A story game about zombies and … trains? But first let us look into the setting.
You are a train mechanic who’s job is to transport different goods and people to other locations, sounds easy enough right? Wrong. Current day and time makes our job just a bit interesting, while the game starts out pretty friendly you soon notice you’ve landed in a world full of lies and danger.
The player is ordered to deliver a package to the south, the catch here is that you must travel between cities and stations which already have been infected and to make things worse, the military has issued a “safety procedure” which means that every train must stop at every station to be checked and if it’s clear you get a 4 digit code to continue your journey.
So now you – the mechanic – must battle your way into these infested stations and cities to retrieve the code to continue to your original destination. Along the way, you will meet different types of enemies, as standard in lots of zombie games you have the slow one, the fast one,the “buff” one and a few extras. But between all these enemies are survivors, you can save these people and transport them to the nearest human-controlled station. As you deliver them safely to the station you will get rewarded with cash, ammo or upgrades.
So now that you know a bit about the back story it’s time to look into the gameplay itself. The game has 2 main components being the train rides themselves and the stops in-between. The train rides are fairly straight forward, you run around in the wagons fixing all around issues on the machinery but as a bonus you need to take care of any passengers you took with you. If they are hurt or hungry you can give them a med kit or some food, beware though as these supplies are limited! And yes you WILL have to make tough decisions like , do I give the last med kit to the old lady which will reward me with a huge stack of cash or do I save the engineer who might upgrade my shotgun for me. Also, a big and I mean BIG fraction of the story comes from listening to the passengers as they talk to each other, so please keep an eye out for them or you might miss some valuable information! In the train you can also make your own bullets and med kits from scrap you find while raiding the stations.
The stations in-between is where the action is at! These action packed small adventures in search for the code is what keeps us sharp after the relaxing train ride! At the start of the game you only have a small pistol to work with, later you can upgrade this with laser-sight or extended clips or if you’re not happy with that you get a doom-like shotgun and a rifle to show them who’s boss. It’s best to check everything for supplies, ammo or even scraps of paper which contains additional story elements much like the passenger dialogue.
A very neat mechanic in this game is that everything is “unknown” until you open the door or gate, so the screen stays black and every now and then you have that little heart-attack when you open a door and see 7 different zombies with only 4 bullets in your gun , good luck. Yes the ammo is scarce but you do have a melee attack (chargeable) when if timed correctly can save you loads of ammo and med kits. The game is pretty hard but also forgiving, should you die you lose very little progression and sometimes it’s even better to die on purpose and try again to save some supplies or ammo.
The story is positive and negative, so while the story was awesome it might have a few holes or mysteries that I would’ve like to seen solved, that said it’s quite easy to miss important aspects of the game if you’re not paying attention. There were a few times where a small story line (from a passenger or a series of notes) abruptly ended never to be seen again, but the main story makes up for that.
| The Good: | The Bad: |
| + The story, my god, the story is awesome | – Also the story (could have had more potential) |
| + Low entry difficulty to learn the game | – 8-bit pixel on purpose (could be possible) |
| + The music | – A bit repetitive at the end |
| + The shotgun (yes it deserves a point of its own) | – No customizable controls |
First off it’s 2016 there is no real excuse for not having custom controls/keybinds especially when PC is one of the platforms, this goes for every game out there. That said, this game is very good. It has a solid story, a decent combat system, wonderful music and sound effects and really immersive for an 8-bit pixel game. It is around 5 hours long at a normal pace and I would really recommend this if you’re looking for a good (train) ride.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
