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Arma II... I think the first time I picked that game up was back in 2010 when I was searching for a realistic combat simulator. The controls were sluggish and complicated, and I would get sniped by bad guys that I couldn't see... It was very frustrating so I sold it. A year later, I tried it again because Steam had a summer sale going on, and I got Arma II and its expansion for super cheap. After I figured out the controls, I got into multiplayer gaming and had some fun for awhile, but then that got old, so the game sat and collected virtual dust... UNTIL.... The DayZ (read Day Zed if you are European) is a mod for Arma II Combined Operations (Arma II and its expansion). You need both to use the mod. DayZ is a mod that strips the game down and gives you zombies. Left 4 Dead is fun for awhile, but its linearity slowly makes gameplay too predictable after multiple playthroughs... DayZ on the other hand puts you in the middle of the Russian wilderness with nothing but a couple of cans of food, a pistol with 2 clips, and a bottle of water.... And zombies. Since the mod uses a game that was hyper-realistic to begin with, you need to maintain your levels of hunger, thirst, and mend any wounds you receive either through zombie bites, falling from high places, or most likely: other players. Yes, this game not only gives you zombies, but other players are just as destitute as you are, and will kill you without even a thought just so they can loot your bloody corpse for a box of matches so they can cook food. DayZ is an entirely new gaming experience, since the only rule is that of survival. That's it. No objectives, no waypoints... You start on a beach and you are free to explore, or just sit on your *bottom* while your food rations slowly deplete. You can find food, water, and guns in the cities, but cities are crawling with zombies and other players. You can try teaming up with other people, but most likely, they will shoot you in the back when you least expect it. It used to be that if you murded someone, your player's appearance would change to the "Bandit" skin... which would tip other players off that you had killed another player, and they would know you're a bastard. Now, though, with recent updates, they disabled that for realism since "people aren't going to change their clothes and stand out just because they killed someone." So now, everyone looks the same (more or less) so there are no real reprocussions to murder... unless they kill you first, or someone else sees you do it. Survival being your main objective is motivated by the fact that your player character is persistant, since it is syncronized on every server you go on... So if you log off, and join the next day, your character will be hungry and thirsty as the server keeps track the last time you ate or drank anything. So you have to be diligent with playing every day to keep your character alive... As you play and gather supplies, you slowly have more to lose, meaning you will be less likely to take risks, but you always have to combat hunger and thirst... Forcing you back to the zombie-infested cities for supplies. You can hunt for food, but game is incredibly rare. You'll be lucky to spot a goat in 4 hours of gameplay, which provides about 3 meals.... And you can't just kill a goat and eat it. You first need to find a hunting knife so you can gut it... Then you need fire wood to cook it, so you need an axe to chop wood... And finally, you need matches to light a fire to cook the meat.... only THEN can you eat. Your health is tracked through a "blood" meter. You start out at 12,000, but that can go very quickly, as if you sustain an injury that causes you to bleed out, then you will continue to bleed unless you bandage it up. As your blood meter depletes, the screen slowly turns to black and white, and if it gets too low, then you will start to black out, which is really inconvenient when you are being chased by an entire town worth of zombies. Beyond gameplay, the DayZ mod makes you consider how real people will act in the event of an actual catastrophe that forces people into a fight or flight mode. You would think that with the threat of the undead, players would band together to find supplies or form clans to find car parts to rebuild some of the broken down vehicles in the game. And there are some factions that exist that play together on some servers, but mostly if you are not a member of any faction just trying to surive, you're as good as dead unless you are prepared to defend yourself against the undead, and the not-dead. If you are truly into Role Playing, this mod gives you an excellent opportunity to put yourself into true moral predicaments. I can recall first starting out, I didn't want to kill any living player just because I felt that it would hang on my character's concious. No less than half an hour into my first playthrough, I hear gunfire off in the distance. Someone was shooting at me. I managed to go prone and crawl forward until I could see the shooter. I was loosing blood but I didn't have time to bandage so I got up and started shooting back before I passed out from blood loss. With only 800 points of health left, I managed a head shot and took the guy down. I truly felt terrible, as I was trying to type in the main chat window that I was a friendly, but he wouldn't have any of it. I looted the corpse and managed to get my health back up to about 1,400 by eating all of the food I had when I got shot in the back of the head by ANOTHER player that must have been watching the whole time. Truly survival of the fittest. At that point, I was so close to death that it didn't matter so much, though I was sad that I lost all of the loot that I had aquired up to that point. Also, being a realistic simulator, you don't get a map. There are maps in-game, but they are incredibly rare. If you look online, maps are available, but the only way you can learn to navigate and find where you are is to follow signs that you would actually use in real life, such as the location of the sun based on what time it is (the game follows a full 24 hours day/night cycle) and you can also find north using the game's stars, but that's incredibly rare, as night is pitch black. Ah, night. Night turns the game into hell. If you are fortunate to be home all day for summer vacation, then it really doesn't matter, but if you work all day and come home to play, you'll find that most servers in your time zone will follow the same time, so you will be playing from dusk to night. The only way you can see is to light a flare or light a fire, which are both extremely hazardous, as they broadcast your location to both zombies and other players. Best to avoid DayZ at night, unless you want to freak the hell out while being chased in the moonlight. Oh yes, these zombies stumble around when not alerted, but if you get their attention by making too much noise or if they see you, they f***ing SPRINT. And you can try outrunning them, but odds are, you'll just attract the rest of the hoard. If you find a barn or a building, they revert back to their stumbling state and walk slowly towards you, but if that building only has the one entrance, you'll quickly find yourself trapped with very little ammunition, wishing you could just shoot yourself and end it quickly... When zombies finally corner you, they hit, and bite... and keep hitting you even after your bones break and you try crawling away... but they just keep hitting you as the world goes black and white, until .... you die. There's not a lot of chance of surviving once you break your leg unless you have just enough ammo to fire wildly into the hoard until you get enough time to shoot yourself up with morphine and walk it off. There is so much more I can go on about, but this is overly done as it is. Go get Arma II while it's on sale, and get this mod. I recommend the Steam Version. https://store.bistudio.com/ DayZ mod can be downloaded here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ And may God have mercy on your soul.