State of Decay
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General Information
Release Date: June 5, 2013
Developers: Undead Labs
Publishers: Microsoft Studios
Platforms: Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
Genre: Open world Horror

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Synopsis
State of Decay is a third person open world stealth zombie-survival horror video game, developed by Undead Labs and published by Microsoft Studios. It was first released for the Xbox 360 on June 5, 2013. A Windows version was released on September 20, 2013 via Steam's Early Access, with an official release following on November 5, 2013.

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Gameplay
The gameplay in State of Decay is very similar to the Dead Rising 3 gameplay and Grand Theft Auto V gameplay (free roam), a zombie killing, Gorey kinda game. State of Decay focuses on stealth, survival, evasion, distractions, base building, survivor community, securing resources, and moving through the world in combat with zombies attacking you. The player is in an open world place where there is an apocalypse of zombies happening. The player can travel all over the place and find survivors to help get them to safety and get them to your base. Your base is where your little hideout is, you have a wide variety of where you want to put your base and what you want on it. Theres one twist to this though, its not like "Oh i got a survivor here now he will stay alive forever", you the player actually has to go around and find abandoned stores and collect medicines, food, and ammo to survive. It makes the game more challenging and much more fun. The game offers a wide variety of weapons to use, 99 weapons overall and 40 melee weapons. Each weapon can be randomly found in the open world. If you increase your weapon skill you can earn better weapons and reduce the amounts of time being jammed. Skill can also reduce the recoil on weapons. What I really seemed to like in this kind of zombie game was the cool ways that zombies were killed and how there body looked after you killed them. It also is a reminding game of the walking dead.

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Plot
The player starts out as the character Marcus Campbell, a store clerk who is an athlete, loves to hike, and is a born leader. With is friend Ed Jones, he reaches a ranger station and encounters a little group of survivors. While searching the area for supplies and survivors, Marcus and Ed meet up with a girl named Maya Torres and save her. They then bring her to the ranger station, but as they reach there they notice one of the survivors has turned and and killed the other survivors. Ed searches Thomas Ritter's body and is attacked and bitten in the progress, he does however find a walkie-talkie which the trio use to talk to Thomas' daughter Lily. Lily directs them to a church and leads them to safety. Ed rests up and asks the player to go out and find medicine for the bite he got. Once you get the medicine, Lily uses it a lot to get him all healed up. The game progresses and gets really crazy and fun. The best part of the campaign was just trying to find the survivors and trying to get them to saftey.

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Graphics
The graphics in State of Decay are very similar to 'Dead Rising 3's' graphics. The environments are very real looking, making you feel like you are actually in the world roaming around; The trees are high up to detail, each tree has its own look to it and is not repeated a bunch of times, the leaves are one thing that look very odd and cool to me. The leaves are similar depending on what tree it is, but if you look into a leave you can see the texture of it and everything on it. The buildings that are brick, wooden etc. are detailed; having each brick the same exact size and different colors making it look like a real building, and the wooden houses have a plank every where. Zombies faces are much like every other game, bloody around the mouth, holes or patches of skin gone and looking very gross. Some weapons are too large looking making it seem impossible to carry but it is really simple.

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Controls
The controls are similar in ways to other games but also are very different in other games too. Moving with left joystick of course and shooting with RT. But that's not only it each button has its own unique controls which can get annoying at some points if you accidentally do the wrong thing. B, X, and Y having multiple controls, I believe three each. B and X make complete sense but Y is terrible. Y is just all over the place, Y + LT makes you reload which is in a weird position, Y to interact with things, and search around. They had lots of space to put more controls around which would've been better to do and make it way easier for the player. Overall the controls are great, except the Y button, they could use some fixes here and there to do.

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Extra
There is a dynamic progression where the game continues on even when the game is not being played. When the game is not being played the NPCs will gather supplies, kill zombies etc. Some characters will take guns and level up abilities and kill. One good thing about this is that the NPCs can only be injured and not killed, which means you will need a lot of medicine sometimes.

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Rating
Synopsis 8/10
Gameplay 9/10
Plot 9/10
Graphics 10/10
Controls 8/10
Overall 9/10