Zombie for hardcore – review of the game “Daymare: 1998”

As the story with the refreshed version of the Resident Evil sequel ended , we all know – the game has finally become a big hit and is likely to fight for the title of the best production of the passing year. So if the story had turned out differently and the fan vision of the absolute debutants of the development scene had seen the light of day under the banner of the famous brand, it would have been equally good? Daymare: 1998 answers this question in part.

Plot: old garbage

The first impression of the Italian production is rather poor. As befits a production simulating the atmosphere of horror movies from the 90s, one should not expect too much from the scenario itself, although with the naked eye it can be seen that the Italians tried to make it something more than just an excuse to eliminate more enemies.

We get to know the story from the perspective of three characters whose fates intertwine with each other: Samuel suffering from hallucinations, Liev’s ruthless agent and Raven’s helicopter pilot. It sounds quite interesting and is indeed a pleasure to learn about the next events, but otherwise it is more than schematic: a government conspiracy, research on biological weapons and an epidemic leading to an outbreak. Oh, nothing we wouldn’t see in the genre at least a few times.

The predictable plot, however, was forgivable, but the dull dialogues weren’t. While voice acting still sounds decent, horrible, virtually devoid of facial expressions, juxtaposed with cliches worthy of films with Steven Seagal, can cause us some uncontrolled outbursts of joy. Rather, this was not what the creators wanted in the production to give us a kick with the atmosphere.

Interestingly, however, the developers managed to achieve quite a decent threat in Daymare . Although I did not feel a special need to read the documents scattered here and there (to read some of them, you need to use a real, game-related website!), The constant darkness, minimalist soundtrack and the feeling of fragility of the hero we control effectively make up for the script shortcomings . The latter, moreover, is the basic foundation of the Italians’ game.

There will be no reduced fare

Daymare: 1998 is advertised as a game for those of us who cut our teeth on old-school survival horrors – that is, those where first aid kits and ammunition were like medicine, and the Rambo-style charge on opponents ended in immediate death. As it turns out, these are not words thrown at the wind – Italian production is in no way inferior to them in this respect, on the contrary, it adds a handful of its own, extremely bothersome ideas.

The framework of the game is based primarily on careful exploration of the next stages and methodical elimination of new opponents. As Invader Studios does not include melee weapons in the arsenal, we will fight zombies with various types of rifles, shotguns and pistols. However, if you are focused on the multitude of murder tools to choose from, you will be disappointed. Everything revolves around the same pattern here: a weak but quick-firing pistol, a slow, good close-range shotgun, and a revolver somewhere in between. Some of these toys will be obtained “ex officio”, following the main storyline, but others will have to be found by using environmental puzzles.

The shooting mechanics themselves are just as uneven as most of the other elements of Daymare: 1998 . On the one hand, it falls curiously “feel” the weight and power of the recoil of weapons, on the other – we clearly screwed-up system hitboxów , sluggish movements of the characters, at which Isaac Clarke looked professional sprinter, and remarkably contrived a patent associated with reloading.

It is worth staying longer with the latter. Well, to reload a weapon, it is not enough to press the button responsible for a given action – before we do it, we must make sure that we have a magazine filled with cartridges in our inventory. If not, a tedious process of combining it with ammunition awaits us, which, although in itself does not last long, repeated several times, can already be very irritating and unnecessarily prolongs the game. It is worth adding that Daymare does not have an active pause, so we are exposed to all kinds of manipulations of this type. So it is difficult and rather blocky, and if you add to this the fact that some types of non-milks can take an incredible amount of bullets on the chest, at higher difficulty levels we will have to plan basically every skirmish before it starts.

In addition to the elimination of hungry monsters, during the game we will also have to look for various types of documents or recordings and face logical puzzles. Most of them do not pose a particularly big problem, although there are also some that can lead to a shoemaker’s passion (for the initiated – yes, the one with pictures).

A game of contrasts

Although Daymare: 1998 cannot be described as unsuccessful, the above-mentioned primarily shows an eminently uneven game – and in virtually every aspect. The programmers from the Apennine Peninsula undoubtedly had considerable ambitions. To make their game truly memorable, a bit of everything was probably missing: money, talent and experience.