11. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2

After the Nazi Zombies wreaked havoc in the first standalone expansion to Sniper Elite V2, who could guess they’d return for another around? Nazi Zombie Army 2 offers a new campaign with fresh locations and enemy types, and you’ll once again slay undead by the droves solo or with up to three other players. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, but when it feels more repetitive than its predecessor, you have to wonder if it’s really worth it. Nevertheless, it’s more maps for slaying zombies, which counts most for some.

10. Sniper Elite VR: Winter Warrior

Another follow-up that noticeably falls short of the original, Winter Warrior is developed by Just Add Water of Oddworld fame. Given how well the first title fared, you would expect the momentum to continue. A forgettable narrative and iffy controls later, and you realize that’s not the case. The sequel doesn’t even do enough to switch up the formula or spruce up the visuals. The gunplay is still on point, but there isn’t enough content to justify jumping in. A mixed bag overall.

9. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army

The original and Rebellion’s first attempt at a Left 4 Dead-style undead spinoff starring Karl Fairburne but set in an alternate universe World War 2. The shift from careful and methodical sniping and stealth to gunning down zombie hordes en masse is still a huge shift for the series. Nazi Zombie Army handles it well enough, combining the realistic gunplay and X-Ray Kill Cam with new kinds of threats and co-op. Though it won’t be competing with the best co-op zombie shooters in the genre, it’s a fun ol’ time, if nothing else.

8. Sniper Elite V2

The first sequel in the series, Sniper Elite V2 focuses on Fairburne attempting to stop the V-2 rocket program in Berlin (which explains why it didn’t get a simple “2” in its title). While it received some praise for the realistic ballistics, the AI was a mixed bag, alternating between competent and imbecilic. Respawning enemies and stealth were also points of contention, with sniping being the only aspect that resonated. That’s because Sniper Elite V2 introduced what would become a staple of the series for over a decade – the X-Ray Kill Cam, rewarding kills with a bloody showcase.

7. Zombie Army Trilogy

It’s a close tie between Sniper Elite V2 and Zombie Army Trilogy in quality. However, the latter wins out by not only remastering the first Nazi Zombie Army expansions but including a third campaign. You can play through them with up to four players, choosing from eight different characters (with Left 4 Dead 1 and 2’s cast joining later for an additional eight), and even adjusting the difficulty. The famed ballistics and X-Ray Kill Cam are also present alongside dismemberment, which adds a bit more strategy. It’s still pretty repetitive and lacks much of the series’ nuance, but it’s still good for mindless fun with friends.

6. Sniper Elite VR

The first Sniper Elite VR title and one that boasts a poor narrative with some strange gates stopping you from completing the last few missions. No autosaves, bugs, underwhelming melee combat – it’s almost hard to get on board. Where it excels is in the fine mix of arcade shooting and realistic ballistics. It’s also responsive enough to make racking up points with the most creative kills enjoyable. Still far from the best in the series, but a solid option for those who want a fun sniping title in VR.

6. Sniper Elite 3

After Sniper Elite V2 underwhelmed, Sniper Elite 3 came along and…marginally improved things (while flailing even more in other departments). Technically a prequel, it saw Fairburne venture to North Africa, with new desert locations to deal with. Unfortunately, the story wasn’t much to write home about, and the AI still had its failings. Where Sniper Elite 3 succeeded is in presenting larger more open levels for players to plan out a myriad of approaches.

Sabotaging generators to mask your shots with the sound, leveraging the revamped stealth to tactically take out threats, scrounging for weapon parts, setting up traps – it all felt so liberating (and, of course, the sniping was still on point). Add on improvements to the X-Ray Kill Cam to factor in organs and bone shattering, and on several gameplay levels, Sniper Elite 3 could be a fun time.

4. Sniper Elite 1

It’s somewhat ironic that one of the better games in the franchise is the one that started it all. Sniper Elite launched in 2005, and as far as sniping-focused titles were concerned, it was unlike anything else in the WW2 shooter space. The realistic depiction of ballistics, where factoring in things like the wind, felt fresh and challenging. Sure, you didn’t get the explosive viscera of the X-Ray Kill Cam, but it was still satisfying for a bullet to dramatically reach your target in slow motion. With all the other relatively new tactics, like using louder sounds to mask your shots, it’s no wonder it received attention despite some shortcomings.

