Pandemic Express - Zombie Escape Reviews

It's really "meh" and definitely feels like a wacky mod rather than a standalone. You start in a locked with 6(ish) other people. At a minimum, 2 will be spamming the in-game voice commands and the other 2 will be mimicking that spam with their real person voice. There will probably be a twitch streamer trying their hardest to be funny to their 2 viewers. The developers seem to know this kind of stuff and made it incredibly easy to mute everybody. After 5-10 minutes of waiting, the game will have 15 or so people to play with (max is 30) and a 3 minute timer begins. After those 3 minutes, one person in that room becomes a zombie and tries to infect the others by killing them. This is when the survivors have to run out and loot battle-royale style to get some gear then head to the train to defend it, and where the gameplay loop is. Get on the train, defend train from player-controlled zombies, train stops at checkpoints for you to heal and get ammo, then eventually the train escapes. At its core, it just doesn't feel good. Health is displayed Legend of Zelda style with hearts, 3 to be precise. Survivors can take 3 hits, one goes away every time you're hit, that makes sense. Zombies can get shot a lot, and then the 3 hearts start flashing? Why not just a health bar? Shooting mechanics are weird. Shooting has knockback, and a LOT of it. In fact, everything has insane amounts of knockback. An unarmed punch will send another player 5 feet into the air. There's so much that if you look at the ground and shoot with any gun, you will jump high into the air. Knocking back zombies seems to be the main point of the weapons and finally killing them is more like an added bonus; it takes a lot. I can see why that'd add its own unique thing, but the knockback feels too weird for me to like. Friendly fire doesn't do damage but it will knock you around. Guns are simple. There are several different types: a revolver, SMG, shotgun, rifle, automatic rifle, some others I think? They have a basic rarity system from 1-3 stars and different colors. I guess that changes damage and I think magazine capacity. Nothing very flashy or exciting but nothing really expected either. Nothing is explained in the game, and the "warm-up" mode is just the game with no one else in it from what I can tell. The train itself is a headache. It's very easy to get knocked off since you have to be on TOP on the train and the aforementioned knockback. Despite there being a double jump in the game, I still have to run to the rear of the train where it's lower to get back on. If there's a ladder or something, everyone I was playing with missed it. Zombie play is actually not bad. The bullet knockbacks are annoying, but you can take enough hits and strafe enough where one zombie can get a kill pretty easy. Zombie also get a throw, where they can throw survivors pretty far distances. This is great for throwing people off the train or into your other zombie friends, but again it just feels weird to both throw someone and be thrown. There are two unique zombies currently, one that explodes when it dies, and one that can turn invisible. Most people use the exploding one since it'll kill instantly and the blast wave will knock people all around. You unlock the special classes by playing as zombies for a while until your "special" charges, then when you respawn you pick one of the two. It feels like the current game may favor zombies a bit. Movement as a whole doesn't feel good at all. it feels kind of like an air hockey puck where you're very hover-y and any hit sends you flying all over the place. It's all very clunky and doesn't feel right. It's possible to get knocked high enough in the air for ten seconds of air time, and it's more annoying then cool since it happens so frequently. Zombies will be waiting for you when you land since moving in midair is either sluggish or not actually a thing, haven't really figured that out. Overall the main gameplay just doesn't feel very good, ignoring everything that's just because "early-access". If you like wild, bounce-all-over-the-place physics you'll probably enjoy it, it's kind of fun in its own way but I found it more annoying than anything. The main mechanics of the game just didn't work for me, despite how fun the concept sounded. I refunded the game.

I bought this game by paying money when it was first released. It was a very fun game, unfortunately it is now dead game even though it turned into f2p. I would love to see it revived and play again one day.

---{Graphics}--- ☐ Eyegasm ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Meh ☐ Tiger Electronics LCD Quality ---{Gameplay}--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It‘s just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Dear lord save me ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ Earrape ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Human ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulity}--- ☐ Just press 'A‘ ☐ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{Grind}--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isnt necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Long enough for checking on your Tamagotchi ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{Price}--- ☐ It’s free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ That's cash in the trash ---{Bugs}--- ☐ What bugs? ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ Sonic '06

This game is one of my favorites of all time, but until the developers create a mechanic to stop people from leaving after they've died & become zombies, I can't recommend this game. I've been in situations where I was the first to turn and I had converted 5-6 people personally, looking on the map and only seeing 2 other zombie team mates, the times where this doesn't happen are the exception, something needs to be done asap.

