Dying Light: The Following Enhanced Edition (Xbox One)

It's hard to review this game and not first compare it to Dead Island as it has so many similarities which you'll notice straight away. It's the same open world environment where you can choose to explore, do side mission or the story in any way you like. The combat is also melee focused and you can craft your own arsenal of insane weapons. The fighting is also the same brutal, gory, hack and slash action. But the main difference is where Dead Island got things wrong, Dying Light gets everything right. DI was very buggy, had you getting stuck in invisible walls and weapons broke down too easily - none of those problems here.But Dying Light easily stands up as it's own game and rightfully so. The story starts in the slums which is an incredibly well designed and intricate area that graphically looks fantastic. Twisty alleyways in built-up areas contrast well with the abandoned car littered highways and remote coastal areas. It all comes together to keep the gaming area incredibly varied.The game play is split into day and night cycles which while being a simple idea is one that works incredibly well. Nighttime is really intense as that's when the more powerful zombies called volatiles are out hunting you down. You need to switch to more stealthy game play, but you are in for some exhilarating chases if you happen to be spotted and need to get back to the nearest safe house.The inclusion of climbing and parkour is a cool addition and really brings the gaming environment to life, particularly at night if you're running for your life from a volatile. Things like climbing to the top of the radio towers really did give me a sense of vertigo.While the story is somewhat clichéd it is creepy and intense at times, yet manages to put in a lot of humour, particularly with some of the crackpots you can do side missions for.The only negative is that, despite the initial steep learning curve for beginners, the game become less challenging once you are familiar with it and often you'll only be killed off cheap deaths (exploding zombies behind doors springs to mind). I had to impose my own set of rules to make it more challenging - no grappling hook, no shops, limit on inventory, etc. The grappling hook in particular, which you get later in the game, feels like something you'd get in cheat mode. I'm not sure what the designers were thinking making that so over-powerful, the game isn't meant to be Spiderman. That said, the good far outweighs the bad, making this one truly impressive game that is essential for any gamer's collection.

Dying Light is overall a fun game to play. There were only really a few issues bug wise which I ever came across, they were only really small things which didn't create any problems to ruin the experience of the game. I recommend that you would buy this game with at least one friend to get the full experience out of it, as whilst the game itself is fun, the actual funny/fun moments within the game itself were created by myself and my friend like with any kind of coop game. The first moment it got to night was honestly a funny and scary moment, the zombies can chase you down and you have to escape - you can fight them but it is really difficult making you feel afraid, however this became so funny as myself and my friend began sabotaging each other by bringing zombies that were chasing us to each other, making it really quite funny. The story itself kind of lacks a little, it becomes quite predictable and dull towards the end which was a bit of a let down as I had eventually lost interest in the story - however the side quests were what made the game fun, there are the usual fetch quests which were reused a bit too much (this was the only type of quest I didn't enjoy), but there were many funny moments from the side quest stories which enhanced the games experience. The Following DLC is a good addition too, the implementation of the cars is really quite fun, it is a great feeling driving along and bashing into zombies whilst you race with friends. The story from this is again not the best however if it is full of side quests to keep you going and many of them are quite refreshing to play through. All in all this game was honestly quite a fun experience from the funny moments it created and also the scary moments it also made.

Dying Light is a fairly conventional zombie survival game, similar to Dead Island, but with elements of climbing and puzzle-solving, like Tomb Raider. The gameplay is much like Dead Island -- you have to fight and/or avoid the zombies, using a variety of weapons that you make from found objects. Like Dead Island there is a total lack of realism -- while I can accept, for the purposes of the game, the idea that the world has been taken over by zombies, I can't accept (for example) that there will still be a cash-based economy in such circumstances. "Willing suspension of disbelief" only goes so far. Healing grievous wounds instantly with a general purpose "medikit" also stretches credulity. And I simply can't believe that you can put surplus objects into a rucksack in one place, and have them magically available somewhere else. A game -- or story, or movie -- has to be faithful at least to its own internal logic, even if it is fantastical.Oddly, the better the imaging and sound get -- and these are _very_ good in DL -- the more the stupidity of the basic plot premise is revealed. This isn't a particular problem with DL -- it's a problem with all modern computer games -- but it's particularly noticeable here because the game takes itself so seriously. At least Dead Island is a bit tongue-in-cheek.The Tomb Raider-style elements are well done, and surprisingly challenging, even in the early stages of the game. Some plot sequences ("quests") are introduced before the player really has the resources to complete them, and it's possible to waste a lot of time trying to accomplish something this is impossible. But I guess playing video games is intrinsically a waste of time, so I guess that's not a valid complaint.At the current price of £17 you get an awful lot of game for your money. The inherent silliness could have been offset by a measure of humour, and then it would have been great value. As it is, I didn't feel any great compulsion to play the game after the first couple of hours, because it demanded it be taken seriously, and it is impossible to do so.