Finally played through the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption.
Not bad, not bad at all. In fact, one of the better DLC releases if you ask me.
Firstly, because of the zombie content, it’s sufficiently different enough from the main game that I’m certain it was not denied inclusion to make more money. Many other devs put out DLC that really seems as though it should have been on the disk in the first place (That’s right Assassins Creed 2, I’m looking at you here with your missing ‘chapters’). Not only that, but a lot of developers start talking about how much the ‘day one’ DLC is going to cost before the damn game even ships these days!
I’m sorry, but even if you have a legitimate reason for not including that DLC as part of the retail package, you do yourself no favours in gamers eyes by talking about how much it’s going to cost on launch day before the game has even shipped. Delay it a month, give gamers a chance to sink their teeth into the game before you start the squeezing extra cash from them maybe?
Anyway, back on topic. The Undead Nightmare pack was perhaps some of the best value I’ve seen in a DLC pack outside of the recent Battlefield Vietnam addon. A new 6 hour single player campaign (albeit with some issues), some new weapons, new enemy types (or at least some reskinned ones that act a little differently), and some good use of the existing game mechanics in a fresh way.
I think I actually sank about 16 hours in total in to the DLC storyline. That’s not far off what I actually spent playing the full game if memory serves me right. Now that’s value in my opinion.
If that weren’t enough , the standalone DLC disk doesn’t even require Red Dead Redemption. I could be wrong on this, but as far as I’m aware you can grab the retail version and play it as a standalone game. It costs a little more than the marketplace version, but still. A stand alone DLC release? You can’t argue with that really.
The singleplayer campaign of the Undead pack begins with Marston protecting his family from a zombie attack, unsuccessfully as it turns out. You are then tasked to try and find the cause of, and cure to, the undead plague sweeping the land. Many people believe Seth and his glass eye to be the cause, some think West Dickens and his tonic are responsible, others believe the infection was brought over the border by the mexicans.
Along the way you will encounter several characters from the main game, alive and undead as it happens, and complete various themed missions for each in an attempt to discover the true reasons surrounding these events.
Missions include burning graveyards to ensure no more dead rise from the graves, securing towns from zombie attacks (enabling you to save in a safehouse), and many other undead related malarky.
Missions still have a ‘same old, same old’ feel about them. Once you secure one town, every other town is more of the same. In addition, towns only stay secure for a few days before another attack. Once the town is overrun you have limited time to secure the location before the survivors are killed. If all survivors are killed you lose that location as a savepoint. Not really that big of a deal as they tend to stay secure long enough for you to get a lot done without it being an annoyance. Quick travel helps immensely here and securing a town never takes too long. Either wipe out the zombie invasion or provide the survivors with ammo to take care of the issue themselves. If you give the survivors ammo, you will have to clear up any remaining zombies to secure the town, so either way, you’ll be fighting a lot of the undead.
The undead provided me with some issues. Specifically some of the smaller animals at first. Headshots are the only way to down enemies as you would expect, but the smaller the target, the more frustrating it is to headshot. Especially if bushes are obstructing your view. I gave up killing undead animals and elected to speed past them all on my horse in the end. There is an achievement to kill one of every undead animal in the DLC but I lack the patience to deal with that right now.
Combat against the normal undead zombies is fine and you soon get into a headshot rythm. Occasionally the control system will fight you at exactly the wrong time, but nothing too bad.
The new weapons are great and I especially appreciated the ‘boomstick’ of sorts you eventually get for the authentic Army of Darkness vibe. The new enemies are a bit… meh. Well the normal zombies are fine, the ‘special’ types are really just copies of Left4Dead2 special zombies without any tongue in cheek reference to why they are like that. Something I found a little odd given R*’s tendency to reference things for a joke.
Other than that, the usual Rockstar humour is at work here. Seth can be found hosting an undead party of sorts, West Dickens is still attempting to peddle his wares as zombie repellent when actually it attracts them (yeah, boomer bile). The film director spots the opportunity present and asks you to bring him live zombies for a film he is planning. As you can imagine, this does not end well.
Ahh yes, and for all the San Andreas fans, there is finally a Sasquatch in the game. It’s actually quite a sad mission really, but I wont ruin it for you.
Conclusion?
Great DLC, well worth the price of admission and a great example of how to implement paid content.
