From the Vault — originally published October 31, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.
Just in time for Halloween, Rockstar have unleashed a Zombie hell upon gamers in Undead Nightmare, the latest DLC for the fantastic Red Dead Redemption.
You again jump into the role of John Marston. After coming home one night to his loving family, they are attacked by the seemingly crazy Uncle. The events following lead John on a brand new single player campaign where he must find out what has caused the dead to walk the earth again and hopefully find a cure.
The gameplay is instantly familiar, it plays pretty much the same as the main campaign, only with a few differences. Each town that John visits has been attacked by hordes of Zombies and you need to rid the towns of the infestations in order to save them. Only then will it create a safe haven where you can sleep, collect ammo, save your game and fast travel. The towns won’t stay safe forever though and soon enough you will be required to rescue the locals all over again. Each town will contain survivors which you can talk to and ask how you may help. This usually consists of bringing them additional ammo, I however found it a lot easier to take the zombies out myself.
Some of the major characters from the main game, such as Seth and Miss Mcfarlene, return in order to give you missions, these consist of missions that are part of either the main story or side quests. You will also run into random people out on the plaines that are in need of some assistance. So nothing drastically different from the main game.
There are missing people that need finding, new weapons, the blunderbuss a particular highlight as it fires out undead body parts which explode on impact, a lot of fun to use. There are new outfits to unlock and new treasure maps to find.
Doesn’t this make the game boring and repetitive though? HELL NO!!!
The inclusion of Zombies has definitely breathed new life into this game and it works fantastically well, whether it’s hunting down a pack of Sasquatch or being chased through Gaptooth Ridge by a horde of hungry creatures is nothing short of thrilling.
There are different varities of Zombies too, the slow moving ones, ones that run and also ones that spew green goo at you.
The storyline is engrossing, the same actors return so the voice acting is top notch due to some great writing. When John uttered the line “I looted you the last time you died” I was hooked and couldn’t put the controller down. This is what DLC should be like, it keeps the game fresh and also comes a fantastic price point, 800 Microsoft Points or £7.99/$9.99 on PSN.
There is still hours of content here, even if you take the time to complete all the missions, save all the towns, complete all the challenges and search the wild for the infamous 4 horses of the apocalypse, you are probably looking at 7+ hours worth of gameplay, and that’s before you check out the new multiplayer options.
There are 2 new modes here to choose from, Undead Overrun, which is a Zombie Horde mode where you take on increasingly difficult waves of Zombies, either alone or with friends. There is also Land Grab which is based in the Free Roam mode which see’s you trying to take control over different areas on the map. Again, both modes are a lot of fun and add even more hours to the experience.
I cannot recommend this DLC enough, Rockstar should again be commended for the amount of time and effort they have put into this pack. Not only have they created one of the very best games of the year but also one of the best pieces of DLC I have ever played. It’s definitely worth the extra cash. However it’s not perfect. I’ve noticed a few instances where NPC’s have not moved to certain spots to trigger cutscenes, pretty much forcing me to load up an old save. John still controls rather cumbersomely so it’s not always easy to avoid being attacked during one of the more action heavy set pieces. Also, whereas the main game was more of a cover shooter, this DLC practically strips that away as cover is not going to stop a pack of Zombie’s running at you, so it’s literally a more run and gun experience this time around. There is also the fact that there are still frame rate issues and some texture pop in that was also present in the main game. For those reasons it does lose a point, however these are not deal breakers by any means and the good points about the game far outweigh the bad.
