid the outposts of others in search for yet another type of resource. Raiding feels far too formulaic, not only in the limited environments, but in terms of strategy as well: kill the walkers, which charges your special skills, then unleash a flurry of your skills on the human enemies. Grinding
In short: great framework, terrible design, obnoxious ads, and an extreme lack of unique content. Next, I want to offer up some suggestions, that I feel could greatly improve this game:
I’m at that point again where I’m ready to, once again, uninstall. I’ll check back in again, one more time, and hope the positive elements of this game have been amplified, and the negatives have been sorted out.
3 Comments
Sol cutta
8/27/2017 08:15:30 pm
I totally agree with this post but Iam pretty sure ng won't take any notice. I've seen a couple of the easy to implement aspects u spoke of included in last update but I'm guild leader of 6months and hardly any of my 17member in main guild or 14in filler guild play challenges regular and when they do they stop around 50,60stars.im level 31and now I got very little to do. All series specific levels I've done completely over normal, hard, nightmare.. And at chapter 11in main game.. Upgrades now take masses supply's or xp and days of work to earn just to upgrade one building. It's kind of like a building a week for me. Weapons upgrades have become pointless as cost too much to upgrade weapons tent and weapons I have aren't upgradeable being with tent a couple under.. As u say it seems like becoming boring now.. I hear lot players say they only stay for guild friendship.. That's a game failing surely. But ng games only seem concerned With new players and what money they can get out of them. I don't spend real cash at all cos game too archaic to justify. As say it's hit old fashioned feeling especially with beta game last day on earth being real time combat and upgrade etc. And better graphics.. Shame cos this could have potential as u say but they unlikely to rewrite it for top lever player complaints who already spent all money they going to.. And they put on the news ages ago new game play style coming that will include your whole team, but still to see it.. Same old level rehashs.. Yawn.
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AuthorBrian Riggsbee lives in San Francisco CA. He enjoys gaming, writing, creating art, practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, chasing adorable dogs, and spending time with his wife and boy. Categories
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