Mies van der Rohe a prominent figure in the
modern architecture movement -a movement formed by the architects who desire to
renounce the use of useless ornament and incorporate new emerged materials in
their design- once claimed "less is more". From this origin the
"less is more" statement found its way also in the daily used
language of contemporary times (or at least in the German language) and in
other forms of life-style like minimalistic living.
This statement also stands true for the decision
online game and its sequels.
Decision plays in a small town overrun by
zombies. The player takes on the role of a survivor who decides to become a one
man army and wipe the city clean of the zombie hordes. To achieve this goal the
character reinstalls towers which increase the safety of the area, recaptures
factories which give resources and manually kills zombies in the dozens by
handpicking some of the offered weapons and skills presented by the game.
Decision2 is a well-rounded game. The
balancing is made fairly well. The tower and factory capture modes in the different
sections of the city are the backbone of the game as a district can only be saved
if both of them are maxed out. Especially the first parts of the game are quiet
good, later on the always same missions and a slightly overpowered character
partly takes away the game fun and the game develops towards a grinding,
leveling and upgrading type of game only played to finish it. The different weapons
and skills for the character are plentiful and for my taste a thought through
eliminating of some specs would have helped.
Decision 3 tries to add a lot of new layers to
the game. There are now different types of survivors (builders, soldiers,
captains ...) which you can get to come to your team. You also have to capture
places for this teammates to sleep and this partners are essential for upgrading
your towers and factories. By adding these elements the in-level game
experience is increased as the environment is made more believable and as there
are more things to do in the different levels. But outside of the level the new
layers of the game make the dull resource collecting, grinding and leveling up
aspect kick in much earlier. Especially a lot of new upgrades of the tower and
factory makes this (generator protecting) missions more monotone and unnecessarily
more in quantity without even trying to improve the quality. All together a
reason to think of the "less is more" statement of Mies van der Rohe. Together with this new variety
and quantity of upgrades comes a real balancing issue: the towers are too weak,
the resource collection is to slow to be able to upgrade towers fast enough,
the dwelling missions and sometimes lack of needed experts adds unnecessary
waiting times.
The next instalment of the series is Decision medieval.
The story is pretty much the same only now the medieval setting is introduced to
right the wrongs of the last game. The tower modifications are also decreased
to the 3 options from the second title, the game-mechanic with the survivors
and dwellings is reduced to a much more reasonable portion. In conclusion a
better instalment then decision 3, partly because of the change in scenery.
All together it needs to be stated that the
decision 2 with its smaller variety, its better balancing and good interacting mechanics
is a great example how the game experience concludes from the overall collaboration
of different factors and not the overpowering of only same aspects of the game.
A fact also projectable on the discussion on graphic vs. gameplay.
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