As someone who has played this game before it was FREE-TO-PLAY, this was a $10 well spent. I got to make so many fun memories for the last two years, and surprisingly this game is NOT impossible to play. The player-base is still fairly active, and there's newer players on the leader-board. A few tips I would like to pass out... When in a lobby with five or more players, ALWAYS press enter on your keyboard and type !vote start If the vote has already started, and you don't want to wait 30 minutes for 7 players to show up, then press enter, and type !yes. (Exclamation mark, yes) I would also suggest sending friend requests to others that want to play, that way you can coordinate the best time to join. Usually, there's most players during the weekend, so try hopping on during that time. IF there isn't anyone, then invite your friends to play!

I typically don't write reviews since they usually match (in my opinion) the quality of the game, but with recent reviews being "Mostly Negative", I had to dissent. This game is in no way, and is quite far from perfect, but I think the negative connotation being built may throw future players off. At first, the game will be frustrating at times where you're outnumbered or you just aren't quite as fast as you thought, but all of this eventually becomes easier with learning movement. I was one of the people who had to pay $20 for the game, and I will tell you now, even with "stars", it was not worth it, but now that it's free to play, I think it's more in its league. The biggest issues with the game is the lack of tutorial and ranking system, tutorial for newer players, ranking system for fairer games, but a ranking system cannot be achieved with so little players, and this is why I wrote a review. This game has potential (said every review here), but the negative reviews here are repelling possible players, and thus pushing everyone further from updates, updates like a new ranking system. Do I think this game is great? Hell no, but it deserves a little better than what it's receiving. Currently a 3.5/5 stars from me.

You absolute fuctards. Instead of listening to the community and fixing the crap people have pointed out, you go FREE TO PLAY to try and draw in more of a playerbase, giving a huge SLAP in the face to anyone who bought the game and supported you. F*ck you. I am never playing this game again.

This is a great concept that was mismanaged into the ground. The game itself is great, but for some reason, the developers wanted to make the game as inaccessible as possible to as large a share of their player base as possible. There is an extremely high skill level bar, and experts who have mastered the game spend their days cheating around the map with god-like speed and invulnerability, while the vast majority of the userbase feels cheated for being relegated to the role of cannon fodder, mere NPC's for the hardcore fans. Unfortunately, this product model pissed off the vast majority of the plebian class, who stopped playing and the player base evaporated and moved on. They've tried to breathe new life into it by making it free to play, but that will be just a tiny boost for a very short period of time until this dead game breathes its last. Perhaps if the developers had spent even a second listening to their player base instead of using their moderators to delete and silence any mention of this massive, massive problem, they could have avoided this situation. But they didn't. I'm led to believe that this was all a scam, frankly. A half-assed, wildly unfinished game with minimal resources devoted to development that would get a whole bunch of investment, then abandon the project with all seriousness when the money ran out. The pity is that there was actually a good core concept there, if only the team was capable of making it. Could have been great, now it's not worth the time. Go spend your time on better games, this one is just a shame and a real black eye for TinyBuild.

At first glance it may seem that Pandemic Express is your cookie cutter zombie game, but it is far from that. I originally bought the game because of the unique art-style but really fell in love with the movement you can achieve in this game. ~PROS Unique skill movement that allows you to travel upwards of 100m in a second. Games take a few seconds to find Despite only having one mode, every game feels slightly unique with how the game unfolds Gorgeous art-style Active developments Human to zombie win ratio is not 50/50 which is believe is a good thing, really making you work hard for your human wins ~CONS Lower tier weapons are rather useless and you really need to get airdrop weapons to stand a chance Bomber zombies are over-tuned and result in almost every human death. You're stuck in the spawn with the first zombie and it can snowball rather quickly It is Early Access, so it is far from 'perfect' but the developers do seem to care about the continuous improvement of the game and I cannot wait to see what it has installed for the future.

