Early access gaming seems to be becoming quite the norm; and at an alarming quick rate. And since The War Z, now known as Infestation Survivor Stories, surprised its easily enticed, early access audiance (counting me) with false promises, i have always since been a little apprehensious as to what i may be getting my self in to.
Well, along comes DayZ; the open-world, zombie survival, tactical-shooter. Originally an ARMA2 Mod, since becoming an early access stand alone title, claimed to be "one of the most important things to happen to PC gaming in 2012 as well as one of the five scariest games of all time" by PC GAMER. Now, to me, this sounds like the holy grail of a perfect gaming experience. Open world, huge vast land scapes to explore, items in every way imaginable to scavenge and use to survive and ZOMBIES. The War Z failed miserablly and everyone seems to be screaming DayZ's prasies as if it's the knight in shining ARMA (LOL)
So im gonna give this DayZ a shot and keep a diary entry of my experiences and at the same time, keeping in mind, that the game is well and truly un-finished but as well, the fact, its kinda existed for 2 years already...
Day 1: Monday 27th January
I start the day by trying to log in to lowly populated server to decrease the risk of me being peppered every second by bandits but instead the first obstacle is trying to find a server that isn't in darkness. After 15 minutes spent clicking connect and exit i finally find my self on what i can only assume is the East Coast, unfortunately the Beastie Boys are nowhere to be heard. At first glances, the scenery is breath taking, absolutely spectacular and for that alone i don't think anyone can NOT applaud Bohemia Interactive for the time and effort that must have gone in to such a perfect looking landcaspe. I run for a tiny while, more time spent working out that i have to 'double-tap' W to sprint but i can only assume sprinting will run down the meters (that i can't see anywhere) from past experience in survival games.
I vere off the coast line a little and head in to the dense foliage and come across a small, mining, looking quarry. I venture in to what i assume is the past foremans office to which i find a glitched character grasping a fire exstinguisher, bleeding from every single orifice undiscovered to man...worried at being slightly arroused i swiftly move on.
I now find my self diving in and out of every building that i can possibly access in search of food or water as my character begins yelling at me in small text to the left of my screen...this is where the story continues...for two solid hours...
I didn't once come across another player and the only threat i found my self against was a zombie buried up to it's chest in glitch cement (see picture)
If it wasn't for the sake of the scenery being so amazing and my concious telling me "Maybe that place will have something Dean...?" i'd have given up LONG ago. On a server populated by no more than 9 other people i came across a rotten orange, hammer and a potato sack that i sniggered at when i discovered i could whack it on as some form of head gear, i found some sort of entertainment at least.
So it came to a point where it felt almost too realistic, in the sense that i arrived on the apocalypse band wagon way too late, the local towns within a London marathon like vicinity were ransacked and no one was around to appreciate my potato sack face. So i jumped off a pier...
Day 2 to follow...until then ill wait for the Day Z fun bus.
