This game is a completely unique take on the first person shooter genre and adds tonnes of things to keep you coming back time and again for hundreds of hours. Let's talk about the main 5 things I love in this game and why it combines together to make one of the best games I've ever played.
1: Customization - Most gamers love the ability to customize and get that sense of role play in designing a unique looking character. The options in this game are expertly done and on top of a standard character maker; female/male, faces, skin colour etc it allows you to change things like jacket, top, shoes but also things like face paint, hats, neckwear, eyewear, masks and much much more. The amount of items to equip are plentiful and you regularly find items sprawled across boxes and backpacks throughout the world. Not only can you make your character feel like your own but certain items also feature special boosts such as 3% fall resistance in boots or 1% bullet resistance in a shiny new jacket. If however you find a lovely pink hat that takes your fancy but it doesn't have a boost equipped, don't worry as you can use materials found in the world to upgrade the item of choice with a fresh new upgrade.
2: Looter Shooter - Some of my favourite games such as The Division or Borderlands have great loot and upgrade systems and Generation Zero features these elements but in some areas actually improves upon them. The standard system is applied here where grey weapons and attachments are common, green is uncommon, blue is rare and so on. This works especially well considering the weapons are reasonably spread throughout the world and you always feel like finding a new gun is going to improve your chances but it's not overdone where you're constantly picking up weapons left and right. I'm really looking forward to trying the highest tier of weapons out, the 6 star elemental weapons which feature a beautiful red secondary colour on the weapon itself and have bonuses like "overdrive" where the gun fires at a far faster rate than normal or a gun that shoots fire bullets which light up the entire area.
3: Strategic - This is what makes this game simply wonderful. The strategy elements in Generation zero are second to none and make the gameplay feel suspenseful and truly thrilling at times. The fact its often better to avoid contact with the enemy and strategically find another route around them is something I haven't seen done in a game in forever and when this is implemented on top of the difficulty it can get super tense at times when you're walking up to a large group of tanks and hunters which stop you in your tracks. Do you push in for the fight meaning you can loot the area for goodies but at the cost of potentially dying, losing ammo and heath packs? or do you find a path past them and head to another less guarded destination is something that you're constantly asking yourself. It's the classic risk reward gameplay that makes it feel so damn good.
4: Map - The map is HUGE. To sum it up I went exploring to a very small area of just a few buildings which should have took no more than 3-4 minutes but instead discovered a military bunker which had an almost endless amount of corridors and doors to explore and so I spent 30+ minutes just looting everything I could and feeling very happy with myself for spotting a new gun and that sneaky spare heath pack hidden behind a door.
5: Enemies - These killing bots all have incredibly unique and dangerous perks about them which make you have to tackle each individual fight differently. From ticks than you have to be on the lookout for around every corner in a bunker or camp and if engaged having to move at just the right time to avoid their jumping attack to the huge tanks and hunters where making the best use of buildings to peak and shoot while avoiding their incredibly powerful rockets or guns so you don't get melted quicker than butter in a frying pan. All enemies are very intelligent and will often flank you at times or stay at a distance and try to pick you off, especially those pesky runners which can be often underestimated.
The story is the only thing I haven't mentioned and although this does feature a path line to understand what is happening and why these machines are attacking its almost an afterthought as the gameplay is the main thing that makes the game tick. This game features no cut scenes and is incredibly fluid with very little load screens and almost instant loads when doing things like fast travelling and first loading up. So fast in fact when I start the game up and hit continue its takes a grand total of 1 second to cannon me right back Into the game.
NPC's are not featured unless you opt to buy the DLC update which has a brand new island to explore and further questions to be answered as to what happened to cause the machines to attack and why.
Overall just like the title of my review this has everything I've ever wanted all rolled up into one game and I can say safely say I'm going to be enjoying this game for hundreds of hours to come and I really hope you do too.
