Don't get me wrong, Dead State is an entertaining game if you're into the Zombie genre and like exploration, base building, and tactical combat. However, as someone who likes all those things it is quite frustrating to see how those features were all implemented pretty halfhearted and are riddled with bugs. So what exactly is wrong with the game? Well, for example it doesn't take very long to fully upgrade your base and then you have nothing left to do halfway through the game, while many of your survivors sit around in the base and do nothing except eat your food and come to you with their (sometimes stupid) problems. The tactical combat is pretty basic. There's not really any cover system, there's no crouching or stealth, and all you have to do is abuse the somewhat stupid AI and keep an eye on your action points. Jagged Alliance or X-Com did a much better job in that regard. Exploration - while rewarding at the beginning - becomes a chore halfway through the game when you already have all the best armors and weapons, and have more food, fuel, and antibiotics than you could possibly need. And then there's bugs. Quite a few actually. Not really what I would expect from a game that has been already released for that long. If you can look past all of those mentioned issues, then Dead State can be a fix for your Zombie/post-apocalyptic game addiction. If not, then you might want to skip this one. Which is a shame really, because it could have been a truly great game with some more time, effort, and polishing.
