Retro Review – Land Of The Dead: Road To Fiddler’s Green

<p>I&&num;8217&semi;m pretty sure that everyone who reads my articles knows how much I love survival horror&period; What they may not know is how big of a fan I am of the George Romero zombie movies&period; Which makes me surprised at how long it has taken me to continue my journey to Fiddler&&num;8217&semi;s Green&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve had this title for quite sometime&comma; yet I&&num;8217&semi;ve never beaten it&comma; nor really gotten myself invested in it&period; That has changed&comma; and I regret not playing <em>Land of the Dead&colon; Road to Fiddler&&num;8217&semi;s Green<&sol;em> earlier in my life&period; If I&&num;8217&semi;m remembering correctly&comma; this is the first game to be a first-person zombie murder fiasco&comma; and Brainbox Games did an amazing job with it&period; We all know that licensed games generally should not be purchased&comma; but this one holds onto the license well and is a pretty decent horror game for being an eleven year old game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This title is a prequel to a movie of the same name&period; You play as a farmer named Jack who suddenly gets caught up in all the zombie bloodshed&period; Your goal is to escape and find survivors and a place to hunker down&period; The first thing you must do is escape the farmhouse you are in&period; To do this you have to find all of your guns&comma; which are oddly scattered in some weird places&period; Once you are armed to the teeth it is time to go check in on the neighbors&period; I had to walk through a cornfield which had to be the creepiest part in the game for me&period; Walking first-person through this field with barely any vision&comma; and hearing the zombies all around me almost made me crazy&period; Thankfully&comma; I escaped and got to the city when I continued my survival quest&period; This game is very liberal with the health and bullets lying all around&comma; but it makes it so you don&&num;8217&semi;t have to run away all the time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;111498" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-111498" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-111498 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;14224522&sol;134051-land-of-the-dead-road-to-fiddler-s-green-windows-screenshot&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;LAND OF THE DEAD&colon; ROAD TO FILLDER'S GREEN - BRAINBOX GAMES&rpar;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-111498" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Land of the Dead&colon; Road to Fiddler&&num;8217&semi;s Green<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Groove Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The controls are pretty standard for a first-person shooter&colon; RT is fire&comma; LT is run&comma; A is jump&comma; X is action and Y is reload&period; Obviously fire and reload are insanely important seeing as you have to lay waste to hundreds of zombies&comma; but run is quite important as well&period; The controls are quite clunky and it takes a while to line up good shots&comma; so running away and lining them up is a good way to survive&period; You can&&num;8217&semi;t run for very long distances though &&num;8211&semi; Jack must have been a smoker as he starts to breathe heavy after a few minutes&period; Surprisingly&comma; Brainbox Games was way ahead of their time with this title&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m going to have to wonder if the developers of <em>Left<&sol;em> <em>4 Dead<&sol;em> and <em>Dead Island<&sol;em> played this title&period; So many of Branbox&&num;8217&semi;s ideas wound up in their games that it is a wonder <em>Land of Dead<&sol;em> gets so little credit&period; Once again it is nice to go backwards a bit to see a little of the inspiration for some very important games now&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The graphics are typical for the Xbox era&period; They look good&comma; but not super good&period; You can tell what to kill and where to go but the details are lacking&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m not complaining as I miss this era of imperfection&period; For some reason I like it the best&comma; faults and all&period; Sometimes the draw distance isn&&num;8217&semi;t as good as it should be and some zombies can sneak up on you because the further half of the level isn&&num;8217&semi;t visible to you yet&period; Sound is good&semi; you can hear the groans of the zombies and the crackling of the fires in the distance&comma; plus the guns sound nice and powerful&period; The soundtrack fits the genre so perfectly as well&period; It is a very lightly done piano orchestra type sound that just makes the game all that more creepy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;111499" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-111499" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-111499 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;14224629&sol;land-of-the-dead-road-to-fiddlers-green-18&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;LAND OF THE DEAD&colon; ROAD TO FIDDLER'S GREEN - BRAINBOX GAMES&rpar;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-111499" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Land of the Dead&colon; Road to Fiddler&&num;8217&semi;s Green<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Groove Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>They could have varied up the zombie types and looks a bit more&comma; but they went with a huge set of twins and triplets for zombies&period; As you progress through the game though you meet some new types&semi; one comes out of vents in buildings and crawls all over the place like Leon&&num;8217&semi;s best friend The Licker&period; The one that I found the worst was the &&num;8220&semi;gassy zombie&period;&&num;8221&semi; This zombie&comma; if you let it get near enough would throw up on you which would cause you to lose health and vision over time&period; They were a huge pain in the butt and I made sure to snipe them as soon as I saw their gass cloud&period; Whatever area I was in&comma; I would gun for them first&semi; when I was on the Gatling Gun or using the sniper rifle I would hunt down their distinct green wavy hue and end their second life real fast&period; These varying areas spiced the game up&comma; turning it into more of just a kill zombies with normal guns game&period; I enjoyed my time guarding people with the sniper rifle&comma; and my time keeping zombies out of Fiddler&&num;8217&semi;s Green with the Gatling Gun&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Land of the Dead&colon; Road to Fiddler&&num;8217&semi;s Green<&sol;em> was the zombie game that I needed right now&period; I enjoyed seeing the roots that Brainbox Games started for developers like Techland and Valve&period; The first-person zombie melee shooter was born on the original Xbox and really needs to be played by zombie enthusiasts&period; The game is also on Steam if you don&&num;8217&semi;t have a working original Xbox or cannot find a copy of the game&period; Hunting it down will be worth your time&period; Sometimes it is nice to sit back and play some of our gaming history&period; I enjoyed my time in the past and I think you will too&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;