As you’ve probably noticed, most zombie survival games take a serious approach to making you survive the undead apocalypse.
But by striking a different tone — and a slightly different viewpoint — the third-person single-player / co-op Welcome To ParadiZe (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) manages to put a different spin on the genre. Not a better one; not a worse one; but one that’s certainly different, which, in turn, makes it rather fun.
In Welcome To ParadiZe,
the zombie apocalypse happened so long ago that society has started to rebound. Or at least that’s what you thought when you headed for the sanctuary of ParadiZe. But while that former safe zone may be overrun by the living impaired, some of its helpful residents are still around.
And, more importantly, their helpful tech. Specifically, their Hacking Helmet tech, which allows you to take control of a zombie and use them like a personal assistant / bodyguard / field medic.
It’s a little like you’re Michone when we first met her on The Walking Dead, a little like the playable character in Fallout 4 when they got a dog, and a little like you’re Captain Olimar from Pikmin if those little plant people were more autonomous.
Once under your control,
these so-called Zombots can perform up to four automated tasks (from a list of 10), with you deciding if they’ll do them during combat, when you’re walking around, or all the time (though this counts as two of your four). These include healing you, gathering supplies, and attacking enemies, among other helpful tasks.
Having an undead slave — and let’s be honest, people; you’ve enslaved these poor bastards — isn’t the only thing that differentiates Welcome To ParadiZe from other zombie survival games, especially DayZ and State Of Decay.
Welcome To ParadiZe also employs a different perspective, both physically and tonally.
In the case of the former, it swaps the third-person behind-the-shoulder view for a more aerial one, kind of like an old arcade game or top-down shooter.
As for the latter, Welcome To ParadiZe is decidedly jokier. It’s much closer to, say, the Dead Rising games than Resident Evil. Though it’s not nearly as satirical as the former, even if you do get to dress your Zombot in snazzy outfits. Like a chef. Or the overlord from a fantasy game that’s clearly ripping off The Lord Of The Rings.
If anything,
Welcome To ParadiZe is tonally more like Stubbs The Zombie In Rebel Without A Pulse, a cheeky game in which you, as a zombie, have to eat people. Which, for the record, is something you don’t get to do in ParadiZe. Sadly.
Now, aside from these differences, Welcome To ParadiZe is very much like other survival games set during or in the aftermath of a zombie-based apocalypse. You have to gather lots of resources, which you then use to craft structures, ammo, bandages, and such homemade weapons as an air pump gun.
Welcome To ParadiZe also, like so many games (survival and otherwise) has a leveling up system, one that allows you to add and upgrade your skills, as well as your zombie’s.
You also have specific tasks in Welcome To ParadiZe, ones that will hopefully make your newfound home safer and less infested with the undead. Sure, a lot of your time is spent clearing out the zombies who are illegally squatting in ParadiZe, but you have some construction gigs as well.
For instance, early in Welcome To ParadiZe, you have to pick up a bunch of wood so you can make planks, and gather enough scraps of cloth to make rope. You then use the planks and ropes to build a bridge, opening up a new area of exploration.
All of which works well together…
to make Welcome To ParadiZe an entertaining zombie survival game on par with, well, any of the more serious ones.
That is, of course, if you don’t mind its less than serious approach. If you play these kinds of games in hopes of doing better when the real zombie apocalypse happens, sorry, this is not the game for you.
But as someone who knows he won’t last five minutes when the undead rise up, the sillier approach of Welcome To ParadiZe was not an issue.
Though it does have some issues.
Some rather annoying issues.
For starters, when using melee weapons, your character likes to wind up before smacking someone, which puts you at risk of being snacked on.
The same is true when using a gun; it takes a split-second from when you pull the trigger on the controller until they pull it on their gun.
Now, I do like how, if you use a gun or melee weapon when there’s multiple enemies in front of you, all will get hit, and possibly killed. It’s always seemed weird when, in a game, you can be surrounded by enemies, but only hit one if you swing widely or are using a gun with a bit of wide shot.
Still,
the combat delay in Welcome To ParadiZe is a little irritating, especially since the game doesn’t have any difficulty options. Which is annoying for people who want more of a challenge, as well as us Lisa Simpson types who want a challenge we can do.
Welcome To ParadiZe also doesn’t let you pause the game, regardless of whether you want to craft some ammo or, well, visit the little zombies’ room.
It also does something unnecessarily mean when you die: it takes some of your experience points away. I didn’t like it when Borderlands took some of your cash when you died, and I don’t like how this takes away my experience.
Adding insult to injury,
literally, if you go back to where you died — which you probably will since you were presumedly going somewhere specific to complete an errand — you’ll run into your undead self…who then attacks you for getting them killed. Which not only breaks the fiction (unless I missed the part about there being endless cloning), but there’s also no reward for killing your undead self. Who, by the way, is as tough as you are, post-resurrection, so you can see how this might create an endless circle of violence.
Welcome To ParadiZe also has an issue so common that I usually just cut and paste a version of this paragraph into every relevant review: the text is too small. Except in this game, it’s like really, really small. Like, not just “too small to read if you sit at a reasonable distance from your TV” small. Even when I stood up, and got close to my TV, I had trouble reding some of the text.
The funny thing is,
as annoyed as I often got with Welcome To ParadiZe, I still had a lot of fun with this game. More fun, in fact, than I did when I’ve played more serious zombie survival games. Which may prove to be a mistake in the future, but until the dead rise to snack on my tender flesh, I’ll stick to this silly simulation.
SCORE: 8.0/10
