Shattered Haven Review

Now i’m getting as bored of Zombie games as a lot of other people these day’s, it seems every game needs a zombie mode similar to Call Of duty zombies, or needs to try and copy the popularity of the ,DayZ mod, or something in-between.

The story is zombies are in the world, zombies have killed a lot of people, you play as a survivor trying to find/rescue his and her parents, so basically the storyline to anything zombie related since Dawn of the Dead.

So when I first saw this game after looking at trailers, I just thought it was another zombie game, except it was made in one of the many variants of RPG maker, I wasn’t expecting much. You start off with a tutorial playing as a recently rescued young boy, his rescuer brings him back to his family where his quite young daughter takes a shining to him, they do some mundane tasks and of course zombies infiltrate the house and the kids run away. Pretty standard, though here are where some differences first appear, the zombies are not zombies, just called Greys, though in all honestly they are identical to zombies apart from one small difference. Iron. Iron kills weaker zombies in one hit (So does water) stronger ones such as golden zombies don’t get defeated as quickly but will also become destroyed by this metal. Other items made of different types of metals are useless, though most can not be wielded as a weapon, normal favourites such as shovels and scythes are useless unless they are made of iron.

Now I thought this was an interesting take on the whole zombie idea, giving them a weakness outside of destroying the brain  was quite a fresh idea in a very stagnant genre, then during the tutorial a giant squid runs at me, and follows me around, killing everything, you run into some sewers and that’s where the tutorial ends. Now, its not for everyone, but personally when a game presents me with a giant squid that massacres zombies, then the tutorial ends to shove me into control of their parents? Of course im going to continue to play, at least to find out what the hell is up with that squid!

Apart from the giant squid, the tutorial teaches you the basics, you have three action slots, they cab have weapons or general tools equipped into them, you also can have items such as health crystals equipped, pretty standard affair here, something that surprised me though in this game was the addition of local co-op, which allows two players either two controllers or both on the keyboard to play the game together, something I thought had been forgotten since the era of split screens with online systems in nearly any game these days.

The story itself progresses at a fair pace, switching characters before each segment starts to feel a little stale. They are broken up by small story board cut scenes voiced over quite well in my opinion for a small game such as this which kept the story feeling interesting. Though my favourite part about this game is the music, it’s been a while since a piece of music has put me on edge, it shouldn’t be possible when im just staring at 2D sprites either, but this game seems to manage it. Each of the segments have there own music and almost all fit the feel and the location fantastically adding to some more life into the areas.

Graphically there is nothing to write home about, its your average 2D game, sprites look good but nothing too detailed, think SNES era RPG’s without the nice little overlay effects such as fog, which would of gone a lone way to setting more of a scene in this game, some more work could of gone into this area, to make it feel a little more atmospheric, with the top quality music it’s a shame to see it be let down in the graphical area.

In all this is a niche little title that was an enjoyable game, it’s 2D nature allowed me to continue to play it on a long train journey on my net book easily which is something it usually can not mange, though I know there is a fan base that loves games in this style, as there is a large community for the games made in RPG maker programs, which this game seems to of been made in, as it has the same feel of other games made with it, though this is not a bad thing, it can sometimes feel cheep and amateurish, which is worse if this game wasn’t made in that engine, the characters just feel like they are floating alone, never any real connection with  the floor.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.