Dead Nation

The thing I love most about this game is how quickly things can escalate from calmly shooting silly zombies to shitting your pants and hoping there’s another checkpoint coming up. I literally felt mentally exhausted after finishing each chapter in the game since the zombies have decided that this time you’re never going to get a break from them. Each encounter tosses a handful of zombies at you only for you to realize the other hand was holding a bucket full of the bastards. Of course you’ll be happy to meat up with the Boomer, I mean the Bombie which is a fat zombie that blows up, the Jumper ...

In spite of the moments where I lost my mind over a cheap death, I enjoyed Dead Nation. It's a thing of beauty to sit in a chokepoint and tear apart an army of zombies or watch a maxed out landmine go off several times and clear out dozens of roamers. Still, Dead Nation's missing that punch to really make it sing -- it has no personality and I never felt like I had to get back to playing it. The upgrades and loot are nice touches that make Dead Nation a deeper experience than most of its twin-stick zombie shooters brethren, but it still feels like just another zombie shooter in the end. My mem...

Dead Nation adds a lot to the standard twin-stick shooting affair, with welcome dungeon crawler mechanics, co-op play and social features that are likely to attract a solid little community.

The game's dark, zombie-laden world is enhanced by an incredible lighting engine, but is hindered by a distant camera and an imprecise aiming mechanic. What's more, for as much tension as the game's sporadic checkpoints create, their limited nature concludes in frustration and repetition. Dead Nation's design choices make sense for the context, but they don't always result in an entertaining experience.