Nation Red

Nation Red – Review

Published By: Diezel Power Studios/Kaos Studios, Developer: Diezel Power Studios, Genre: Shooter, Release Date: Aug 23, 2009, Rating: NA, Systems: PC.

Presentation: Nation Red at its essence is a arena style zombie shooter featuring different classes, a progression system with different gamemodes. Right away i got the vibe that this game didn’t have a huge budget due to the continuous replays of the same CGI cutscene and music at the title screen. The presentation highlights rests in Nation Red’s fast frantic arena shootouts with hordes of mutants and the undead. I did like the perk system and classes. Where this game clearly devolves is with its story, or lack of.

The main title screen shows Single Player, Multiplayer, Random Perk Mode, Tutorial, Select Profile Class, Statistics, Options and Quit. I first checked out the Select Profile Class which shows all of the various classes and what their strengths and weaknesses were. You have Sniper which has the ability to cloak. Gunner uses RAGE which is like a berzerk mode. Medic uses a special shield (all palyers can heal downed players). Scout uses Flashout which i never used. I’m thinking its a spotter type of ability. All classes are ranked differently for Speed, Healing, Targeting Accuracy, Reloading and Armor. Every class has two weapons that varies between them.

The controls are keyboard & mouse: W.S.A.D or Arrow Keys-move, LT Mouse-attack/fire weapon, RT Mouse-kick, Mouse Wheel-set camera height, E-roll/evade, F-lock and unlock weapon, Mouse-aim. The controls were good. I liked how you can switch camera angles from a top down to a more behind the shoulder view with the mouse wheel. Aiming and shooting was crisp. Evading hordes of zombies was doable with the evade/roll which was easy to do. I kicked about thousand zombies and mutants in Nation Red. So yea controls are good and that helps out the presentation. The game did freeze up on me a few times however no in-game glitches or weirdness to report. Navigating Nation Red’s menus was seamless.

Story: None whatsoever. Almost all zombie games have a tacked on story of some sort about how the outbreak started or why the protagonist is fighting them etc. Nation Red has nada zilch in the story department.

Visuals: Graphics were a mixed bag but i must say overall decent. There was imagination regarding the mutants and zombies although they been done before. The CGI was ok nothing great. I’m sure it was better three years ago when the game originally released. The problem with Nation Red’s visuals isn’t so much its texture work but more the color and art scheme used when designing the playable class characters and levels. Most of the levels featured alote of browns, greys and tans and nothing else.

Sound Design: Dismal music and sound effects that were regurgitated over and over. Nation Red basically uses one soundtrack the entire game. It doesn’t matter which gamemode or if you were at title screen the game used the same music.

Gameplay: Nation Red is a twin-stick style arena shooter. Since it is a shooter lets talk about the weapons. You have: Glock 19, Crowbar, MGL, Machete, Mac 10, Axe, M79, M1014 Shotgun, M107, Nail Gun, Uzi, Duel Uzi, Flame Thrower, Jack Hammer, AK-47, M240B,Steam Hammer, Duel Glock, M4A1 Carbine, Super Shorty, Beretta 93R, MP5K, AA-12 and Minigun. Yes this game has plenty of unique guns and weapons. I do have my favorites *cough minigun*. However the gameplay is so frantic and wild that you can’t appreciate the guns. Sure some shoot slower or faster or “feel” different when shooting. Its just this game is too frantic and oftentimes your just picking up weapon drops due to the chaos. Many times i accidentally picked up guns i didn’t want by accident.

Gamemodes include: Free Play which is just a simple infinity arena shooting gamemode. Its just mindless fun. Barricade is a wave type gamemode where you (three AI bots) or up to three other players online can play. You are stuck behind a makeshift barricade facing waves of mutants and zombies. I had the most fun with Barricade (played it alone and online). The waves got more intense featuring mini bosses thrown in like the Minigun Zombie. Survival is a bare bones gamemode where you just survive as long as possible with only weapon drops. I didn’t really like Survival. Total Kills and King of the Hill rounds out the rest of the gamemodes. Every gamemodes for some reason aside from Barricade wasn’t really fun and all seemed the same when playing them. Power-ups were available and served gameplay nicely.

Bullet Time is activated when you get a certain amount XP from kills. It slows down time and makes you a one man/woman zombie killing machine. Leveling up takes place on each game you play. You can acquire perks as you leveling up. Perks run the gambit some i acquired while playing included: Less Clumsy, Mano a Mano, Mercenary, Mirror Image, Shrapnel, Regeneration, Messy and many more. Perks do add a real dynamic to Nation Red’s gameplay. It was fun activating Perks in-game while playing Barricade. In Custom menu you can play custom user generated maps. Too bad there wasn’t one map to play. Speaking of which there were barely any lobbies to play online matches either. For the record i played the Free to Play Weekend version of Nation Red via Steam.

Replayability: Various gamemodes and maps like Gas Station, Roadworks, Warehouse and Bridgehead are good maps. The various classes and leveling up system coupled with Perks might make you keep coming back. The problem is that the community is practically non-existent.

Final Verdict: What Nation Red boils down to with me is that the gameplay while fun at first becomes shallow fast. The music becomes stale and the viauals aren’t imaginative. No story either.

6.5/10