holoz0r's A-Z of Steam: Back 4 Blood - zombies should be more fun to kill

As a game, there's nothing really wrong with Back 4 Blood. It is more a sense of timing. It is a certain spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, and it is the type of game that will keep groups of humans entertained provided they have something to talk about while doing this.

Where it fails is the interesting (read: buggy) physics, which will see you clinging to ledges that are quite frankly, thin air; and preposterous accessibility issues to try and rescue team mates in such situations.

The gun play and melee tools you get to carve a bloody path through zombies function with a fine level of precision, but there's something not fun about the grind the game imposes on you. Get resources, open up supply lines, and get "cards" which modify your abilities.

It may as well be actual equipment instead of items represented by an abstraction.

It feels as though this is done in lieu of a progression system ala Dead Rising, where you had to choose to specialise. Instead, you get a whole bunch of characters to choose from, and each, you can customise further, based on your deck.

I suppose this is more useful, but couple that with the roguelike nature of the game (ignoring the persistence of cosmetic unlocks) and you'd have a far, far better time of the game.

Don't get me wrong. It is fun. But, it could be MORE fun, and would see you further invested in the game if it was indeed "your character" for "your run", which seems like a poor excuse to cover up the woefully short underlying campaign.

It is no surprise then to know that this game isn't valued as highly as it should, given its regular sales at the sub $10 price point (and its inclusion in various bundles of games across the Internet), but I know I got exactly what I paid for when a fellow human being was apparently clinging for life, trying not to fall from the thin air upon which they clutched, levitating amid a swarm of zombies.

It would be comical if it wasn't trying to be so serious.

You can upgrade weapons along the way, as well as find them. Back 4 Blood doesn't really know if it wants to be serious or playful most of the time, but I think it is just a comedic (and not in a good way) representation of how the laws of physics could be safely ignored in the event of an outbreak of something zombie like throughout humanity.

What I'm saying here is it would be great to have friends to play this one with. I don't.

Lucky, there's match making built right in, which is helpful if you have zero friends. I tried this, ad midday on a Sunday, local time to me, here in Australia, and I found that there's a reason modern titles have crossplay - because you need a broad enough range of "suckers" available to buy your game so they can all play them together.

There were no PC or PlayStation players available, I got matched with someone playing on an XBOX, and they promptly departed prior to the game commencing, meaning I got stuck with bots that wandered about in an aimless manner without a focus on the objectives.

Eventually a few humans joined and the background sounds of their lives were potentially more interesting than the game. God bless open microphones.

Still, I played for a few hours more than what I would've liked, to see if the whole concept of the game "clicked" - but alas - it did not.

I'd avoid this title at all costs. I wish I could get my time back.