3. Zombie Army 4: Dead War

Considering its predecessors, there may not have been many expectations from Zombie Army 4. Yet somehow, everything fell in place, from the campy campaign with its zombie sharks and zoo to the X-Ray Kill-Cam triggering off explosions and well-placed shots alike. Each character has extensive progression and some fun talents; the weaponry went above and beyond, straight-up embracing the elemental and bizarre new enemies debuted, including a zombie tank. Yes, it has overpriced DLC, and yes, the gameplay can still get repetitive, but it’s the series’ – and one of Sniper Elite’s – best offerings yet.

2. Sniper Elite 5

Sniper Elite 5 is not where the series’ truly started to take a turn and really come into its own with the sandbox-style levels and freedom of playstyles. It still excels in those regards, refining the realistic sniping we know and love while presenting some of the best levels in the series. There’s also Axis Invasion, a new mode where an enemy sniper can invade your game, leading to even more tense encounters. The key shortcomings of the series remained, but it felt like Sniper Elite finally carved its winning formula.

1. Sniper Elite 4

And it all truly began with Sniper Elite 4, which took the sandbox-like maps of Sniper Elite 3 and went even bigger. Fairburne was more agile than before, capable of clambering up structures to set up his shots. Night missions introduced new twists to the stealth formula and players were freer than ever to strategically take down enemies, go guns-blazing or take a completely silent approach. While it couldn’t overcome the series’ curse of middling story-telling and AI, Sniper Elite 4 achieved a new level, elevating it into something incredibly fun.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human

Techland’s sequel to 2015 sleeper hit Dying Light 2 Stay Human is rightly praised for its freewheeling first-person parkour, but its melee heavy combat is uber-satisfying too. In the spirit of post-apocalyptic societal collapse, surviving face-to-face encounters with bands of ravaging zombies requires utilising whatever object comes to hand – bats and batons to bludgeon, machetes to slice, axes to dice. The brutality of Dying Light 2 Stay Human’s combat is ravishing, with parkour skills in the form of flying kicks upping the fun factor.

Dead Island 2

Deep Silver’s zombie sequel delivers heaps of ridiculous hack and slash action, done so hilariously over the top the blood-soaked brawling on the streets of a zombie-ravaged Los Angeles feels slapstick or cartoonish. And on Dead Island 2’s streets are a mass of improvised weaponry – pipe wrenches and pool cues, meat cleavers and makeshift swords, with an endless supply of craft-able upgrades to boost limb damage, or burn, maim, and shred the undead into gloriously gory bits and pieces.

Dead Rising 2    

To survive the hordes of hungry zombies in Dead Rising 2 – sometimes congregating in gangs thousands strong – player character Chuck Greene can combine everyday objects to create ludicrous improvised weaponry. Duct taping a machete to a toy helicopter creates the Heliblade, the Auger attaches a drill motor to a pitchfork, the brutal bat axe Defiler combines a sledgehammer and a fire axe. Even makeshift vehicles make an appearance such as the battery-fied electric wheelchair, which, to push things even more sadistically can be combined with a merc assault rifle to craft the Blitzkrieg, the perfect killing machine to masochistically roll through crowds of zombies.

State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition

Open world zombie survival sim State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition focuses most on the grim reality of life after a zombie outbreak levels society. Scavenging for food, cobbling resources with other survivors, building a community, and fortifying a home base are the flesh on State of Decay 2’s bones, but with a smattering of zombies stalking the countryside there arises opportunity for hacking and slashing too. Now, ranged weaponry is the usually the safest option, but with a huge list of melee weapons at each survivors’ disposal, it’s much more satisfyingly savage to whack a zombie on the cranium with a nail puller, or get up close and savour every gory detail with a rusty screwdriver.     

Days Gone

There’s a lot to love in Deacon St. John’s odyssey through zombie-ravaged Oregon in Days Gone. Principally, the strategic funnelling of hordes of infected freakers through carefully laid traps to eliminate their numbers en masse in sheer joyous desperation is a seriously well implemented gameplay loop that’s still relatively unique amongst video games some four years after release. This being a post-apocalypse, there are of course plenty of blunt objects dotted around with which to bash freakers over the head with. Crafting recipes unlock even grislier concoctions too: 2×4’s can be stuffed with a box of nails, baseball bats can be made much more durable with a little bit of scrap metal and pipework; even a stool leg can be combined with a saw blade to rip faces off.

The Last of Us Part I

Featuring much more intense hand-to-hand combat brought over from 2020’s The Last of Us Part II, last year’s The Last of Us remake improved character animations, made enemy AI smarter and more tactically astute, and rejuvenated stealth encounters. Of course, encounters can be stealthily skipped, but an aggressive approach to combat is always ultra-satisfying. Whilst it’s a shame Part II’s dodge ability wasn’t included in Part I, the melee weapon-based action remained and with it the brutal satisfaction in decking runners in the skull with a brick or shanking a clicker in the back with a shiv blade.

