THE WALKING DEAD: SAINTS AND SINNERS
Be brave, stay the corpse
Our maximum health and stamina have been reduced due to overexertion, and a Walker has spotted us. It shuffles forwards a little quicker than the others; but this gives us the perfect opportunity to try out our freshly-crafted spiky baseball bat. Grabbing the bat with both hands, we swing, and it embeds itself into the Walker’s head with one satisfying hit. Wrenching it free, we prepare ourselves for the next zombie.
The Walking Dead in PS VR might sound more like a punishment than a game, but it’s actually a fan’s dream. It’s great for non-fans too, but it’s important to realise what this isn’t. It’s not a horror game with constant cheap jump scares, nor is it an action game. It’s basically a zombie apocalypse survival simulator, where cramming your backpack with random rubbish you find is essential in order to craft items and upgrades at your base.
The PS Move motion tracking is (mostly) excellent, which is just as well given all the item manipulation you do. It’s like using your hands in real life! But with more killing. 1
It’s pretty unforgiving, in that restoring health can only ever be done via scarce consumables, and firearms and their ammo are also incredibly rare. Nonetheless, each mission is a tense delight. You’ll mostly walk to conserve stamina and avoid drawing attention, yet rasslin’ zombies is unavoidable, and you’ll want to be done before the town bells ring. 2 Throw in humans both friendly and unfriendly – who will sometimes even fight among themselves – and you have a wonderfully oppressive, unpredictable world.
And, yes, you get to slather yourself in guts. Yay! Luke Kemp