➤ Zombie apocalypse 🎮

The zombie theme seems to know no decline in popularity, and so here is that the excellent twin analog shooter of Housemarque makes its return, more than three years after its release on PlayStation 3, with a "remastered" edition for the new Sony console.

Made by the expert hands of Climax Studios, team already author of two excellent episodes of Silent Hill (Origins and Shattered Memories), as well as the PC version of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition can be downloaded for free by PlayStation Plus subscribers and represents an excellent opportunity to relive the atmosphere of one of the titles that most characterized 2010 on PlayStation Network, trying his hand again with its mechanics - far from trivial - or taking it in hand for the first time. The plot of the game closely resembles that of the movie "I am legend", with the traditional "patient zero" immune to the virus, who finds himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that has wiped out society as we know it but does not give up. . We can choose to face the adventure as Jack McReady or Scarlet Blake, but the gender of our avatar does not change the connotation of the ten levels that make up the single player campaign, which at the normal difficulty level can be completed within four. hours and a half but it can give moments of great intensity, especially in the final parts. However, it is a pity that the developers did not take the opportunity to insert extra missions and thus increase the duration of the story.

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition marks the debut of the series on PlayStation 4 in the best possible way

Let's refresh our memory

"Aim and shoot", we could summarize the gameplay of Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition, but in reality the experience offered by the Housemarque shooter is not reduced to this. In fact, we have a particular focus on scoring and an excellent weapon management and enhancement system, improved on PlayStation 4 thanks to the introduction of a quick selection that allows you to switch in an instant from the default assault rifle (the only one equipped with infinite ammunition) to the SMG machine gun, from the devastating shotgun to the blade cannon, capable of decapitating dozens of zombies with a single shot.

It's not over, in the arsenal there are also a lethal flamethrower, ideal for roasting numerous hordes of undead, perhaps after luring them to a point on the map thanks to a signal rocket, an electric rifle capable of blowing up what remains of the brains of our targets and a missile launcher, which comes in really handy when we want to take out mini-bosses quickly. Yes, because the almost infinite hordes of the undead that crowd the stages, despite their many variants, are not the only threat we will have to face during the campaign, which certainly makes it more if played in cooperative multiplayer mode together with a friend. At regular intervals we will find ourselves fighting "jumpers", mutants capable of leaping in an attempt to crush us under their weight; "screamers", able to attract crowds of minions ready to attack us; and then toxic "Bombie", which explode after a few hits, and "cutters", horrible creatures covered with a protective layer that run in our direction to slice us with their blades. The visual spectacle offered by the game is emphasized on PlayStation 4 thanks to the 1080p resolution, a frame rate anchored to 30 frames per second even in the most crowded situations, as well as the improvement of textures and effects, especially with regard to lights, fog and explosions.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

A total of 41 Trophies are available for Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition, including Platinum. To get them, just complete the campaign and the individual missions at various difficulty levels, as well as carry out "numerical" actions: kill a certain amount of zombies, land a number of melee attacks, collect all the components for the armor and so on. Street.

Fresh meat

In addition to the purely technical ones, what are the news of the PlayStation 4 version of Dead Nation? First of all, the Apocalypse Edition natively includes the Road to Devastation expansion, which adds substance to the experience by engaging two extra modes: Arcade and Endless.

These are basically two sides of the same coin, which consist of six rounds to be faced by choosing from time to time paths based on the collection of money, weapons, parts of the armor or on obtaining a high score, in new locations that they offer respectable challenges and have an element of variation consisting of dense vegetation, which often hides further zombies ready to attack us. The Endless variant proposes the same stages, but with a peculiarity: you have to complete them without being able to count on additional lives or checkpoints. Always in terms of the playful offer, an unprecedented Challenge mode has been inserted on the new Sony console, which allows us to compare our score with that of a friend or any other PSN user and challenge him to do better. of us on a certain mission. Starting from the official release of the game, on March 5, a very interesting feature will also be available, which definitively puts a patch on what were the "social" shortcomings of the original version of Dead Nation for PlayStation 3, which at the time of he output didn't even have a voice chat feature. This is the Broadcast + mode, which allows you to broadcast your game online and therefore show it to all the other players, who will not only passively assist but will be able to influence its progress through a voting mechanism for the introduction of thirty different modifiers, ranging from the appearance of additional zombies to the deactivation of maneuvers such as the fast shot, passing through the supply of extra ammunition. Users who vote to make your life more difficult will then appear in the game as the undead and you can then tear them apart to take revenge for their decisions.

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Digital Delivery: PlayStation Network Prezzo: 14,99€ Resources4Gaming.com

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Waiting for a sequel proper, perhaps capable of introducing substantial changes compared to an effective but inevitably repetitive formula in the long run, Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition marks the debut of the Housemarque series on PlayStation 4 and does it in the best way, introducing improvements both technical and structural. The presence of the Road to Devastation expansion and its extra modes, as well as new features with their social implications, add further substance to a quality shooter, equipped with an excellent system of management and upgrading of weapons, as well as a challenge not indifferent to higher difficulty levels. If you have already played the original Dead Nation you will not find anything revolutionary in this re-release, but those who missed the appointment in 2010 must necessarily recover.