Killing Floor 2

Killing Floor 2 is dripping in visceral guts and gore, with limbs and entrails constantly flung across the screen. The game’s raft of melee weapons provides multiple satisfying ways in which to rip enemy ZEDs apart too, from conventional slashing katanas and swords, to more unusual items such as the bruising bone crusher, the combination sledgehammer shotgun known as the pulveriser, and the buzz saw spewing eviscerator. One of the best melee weapons in the entire game though is the medieval sword zweihandler. It isn’t especially expensive, but once paired with the massacre perk will transform players into an unstoppable slicing, dicing tornado of death.

Lollipop Chainsaw

Grasshopper Manufacture’s mindless Lollipop Chainsaw, in which players arm cheerleader zombie hunter Juliet Starling with a bedazzled chainsaw before slicing her way through a zombie infested high school, is perhaps the game made for this rundown. Juliet’s knack for pirouetting in kaleidoscopic rays of rainbow and blood is endlessly fun, and that chainsaw in question features tons of humorous, schlocky upgrades: adding an engine and exhaust pipes grants Juliet power to dodge, an 8 rocket cartridge transforms the bedazzled chainsaw into an explosive long-range grenade launcher, and possibly most sadistic of all is the Nick Popper, a speaker phone type attachment capable of launching jock boyfriend Nick Carlyle’s detached head as a projectile.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War       

Ostensibly a shooter set within an alternate history where humankind is locked in endless battle against Hitler’s undead Armageddon, Zombie Army 4: Dead War also features its fair share of glorious hack and slash elements. The sadistic X-ray kill cam from developer Rebellion’s Sniper Elite series makes an appearance here too alongside some seriously killer melee combat, with powerful close-quarter combat weaponry accompanying the brutal fisticuffs. The electric fist, for instance, is a powerful knuckleduster which stuns enemies with a supercharged electrical current; divine blast knocks multiple opponents down with a very useful shockwave; the machete smash blade slices through enemies like a hot knife through butter; and last but not least, the incendiary modified hatchet sets anything within range on fire as well as simultaneously cutting chunks off zombie soldiers withered bodies.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

This isn’t your typical horror; Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice instead chills players to the bone by way of its psychosis laden trauma dripping in existential dread, bringing Ninja Theory’s action adventure close to the realms of the best psychological horror games. Of course, it’s hack and slash combat can be exciting to pull off too, with spritely dodge ability and precise parry systems bringing an element of skill to the button mashing sword swings. Rudimentary combos are also possible with light and heavy attacks that can be chained together to a spectacular stab and launch-kick finishing move.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

The guerrilla warfare aspect and lack of a radar in Metal Gear Solid 3 turned sniping into a fairly important mechanic. Rifles could be used to scout ahead and pick off foes from a safe distance, after all though you still had to be careful about leaving bodies. The true test came when facing The End – if you actually tried fighting him, then tracing his position and not getting caught out was key, especially with how incredible his aim could be. This also opened up a number of strategies like capturing and releasing his parrot while using the directional microphone to find his position.

Zombie Army 4 will run at 30 FPS, at up to 1080p when your Switch is docked and up to 720p when it is undocked. Meanwhile, it will also feature support for gyro controls, while the game will also include all Season One content and post-launch Horde maps for free. Season Two and Three content, meanwhile, will be available for separate purchases. Finally, the game will also allow you to transfer your Steam version’s save data to your Switch- though the reverse won’t be possible, while there is no mid-level progression or cross-platform purchasing.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War launches for the Nintendo Switch on April 26, and is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. You can read our review of the game through here.

VANQUISH

Let’s get the most obvious pick out of the way first. Coming out at a time when the market was flooded with third person shooters, Vanquish provided something different, injecting flair and style into the combat. Vanquish feels excellent to play, and it’s a shame that it wasn’t played by way, way more people.

