Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green

"An example of how the gamer community can turn a lack luster game into a great one!!!"

Doing a review for George A Romero's Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddlers Green is a bit interesting. Mainly because there is....the game that was released, and the game that it has become! To make a long story as short as humanly possible I'll just say that Land of the Dead "Or LOTD" was released as a budget game for both PC and Xbox awhile back, the results were mixed to say the very best for the game. Some of the reviews were flat out brutal to the point that not a hint of fairness seems to have been handed to game itself. Well as it turns out since the games release LOTD has become something of a testament to the modding community, as a mediocre game has become something certainly worth playing and talking about.....all I can say is...I shed tears for whoever bought the Xbox version. This review might be a bit confusing cause I'm going to rate each section in a before and after manner. First the rating for the game upon its release, and then the rating after being modded.

Graphics: 6 While the Xbox version of the game was rather horrid on the eyes, the PC version is certainly not a horrible looking port. It uses the Unreal Engine as many FPS's these days do so you pretty much know what to expect. This is also good news as that means a lot of low end systems can still manage to play the game without problems. Levels are pretty detailed most seeming to give you a good idea of the carnage of a zombie outbreak. Burning cars, half eaten corpses, fires, road blocks litter the entire game. Its certainly a convincing mess. But the same textures seem to be used over and over again, and you soon begin to get the feeling that although your well into the game everything around you just seems way to familiar. This tends to make the maps seem dull after awhile. But what about the zombies you say..they look good right? Well yes and no. The undead themselves are rather detailed, to the point that you can see blemishes on they're faces and skin. The model detail is top notch. But heres the bad part, apparently there just aren't that many different looking zombies. Their seems to be around 10-13 different models that are just randomly thrown at you over and over again. At least they randomly have damage placed on the models such as bites to the face neck or bullet holes, but its hardly the same thing as actually seeing different zombies.The rag doll physics are rather nice...but they seem to be "off" at times. sometimes I would shoot a zombie point blank in the face only for the zombies corpse to fly or fall sideways instead of backwards.The gun models are some of the worst I have ever seen in a FPS especially the revolver, they look alright I guess...but they could of at least glossed them up a bit. If you bought this game chances are your a fan of George Romero's zombie movies. Which were famous"or should I say infamous?" for mass amounts of head shots, gut munching, and limb ripping. Well while LOTD is rather gory its hardly stomach turning. You can blow off heads and limbs and blood splatters on floors and walls and zombies eat you when you die..but thats about it. The splattered blood disappears almost as soon as you see it, and the limbs just seem to disappear when you sever one. And when zombies feed on you, they just pull chunks out your corpse and chew it up...no actual damage is done to the model. Well...at least blood squirts from stubs, and it is rather funny to blow off an undeads leg and then one arm and watch it flop around helplessly.

!!AFTER MODDING!!:8 Not much changed as far as the graphics go, a few added multi-player weapons that look better then the originals, some added textures. Overall...as I said before..the graphics are not bad...just nothing special at all.

Sound:7 The sound in the game is actually rather creepy the music, as well as the sound of the zombies moaning in the distance as well as gun shots and screams are all well done. The voice of the main character Jack is ok I guess...he's a convincing redneck. But sound looses points because there just aren't that many voices in the game. Jack, Otis, TV announcer, and the guy on the radio...thats it. You only hear Otis's voice once in single player....and he's the announcer for multi-player. The gunfire is good....but its just standard stuff.

!!AFTER MODDING!!:9 Great just great, a lot of added sounds and even music for multi-player maps. Some maps even have classic music and voice samples from the Living Dead movies.

Controls:8 Its ok all around, its a PC game. So if you don't know how to play a FPS on the PC...somethings not wrong with the game...SOMETHINGS WRONG WITH YOU!! The addition of the sprint button is odd at first, but..you get used to it fast. It hasn't changed any after modding.

Story:6 The story isn't great...but the game gets points for actually having a story! Its a prequel to the Land of the Dead movie, following a simple farmer Jack as he finds himself caught in the middle of a zombie holocaust. As he searches for more "living" people he begins to hear things on the radio about a "city of the living" and decides to make his way there. Easier said then done with flesh eating ghouls biting at your heels.

