Final Days

Review

The final countdown has been confirmed; it’s official - there are only 16 humans left on earth! The good and the bad news is that you are part of the last 16! The question is . . .  for how long? The constant use of advanced warfare has mutated the rest of the human population, turning them all into crazy, deformed creatures that make weird noises and attack anything that moves! We are the last of our kind to experience the . . .  Final Days!

Final Days is a top-down arcade multiplayer game where you take control of one of the last surviving human fighters!

In the main menu, you can select to join or host a multiplayer game, play offline or learn how to play the game with a short tutorial, which is the basic training.

In the multiplayer mode, you can easily setup a game with up to 16 of your friends, or play by yourself with four bots at your side. There are four levels of difficulty to choose from. The first two are Recruit (normal) and Veteran, and are available for selection straight away. The other two, Elite and Suicidal, both have to be unlocked.  In terms of mode of play, you have two campaigns. In the Rendez-vous, you must survive all 7 days to win the game. Each of the days has a specific number of waves of mutants to eliminate in order to get to the next day. In the Escape campaign, you and your teammates will be locked in an underground bunker, and your goal is to reach the exit on each of the floors to reach the surface as soon as possible. In this mode, you can select to start on three underground floors (20, 15 and 10) and you’ll have fewer power-ups available to pick up, making it harder for you and your friends.

The other two modes are Last Stand and Eradication. In the last stand you have to push back wave after wave of mutants. If you die during a wave and one of your teammates is still alive after the onslaught, you’ll be able to respawn. The game will end if all players die within the same wave.

In the Eradication mode, your goal is to clear all floors of mutants from an underground bunker. However, you must complete the Escape mode in order to unlock this mode.

I played this game with my two great friends, PistonSmashed and DamageInc (check out our video on Zeeplay Channel) and I must say we had a ball!  I also gave it a go by myself and utilised the four bots available in the game. I personally found it slightly easier to play with the bots than with my mates. One of the reasons is that the bots are more likely to follow you rather than hide behind Czech Hedgehogs or crates (wink at Piston).

All the maps in this game are pretty small, regardless of which mode you decide to engage in. At the start of the game, all survivors will be armed with a handgun. As a player, you’ll be able to move your survivor around by pressing the WASD keys, and use your mouse to move around a red target to shoot the mutants. Some of the mutants will drop power-ups after being killed. These power-ups are represented by small, coloured squares with two letters on them. The blue square with the letters SF will be the spread firepower up (like a shotgun), and the blue icon with the letters RF will be the rapid fire (like a machine gun), and there are more. The one that can help inflict the most damage is the pipe bombs, as it attracts the mutants, who run towards it before it explodes.

There are a few types of mutants. Some are bigger than others but what you need to look for (if you have time, of course) is their colours. The reddish one will be the hardest to kill regardless of their size. It’s truly an epic game!

Graphically, Final Days looks great and has an upbeat soundtrack. In terms of the controls, they are really responsive. Give it a go either with your friends or by yourself; you’ll have a lot of fun!