NOTE: This game was given to me by the developer for review purposes. This did not influence my review in any way.
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---------------------------------------OVERVIEW-------------------------------------
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Note: XCavalypse is currently in Early Access. The version reviewed was current as of the date of this review.
XCavalypse is a zombie-killing game with a difference: instead of guns, swords, and bits of two-by-four, here you exterminate the undead with a construction excavator!
XCavalypse comes with a content warning when accessing the Steam page. If you're offended by gratuitous violence then you probably wouldn't be playing this game anyway, but be warned that there's a lot of swearing in the short tutorial voiceovers, too.
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----------------------------------------QUALITY-------------------------------------
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Graphics - Graphics are mostly very good. The excavator and outside environments are quite nice, and zombies are pretty good, too, although there only seems to be a handful of different types. The internal site office graphics in the tutorial are woeful, with the building just being a bland rectangle and the telephone a textured box.
The excavator cab is very limited, but that's fine given that it's really an arcade game rather than a simulator. The gore is well done and quite satisfying, with bits of zombie flying around everywhere when you get a good bite of your bucket's teeth through one of the blighters, or pop a head or two.
There are a number of graphics settings, but I didn't play around with them. The game ran smoothly with maximum settings on my old gaming laptop, so I'd imagine it will run fine with any recent dedicated graphics card.
Sound - Sound is XCavalypse is good. There's a voiceover through the tutorial for the protagonist, and a not-so good voiceover for his boss, with whom you speak on the telephone. Sound effects are good, with appropriate hydraulic excavator sounds, together with scrapes, bangs, crashes, and other sounds of destruction when you throw your bucket around. Zombies sound like typical zombies, which is fine, and there are suitable wet, squishy sounds when you tear them apart.
The title music deserves a special mention: it's a jaunty sort of tune with a zombie growl used as an instrument, which is a nice touch that brought a smile to my face.
Gameplay - Apart from a short on-foot section at the beginning of the tutorial, XCavalypse has you killing zombies through operation of a small construction excavator, which you control with an Xbox or similar controller. The game was originally controller only, but recently the developer added a patch to allow keyboard control.
The game currently includes a tutorial and three game modes: Clean Up, Survival, and Head Pop. There's currently no campaign or story mode, although the style of the tutorial suggests there may be one in future, and the developer has stated that he wants to include one.
There's no description of the game modes, but after attempting each one a few times it becomes pretty obvious what the goals are. In Clean Up mode, your goal is to scoop up as many zombies as possible in your excavator bucket and drop them into the nearby skip, earning points for each collected zombie. In Survival Mode, your goal is to survive as long as possible against the never-ending zombie horde, with your 'score' simply being the time you managed to survive. And in Head Pop mode, your goal is to kill as many zombies as possible by bashing their heads with your bucket, earning points for each head-popped zombie.
With only one level (except the tutorial), and that being a very small one, the game currently offers only limited fun. Four Steam Achievements reward you for performing certain actions or reaching certain goals, but there's not enough here to make the game replayable for more than an hour or so. Hopefully the developer will add considerably more content as the game continues through Early Access.
I found the controls quite counterintuitive, with up/down on the right stick being the opposite to what my brain tells me it should be, particularly in the walking mode in the tutorial. Unfortunately there's no way to change these controls, either, so in my early time with the game I was constantly fighting the urge to push the stick the wrong way.
XCavalypse also supports Steam VR, but I don't have the hardware, so I can't review this aspect of the game.
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-------------------------------------PROS & CONS------------------------------------
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Pros:
+ Original use of construction equipment in a zombie game
+ Mostly pretty good graphics
+ Good sound and music
+ Achievements (limited)
Cons:
- There's just not much to do yet
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--------------------------------------CONCLUSION-----------------------------------
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XCavalypse has a lot of potential to be a fun and original zombie game. It's not there yet, but if you want a bit of mindless excavator-fuelled violence then pick it up now anyway, and hopefully within a few months there'll be much more to enjoy.
[h1]6/10[/h1]
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