Game Play:6 This is where the game fell flat upon its release. The game wanted to instill the kind of fear that was present in George Romero's movies. Your surrounded by dozens of flesh eating zombies and you have to blast your way out..simple as that. The only way to kill them is destroy the brain, although unlike the movies if you shoot one enough times anywhere it will die....but your best bet to not waste ammo is to aim for the head. See the potential? Well thats the problem...the fear of zombies isn't how dangerous they are....zombies are for the most part, slow and very stupid. So that fear comes from they're mass numbers. The idea that regardless of how many guns you have, if you get backed into a corner....your screwed with a capitol S. And although its only preset in the multi-player after modding, if you get bitten and manage to survive...your still screwed as you'll slowly die and become one of them. Well..In single player and multi-player you are surrounded by at the most 5-10 zombies at once. Which considering how slow and stupid they are..its hardly scary and hardly a challenge. But from time to time zombies will dash at you quickly and give you a jump, and the ones that walk on all fours are really creepy. Some are like normal zombies only they spit infectious bile at you. It slowly poisons you for a short period of time, also if you get to close they will begin to shake and explode causing the same effect as if they spit on you. Some zombies that are rather tough carry melee weapons...No one shot kills on them. Your gonna be running through and opening and closing a lot of doors through the game. But thats not going save your ass because zombies can and WILL break through doors over time. A neat little feature that adds strategy and just looks cool, thankfully it is used often. But in the end you basically run about through dull levels killing small waves of zombies until you reach the end of the game. The weapons although ugly are rather useful. You have all sorts of guns. A .22 rifle...which is almost useless. A revolver which is your first decent weapon in the game as one head shot will kill a zombie. A shotgun that has good spread but the hit detection seems to be off. A Semi-automatic pistol, machine gun, sniper rifle. Throw in all types of melee weapons and Molotov's and grenades and you got a pretty decent line up of weapons. Melee weapons have an Alt fire which knocks down undead...which is very useful when your surrounded. Killing zombies becomes fun once you get your hands on most of the arsenal...but it gets old quick.

!!AFTER MODDING!!:8 After modding the single player nothing seems to have changed much at first sight. Then all the sudden instead of facing 5-7 zombies your surrounded by 30!! As if that wasn't scary enough, they are more prone to run at you now, and they appear at random BEHIND YOU!! Yeah the game got a lot more jumps out of me after that. But the game play is still overall the same just a lot more fun...but fun is what counts.

Multi-player:5 Out the box the multi-player was pretty bad not for the fact that it was lackluster, but that the maps are just way too small especially the invasion maps. But this is where I believe the modding community saw the potential of this game. You get your standard Death Match, Team Death Match, Capture the Flag stuff...but with a twist. Zombies are always present...even in Death Match while your running around gunning each other down, your going have to deal with zombies that get in your way. This was a really neat feature that made the game just a little more interesting, including the Invasion match where the humans team up or compete with each other to see who can kill the most zombies that randomly spawn on the map. But with only a few zombies per wave..and the extremely small levels it wasn't executed very well.

!!AFTER MODDING!!:10 You pretty much guessed right off the bat they fixed the small map problem...as not only are all the maps pretty big now...most are amazingly designed. One map even has a board door feature! Where you can board up doors as zombies try to break into the house! Along with that zombies seem to swarm in the hundreds now!! Some even scream and run at you full speed like the recent Dawn of the Dead remake!! And yes it actually is terrifying at moments. So be prepared. Along with extra weapons, maps, skins and so fourth the multi-player is clearly the best part of the game. Plus you won't have a hard time finding someone to play with as the community is surprisingly very active, and it seems like ever other sever has a brand new map or mod that you don't have...so to get full enjoyment...I suggest you get a high speed connection.

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddlers Green truly is a testament to how in the PC world as long as gamers love a game and can see the potential that the developers couldn't or just couldn't afford, they will do all they can to keep the game alive and make it a more enjoyable experience.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06