THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

A parasitic-virus is raging across America - millions are being infected by nightmarish virus-carrying worms, mutating into twisted and horrible monsters that crave living human flesh. A helicopter containing a squad of Special Forces marines is flying over the American town of Harbor City when it is suddenly shot-down by unknown forces. Four of the troops make it out, parachuting into the tainted streets below. The mission they had is over. Now, the mission is simple... stay alive. Luckily, you, taking command of the four lightly customised squad members, have the firepower and skills to do just that. There are also survivors in this hostile land and, thanks to your uniforms, they are looking to your "down on its luck" team to help. Button up soldier - this is no cake walk.

MY VERDICT:

Breach & Clear: Deadline is a difficult game to sum up; featuring real-time exploration of a world in the midst of a Zombie outbreak, Role-Playing Game elements with experience and skill trees, and time-stopping, turn-based mechanics. By far the highlight though, is the tactical combat called operations. As soon as troops enter an operation zone - and they are hand-crafted, not random (actually a very good design decision as you start playing the game more) - time pauses, allowing you to set individual orders to each soldier. It's quite nice and lightweight with simple class abilities and differing weapon fire-rates - obvious squad command rules prevailing such as 'move and fire' and getting troops into cover when facing ranged attacks. It's stupidly easy to get overrun, to get swamped by the infectious hordes as they devour the city, but this just makes every battle more engaging and frantic. Each troop class - Medic, Leader, Sniper, Heavy Weapons and Scout - have their own abilities and preferred weapons which, if used correctly can turn the tide of battle, and, because of the number of classes on offer, you can't have a squad of all types with all skills - a large part of the game is replaying to get that ultimate team of bad-asses that you, as an individual, feel works best. This 'restart often' mentality is something the game drills into you early on. Breach & Clear: Deadline is a very old-school game; it gives you minimal help and revels in letting the player learn it's functions on their own. As a side effect of this, the game is also more than happy to let you make mistakes - to make poor tactical decisions and, pretty much, ruin everything. So, while the difficulty curve is brutal, and there are a few flawed features, I would definitely recommend giving Breach & Clear: Deadline a go - just don't expect everything to go swimmingly on your first playthrough.

This review is already longer than my usual fare but, before my wordplay comes to an end, there is one more point I would like to bring up - something to draw your attention to that is not directly related to the quality of the game. Despite this game having left Steam's Early Access a few weeks ago and effectively becoming a "final" product, the joint-developers, Mighty Rabbit Studios and Gun Media, have continued patching the game on a commendably regular basis; updating it, improving unpolished features and fixing whatever problems players report.