[b] Satisfying but bittersweet. [/b] [u] Pros [/u] • [b] Movement like no other. [/b] It’s as if a game developer was placed on an empty canvas, given the commands to move their character to do whatever they want: flying, sliding, going beneath the ground, going a million miles per hour by amping their movement speed to light speed. You have a lot of control in the movement, essentially going anywhere, even touching the skies, if you are skilled enough. You can go so fast that you can walk on water. This game’s movement is its strongest point because you are limitless and, it feels very satisfying to do because you worked on it, know the area and certain sweet spots and, cannot be stopped for as long as you hold the momentum. This applies to both sides. • [b] Insane moments. [/b] Imagine being on one of those pro teams that play for a competitive sport, with millions at their seat, behind you, watching you. It is so satisfying to be the last human because you have 10+/20+ zombies trying to catch you while you zip around the train. When you win as the last human, you have many calling you a legend. When you lose as the last human, you have many patting your back as they just witnessed a legend, in the making. This also applies when you are against a single/multiple skilled zombie player(s) since they know what to do, they know what you’re aiming for and, they can do it way faster than you. [spoiler] When up against a human gun hopping, a zombie player can utilize the respawn system to predict where the human is going. [/spoiler] [u] Neutral [/u] • [b] Creativity. [/b] You can do whatever you want in this game, as long as you can will it: launch yourself a million feet above the air [spoiler] by placing three mimic mines near each other, being on top of it and then respawning by holding ‘r’ [/spoiler]; surfing the seas [spoiler] by shooting at it while on top of the water [/spoiler]; turn a game around by using a single furniture. The creativity is limitless. Some other ideas are very useful and utilized, while many has no reward. • [b] Learning Curve. [/b] The game is fun but only fun when you know what you’re doing. Doing the tutorial will guide you but, it won’t put you in the same ranks as players who’ve mastered the movement. The main problem is that you can verse a human person so skilled that you can’t ever touch them the entire game despite them having one goal in mind [spoiler] pushing the train [/spoiler] and being right next to them. Going against a skilled zombie player is very infuriating because you cannot escape them, they will keep launching you back further and further away from the objective. However, it doesn’t take long to master the game but keeping your cool, while learning, is very difficult. • [b] Tactics. [/b] The game is very simple, humans have a single main objective: pushing the train. Zombies have a single main objective: killing all the humans. To do those main objectives, you can do them at your own pace. You can push the train by yourself by using the lowest tiered weapon [spoiler] the white colored / one stars / black coated weapons [/spoiler] and win the game or, you can get the weapon crate, that only spawns one every match in a designed area and get the best weapons in the game, including a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). If you’re a zombie, you could kill everyone one by one or delay the humans by throwing them all far away from the train. Problem is that most of the tactics require team cooperation and are not as effective when doing it by yourself. Most of the tactics are also depended on the number of players there are. Pushing the train by yourself with low tiered weapons wouldn’t be as effective if there was 20+ players in the match. • [b] Balanced at Particular Situations. [/b] The game is very balanced, if everyone was in the same level. If you put in 10 zombie players that are playing the game for the first time and make them chase a single skilled human player, the zombies will not stand a chance. Put 2 skilled zombie players against 10 human beginner players and the 10 humans will get wiped out. If everyone was a beginner, it’ll be balanced; if everyone was a pro, it’ll be balanced. Kill the skilled players and the other side has a very low chance of winning. There are four different spawns, all of them have unique layouts that make the gameplay either easy or difficult for humans/zombies. However, all of the areas have a (couple) comeback point where either side can take a massive lead. [u] Cons [/u] • [b] Bugs/crashes. [/b] There are a couple noticeable and irritating bugs, for example sometimes when someone leaves: every character model is glitched and looks like the leftovers of a paper that was inserted inside a paper shredder. This means that your whole screen becomes unseeable. Another bug is when you end the game while being underwater, your audio becomes bugged and feels like you are actually underwater. [spoiler] To fix this bug, just go under a water source and it’ll fix itself. However, this needs to be done every time you end the game while being underwater. [/spoiler] When a zombie throws you at an inconvenient area, there’s a chance of being glitched inside an object and you can never get out unless the zombie catches you through the wall. The crashes in this game are unbearable and happens frequently. You are lucky and should gamble at a casino, if you can complete 5 matches without crashing. The problem is that none of these issues and various bugs have been fixed yet and has been (at the time of writing this) 4 months, untouched. Whenever the developers release a new patch: more, some game breaking, bugs pop up. • [b] Weapons. [/b] All tiers of weapons feel the same. The lowest tier shotgun has the same knockback, damage, reload speed, and gun hopping capabilities as the highest tier shotgun. The only difference between all of the them is that the higher the tier, the more ammo it has. Instead of having 26 different guns to choose from, you only have 6 weapons. The dot crosshairs (square, at times, for shotgun) is very misleading at times. Sometimes it hits, sometimes it doesn’t. You could be shooting at a zombie player with your crosshair at their chest and it won’t hit. You could have the square box crosshair from a shotgun, perfectly aligned with the zombie’s body and it won’t kill them in one hit, despite being able to, or knockback them at all. • [b] Unoptimized. [/b] The game is very unoptimized and has random optimization issues. It’s a 50/50, when you download the game for the first time, if your game is stuck with having good frames per second (FPS) or bad FPS. It’s locked, it doesn’t matter if you have the best graphics card in the world: you could still get locked with bad FPS. The game also has moments where it’ll lag the game, dropping you to very poor frames; for a couple, it happens either none or rarely, while many experiences it every match for a couple seconds/minutes. You cannot change your controls/button mapping when in a game, only when you are in the main menu. The button mapping does not have a professional and good look, it’s not confusing to understand it though. For example, a couple of the name of the mappings: “moveleft” to move to the left; “zmb_zoom” to zoom in with a weapon (that has a scope); “toogle_second_slot” to change to your second weapon slot.