Apart from these smaller additions, a new mission titled Abaddon Asylum is the main meat of the DLC. Available as a separate purchase or as a part of the Season Pass 3, Abaddon Asylum will see players battling hordes of zombies in well, an abandoned monastery turned asylum.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War has been growing incredibly strong since its release last year, with a plethora of updates and additions to keep players coming back. The game has also been added to Xbox Game Pass and was previously a part of the PS Plus lineup as well. Zombie Army 4: Dead War is currently available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

Final Fantasy 14

Regarded as one of the best MMOs, Final Fantasy 14’s approach is more story-oriented than something like World of Warcraft and can be very much enjoyed as a solo experience. As the Warrior of Light, you venture through Eorzea, battling the Beast Tribes, the Garlean Empire and the Primals while various schemes play out across its nations. Whether you’re focusing on the Main Scenario, indulging in side quests, mastering each Job, partaking in raids and dungeons, or simply completing events, Final Fantasy 14 is full of stuff to do. Just make sure to stick with it past the base game – the story improves by leaps and bounds afterwards.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/15-amazing-pve-games-you-need-to-play/feed 0 476870 https://gamingbolt.com/grand-theft-auto-5-zombie-army-4-dead-war-coming-to-xbox-game-pass-in-april https://gamingbolt.com/grand-theft-auto-5-zombie-army-4-dead-war-coming-to-xbox-game-pass-in-april#respond Tue, 06 Apr 2021 14:20:35 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=475147

Sony’s MLB The Show 21 has already been confirmed for Xbox Game Pass on day one but Microsoft has some other heavy hitters coming this month. On April 8th, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Zombie Army 4: Dead War will be available on the surface, both for consoles and cloud while the latter also arrives on PC. Considering that Zombie Army 4 is included in PlayStation Plus for April, it’s good to see Xbox players also getting it for free.

Also coming on April 8th is Disneyland Adventures and Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure, both playable through the cloud. The former is about exploring Disneyland and its various attractions while the latter sees players exploring worlds from films like Finding Dory, Toy Story, Up and so on. NHL 21 arrives on April 12th for console via EA Play while Rain on Your Parade, an intriguing game about a cardboard cloud that ruins everything, is out on April 15th for consoles, PC and cloud.

Chucklefish’s tactical strategy title Pathway arrives on April 15th for PC while MLB The Show 21 releases on April 20th for console and cloud. This is most likely just the first wave of titles announced for Xbox Game Pass so stay tuned for more details later this month. Of course, a number of titles will also be leaving this month. Check out the full list below:

April 15

• Deliver Us the Moon (Console and PC)
• Gato Roboto (Console and PC)
• Wargroove (Console and PC)

April 16 (EA Play)

• Madden 15 (Console)
• Madden 16 (Console)
• Madden 17 (Console)
• Madden 18 (Console)
• Madden 25 (Console)
• NHL 18 (Console)
• NHL 19 (Console)

March 2021 is already almost over, as hard as it is to believe. While it’s sad how fast the passage of time can often feel, it does mean that all those services that gives out games rolls over to another month. Such is the case for Sony’s PlayStation Plus, as a new slate of games have been announced for the month.

Probably the headliner for the month is Days Gone. The open world zombie title from Sony Bend came out in 2019 and has gotten various updates since then, including an impressive PS5 patch for those who are playing on the system. Keeping up with the zombie theme is Zombie Army 4: Dead Army, the newest entry in the alt history war franchise where zombie nazis took over in World War 2. Rounding it off is Oddworld: Soulstorm, which will release day and date with the game’s launch on the service. Keep in mind, Oddworld will only be the PS5 version despite launching on both PS4 and PS5, though you can still redeem the game for later use even if you don’t currently have a PS5.

These games will be redeemable on PS5 and PS4 starting on April 6th and will run until May 3rd.

Days Gone and Zombie Army 4: Dead War are your PS4 PlayStation Plus games for April, with Oddworld: Soulstorm also available for PS5: https://t.co/WlVLGGMOQg pic.twitter.com/nRH2euYAn1

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) March 31, 2021

Do you enjoy killing zombies? Do you enjoy killing nazis? Well, I’m wagering if your answer to both of those is yes, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is for you. The game once again pits you against the undead minions of Adolf Hitler. In fact, you may have already bought it and are craving more, just like the zombies you’ve mowed down craved more brains and flesh. Well, wait no longer, as the first major DLC is available as of today, and we get to see what’s coming in the future as well.

The first of a three part DLC campaign is live now with Terror Lab. You must infiltrate a hidden lab that holds the secret to why the undead continue to rise no matter how many you seemingly kill. You can see a trailer for that below.

Alongside that we also get a full DLC roadmap, going all the way up to Summer 2020. It includes new DLC missions, characters, weapons, and several free modes and missions that will be given away. You can also check that out below.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can also check out our interview detailing various aspects of the game’s post-launch plans through here.