WTF is a Zomba? Besides Awesome!

Evan McKay

Online computer games are huge! They have been for a while. There has been a new trend brewing in online games that is about to dethrone MMORPG's as the prize cash-cow of online gaming. The MOBA...You all love it or love it hate it, but they are going no where fast. Stunlock studios has come up with a gem here that is really going to take moba's in the right direction. They Present, Dead Island: Epidemic. The world's first ZOMBA. Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena.

I was lucky enough to have a friend who loved me enough to give me an extra beta invite to the closed beta for this game. I have only played 2 games and the prologue, and I think this game is a winner! The real game changer for this one is the controls. Since most Moba's are based off Dota, which is a mod of Warcraft 3, you control your hero/champion/survivor by right clicking on locations. You attack by right clicking on enemies. Most of your interaction with the enviroment is right clicks. Dead Island here becomes much more action based by simply reverting the controls back to WASD. It is awesome. It makes you feel like your playing an awesome old school awesome brawler, except this one is not trying to make you lose with bad collision detection. It really removes a large portion of the learning curve because you do not have to learn how to control your character in such a weird way. Up is UP! Down is Down! It is really great!

In the 2 games I have played so far the hardest part was figuring out what equipment I had and did not have. Also what weapons I had equipped and not equipped. The game advancement seems similar to Call of Duty style. Where you have a load-out for each character, that you improve by continuous play. It is effective because you cannot get cool new gear and abilities in game, you have to keep playing to use what you had got. Its always about that next fix. This menu however really does not explain how any of that works. It is not very apparent, I mean it is Saturday morning, and there was a little too much beer drank at DND last night but I could have used an interface tutorial. I hear there is some crafting component to this game, but I would damned if I know how to do it. This game is still in alpha, but this stuff needs to be hashed out before full release.

So I say if you know anyone that has this game...beg them for a beta invite. This game is something that you will want to play now. When everyone else is just starting next year you will already be king of the Island. With duct taped rockets and thick armor you will laugh at the n00bs who will be jelly...cause everyone is going to want to play this one!

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