End Of Days: Infected vs Mercs

If you’ve played XBLIGs somewhat regularly, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that first-person shooters aren’t exactly easy to come by on the indie channel, and those that exist are, for the most part, sad examples of the genre. I’m being generous with that assessment. Last year’s Nuclear Wasteland 2030, a zombie (the game calls them mutants) wave shooter by Sick Kreations, while not by any means an exceptional product, is the lone passable FPS I’ve played until now. It wasn’t much of a surprise then, to see another promising FPS new to the channel, End of Days: Infected Vs. Mercs (240 MSP), was made by the same developer. Though clearly building on the foundation of NW2030 (the zombies are called Infected now, and carry guns), EOD wisely eschews a lackluster single-player experience and instead focuses on being a multiplayer shooter for up to 16 people.

EOD is almost strictly a multiplayer affair. The demo gives you the chance to test the game’s one map (though admittedly it’s sprawling and vertical enough), doling out cardboard cutouts to acquaint you with the weapons you’ll be running with initially, an AK74u (Russian) and a pistol. Other than the purpose of an offline trial, and to unlock smoke grenades once you hit a preset score, you’ll probably play this mode once or twice and either decide to move on, or make the purchase. If you hit the buy button, you’ll be greeted by three online modes; HeadFest, a big head match where only headshots count for score, and then your standard Free-For-All and Team Deathmatch modes.

While there is no player leveling system represented numerically (I know, I know; I wanted that prestige myself), you can earn points via kills to upgrade your character’s stats (a starter kit of points will get you on the road towards your preferred playing style), improving things such as player health, bullet damage, and movement / reload speed. For those that need to be occasionally showered with unlockable presents (guilty!), you’ll be glad to know you’re not fighting for nothing. Rewards are here for the dedicated, with kill-based tiered weapons and attachments to earn, named generically for different regions (Russian, USA, European, and the neutral NewTech). There are no stats listed for any of the guns, but I’d assume each new unlock gets progressively better (the second gun level, USA, did seem to handle / fire a bit more solidly). In lieu of that arbitrary number next to your name, there are online leaderboards for tracking your kills, making sure everyone can see your lethality and rage quit where applicable. Further accounting for your tastes are different paint / camo for your guns, also rewarded after a set number of kills.

What you have currently, is a rather decent, core FPS in place, but there’s room for improvement. The weapon selection is a nice thought, but more variety (no love for the SMG or shotguns?) and a deeper stat-tracking system beyond K/D ratio would be appreciated, as would new game types, something with objectives that make fuller use of the map’s square-footage. After only a few days, there’s 500+ people on the leaderboard, seeming to confirm that, yes, you’ll have competition, albeit in spurts. New or improved modes would do well in maintaining interest. And again, I like the idea behind the weapon attachments, but one such perk, the grenade launcher, has a laughably-large area of effect. It’s tottering on the edge of being a game breaker, relying on an unspoken gentlemen’s agreement to refrain from continual use. It needs to be nerfed or removed altogether.

The trouble continues in finding a smooth lobby, and once in-game, playing through without a hitch. I’ve had more good experiences than bad, but there’s been some interesting moments, with plenty of players glitching through walls, noticeable slowdown or pauses when new players joined, and outright dropped matches. I’ve seen my share of ‘Network Error’ messages too in trying to search in any mode. It’s a serious issue that drags down your level of fun, but I’m happy I can add here that the developer is fully aware of the problems and very apologetic, listening to feedback and looking to get it patched as soon as possible (for those of you that don’t know, there’s a waiting period for XBLIG updates, and the whole peer review process afterward).

When you do find a working match with more than three or four people, EOD oddly shines, even with its faults on display. If the Call of Duty / Battlefield games are the Redwood Forest in this metaphor, massive and stalwart, taking flak but never showing damage, then End of Days is a single birch; slender, not quite as armored, yet entirely scalable and capable. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.