#ps5games

As I have touched in this post, this is one of the games I still play, and for good reason. It has huge replayability, it's easy to pick up, it can fit all of my friends, and most importantly: it's fun. Yes you heard it right here folks, I like Back 4 Blood despite being aware of all it's faults and imperfections because it's still fun. And because of that, I will spend what free time I have to talk about this game and what I appreciate from it.

First, let's talk about the apocalypse

As we all know from the Left 4 Dead comparisons everyone throws around, the setting to Back 4 Blood is a plague apocalypse. Notice that I use the word "plague" instead of the straight "zombie" apocalypse because there are almost no zombie apocalypse in mass media anymore. Ever since the year 2010-something everyone just shied away from it like last month's fast fashion.

"LOOK AT HIM STILL USING CONVENTIONAL UNDEAD ZOMBIES! LOOK AT HOW MUCH OF A SIMPLETON HE IS!"

And with the traditional undead zombies declining in popularity, rose the new hotness that I can only describe as scientifically induced zombiefication, in which the "zombie" is caused by a scientific phenomenon like fungus, virus, bacterial infection, etc. Popular examples including 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, and of course, Left 4 Dead. In the world of Back 4 Blood, the cause of the zombie mutations is an entity called the Worm which is said to proliferate in the waters and could mutate human flesh into all sorts of malformed abominations. And it's up to us, the cleaners of Fort Hope to thin their numbers and save the future. Or at least our group's future

But who is our group? And what are the Cleaners?

As mentioned before, we play as Cleaners. Essentially a ragtag group of survivors from Fort Hope sent out to execute missions such as community outreach, resupplying, and more often than not, blowing shit up. The characters available to us ranges from a soldier, a doctor, a delinquent, a prepper, two war veterans, and two nutjobs each with their own unique craziness. The variation is more than just salad dressing mind you, as each character comes with their own character and party skills. Such as the doctor that affects how well you can heal and how resistant the party is to long-term health damage, The prepper that can somehow turn the zombies into pinatas of ammo and grenades, and a young man whose only purpose is to annoy me every time he opens his fucking mouth.

"No seriously, Jesus Christ, just shut the fuck up Evangelo"

On top of the skills that comes with each unique character, you also have to build your own personal skill with the Skill Card system. It's essentially buffs in the form of cards that you form into a 15-card deck filled with multiple buffs and/or debuffs that will combine to fill a certain role within the team. The cards are unlocked via an in-game currency called copper (boy am I glad they didn't charge us micro-transactions for those) and you earn copper by playing the game. The system sounds pretty okay on paper, since you unlock your skills quite organically and slowly build yourself up as you play. But as you know things that sounds alright on paper might just be fairy farts in the real world, and the skill card system is no exception. The downside is that the skill cards are unlocked via packs that will randomly spawn on the shop. So if you're in a hurry to unlock certain cards, you can take a cactus up the arse and get fucked.

Wait. We've veered too much into gameplay territory now. Let me actually switch the topic to gameplay

It's no secret that the gameplay is very much similar to Left 4 Dead, so any attempt to explain the gameplay is a waste of time because everyone knows Left 4 Dead at this point. Its simple formula of "move from the starting point to the finish zone while dodging obstacles in the form of zombies" has been tried and tested for so many years now that it can almost vote. Attentive readers might have realized that I didn't put the words "killing zombies" in there because it wasn't really the main objective in L4D. They're more nuisance in the form of very bitey assholes, not unlike a teething baby that just learned to run.

"Yeah, not so tough now are you?"

Aside from them however there also the special infected that are so famous that they don't need an introduction. What I need to emphasize however is how good their designs are. I'm talking about each of them are so visually and audibly distinct, and how their roles are so synergistic with each other that they are still downright terrifying to face even with a tight 4 man group.

As the self-proclaimed "spiritual successor" of Left 4 Dead, and how the tagline for the game is "From the creators of Left 4 Dead", one would rightly assume that the game would at least maintain such quality. A thing that they unfortunately, did not manage to do with this game. Dishonorable mention goes to the special infected that can be very hard to discern unless the game spells it out for me. Not to mention that their roles aren't very distinct from one another that they all just blur out into "collective nuisance" for me. Overall, such a letdown from the people that made L4D.

Before we go to the final say, let me list the good things I really like from this game

Oh my god, it's the weapon system. The way the weapons handle, the customizations, the brutal melee weapons, the satisfying OOMPH some of the weapons have, and aiming down the sights? Good lord killing zombies haven't been this cathartic since COD Zombies. This is one of the reason why I think this game is still fun despite all it's shortcomings. The other reason? Nothing else except the fact that it's very much competent. It already has a satisfying gameplay loop that could carry the game by itself. All we need it just for the devs to keep this putrid ball of cadaver rolling.

And as we are now in the current future of 2024, we know that the Developers have pulled out like a couple of teenagers fucking on a risky day. This post by the Developers (almost exactly a year ago, by the way) has cemented the death of this game. The lack of community modding means that the game will stay the same as it was until the servers inevitably close. It truly has been the final nail in the undead coffin. The devs did say that they were gonna "be Back, bigger, bolder and better than ever!", but seeing how they treated this promising IP? Might as well get the phone ready to call CPS

In Brief

I'd still play it. No matter how much shit the community says about this game, I'd still play it given the chance. I still truly believe it's a competent game that just need a few fixes. I dare the developers to get off their ass and actually put community modding and/or map maker to the game. If that happens, I'm willing to bet one of my testicles that the game will re-flourish and we're going to start seeing a lot of new fan-made content and fixes it sorely needed.

But we will not get it of course. Not because the devs are lazy or incompetent, but I'm thinking it's because there is no money to be made in implementing it. We still remember the backlash about "Paid mods" back in 2015 so monetization is a very tricky issue. Apart from that, the devs will just look greedy by doing so. And trust me, Turtle Rock Studios cannot afford to tarnish their reputation any more than this. Not after Evolve

Oddworld: The Promised Neverland Homages (Pt. 6)

I gotta be honest, this image had to be the one that I was most excited about since starting this series.

It’s based off barely a flash of a second in The Promised Neverland’s second opening, and it’s a much more ‘closed’ composition there, focussing mostly on Emma’s face and the braid that hides a significant injury. But for Abe I felt it was important to ‘zoom out,’ so to speak, to emphasise the action of him reaching up towards the moon—the moon with the face in the shape of Abe’s paw.

The countdown is here!

This game is much more stunning than the first one, omg...