Blog:Grust Reviews 7 Days to Die

Two major things in video games that I love are zombies and the crafting system. In fact, my love for zombies is so strong that it's almost a rule to make zombies a reason a game is good on the Awesome Games wiki. And of course, I've stated a lot that I love the crafting system, which is why I had a World of Warcraft account for almost 8 years before leaving for good.

7 Days to Die offers both of these loves for me and is a reason why I love this game so much. The game has elements of stealth (not heavy but useful for extra damage), skill perks, RPG, first person, tower defense, and of course achievements. In fact I'd almost say that crafting in this game is possibly bigger than what Minecraft has to offer to the point where it's like a mature version of Minecraft.

The game starts you off as a survivor of the zombie apocalypse and the first thing you get is a tutorial on making stuff. Completing this offers you one skill point, which I usually spend on archery or a boost in tool smithing. Once that is done I do some exploring until I find myself a base and have done a lot of work on it. I've upgraded most of the walls to cement, I've lined up the house with log spikes, no mines though, I've had plenty of mistakes with that, and I removed the entire roof and made some planks on top to see the zombies attack.

Now the reason the game is called 7 Days to Die is because every 7 days, a Blood Moon appears in the night sky, making the zombies more aggressive, vicious, feral, and they know where you're hiding. To survive the onslaught, you need traps, a solid defense, and a way to get to them without them getting to you, i.e. the planks.

The RPG like qualities of the game work well too. It gives almost an Elder Scrolls like quality to the game where combat is not the only thing that helps you level up, but the other things you can do. Even the simple act of scavenging has a level.

Survival is also a key aspect and adds some level of realism. For example, when you find a source of water and drink from the lake or pond or wherever, you can get dysentery, a real disease that causes diarrhea and death because of amoeba and other single cell organisms found in water. To make this water drinkable, you gotta cook it in a campfire.

In addition to level up, there are quests you can find in the game, and treasure maps. Quests require you to finish an objective from killing wildlife or special zombies. Finishing a quest also awards skill points. Sometimes, quests have a time limit that award bonus skill points if completed in a certain time limit. Even if you fail the time limit, you can still finish the quest and get the normal amount of skill points. Treasure maps, lead to buried treasure which sometimes contain recipes, gun parts, more quests, or medical supplies.

Now despite the positives going for this game has going for it, it's still far from perfect. The game is indeed heavy with bugs and glitches. I often see zombies jumping out of the ground trying to escape (though I take heavy advantage over it) and I've experienced one that made it impossible for me to hurt zombies, though they couldn't hurt me either. Also, it has one of the longest, grindiest, and overall most boring trophy I've ever seen. The trophy, Neil Armstrong, requires me to travel a total distance of 1000 kilometers. I've heard that the best way to obtain this is with the minibike, but with a full tank, I distance about 10 to 14km before a refill is required.

The graphics aren't up to today's standards, but this complaint is a minor issue as graphics don't mean a good game. The soundtrack is also quite lacking. Other than the opening and a small tune that occurs during nightfall, there's not much there so I wouldn't waste any time looking for a soundtrack of this game.

Overall, I can say that if this game had a little more polish, this very well could have been the game that killed Minecraft itself because it has a lot more going for it. But still, it's not as bad as one would think and still helps to prove how useless game journalists have become.

If you can find this game at a bargain or better yet free and are a big fan of zombies or the crafting sytem, be sure to give it a try.