It's a bleak, brutal game, playing like some strange hybrid of STALKER, Fallout and Left 4 Dead. There's no map until you actually find one. No prompts showing you the location of other survivors. All you hear is the wind and the birds. Because it's built on such a realistic engine, if you want to go somewhere, you have to walk. If you want to pick stuff up, you can only take what you can carry.
 
If that wasn't making things hard enough, the mod's developers have added extra survival elements, like the need to eat and drink water. Two things which you'll want to do, since you take the role of a persistent player; leave a game and, if you're still alive, you'll come back in the same spot with the same gear. Die, though, and that's it. The weapons and tins of beans you worked so hard to get are gone.

Once, I logged on in the middle of the night. During my previous sessions I had been making my way through the countryside to what I was told was a town ripe for the picking, travelling with a friend who was now fast asleep. I decide to take a shortcut through a small village, which turned out to be a terrible decision - it was full of zombies.
 
So there I was, being chased along the road by a dozen zombies for what must've been half an hour, when I see a flare in the distance. It looks like it's on the roof of a building, but it's hard to tell from this distance. I stop running for a second to announce that I'm in need of help, during which time I'm struck in the face and start bleeding. Almost immediately I get a reply - "No problem, come on over". Slowly losing blood, I make my way over and find that it is indeed a building (and a pretty big one, at that). I climb a few flights of stairs, but see no entrance to the roof. Frantically searching, I hear a moan. They're catching up. Suddenly, I hear the flick of lighter, followed by a blinding red light - the guy drops a flare down, revealing the ladder that was hiding behind a stack of crates. I'm struck once again while I'm putting away my mostly-empty revolver. My vision darkens as I climb, gunshots echoing as my newfound companion covers my escape.
 
The gunshots stop as I finally reach the top. I'm safe. He points me towards a pile of ammo and we chat for a bit while he gives me a transfusion. In the first downtime I've had in quite some time, I realize how incredibly hungry and thirsty I am. I ask if he has anything to eat, to which he replies with a laugh, "You too, eh?"
 
A scream echoes in the distance. Blam. Blamblam. Another scream - no shots this time, though. I look toward the horizon, deeper into the city where I see a figure basking in the faint light of a distant flare. It's another survivor, and it looks like he's in trouble. Without hesitation, my savior whips out he rifle and, after adjusting his zero, takes aim and fires. The shots hit and the zombie goes down, as expected. What we didn't expect, though, was the massive horde that proceeded to sprint through the light towards us. Shit.
 
We decide that it'd be a waste of resources to try and take them out from all the way over there, so we wait for them to get closer. We manage to pick off a few before they round the corner of the courtyard and escape our line of sight, which uses up the majority of our remaining ammunition. Their cries now louder than ever, we figure they're probably in the building. "We fight to the end!", he says. No disagreements here. While waiting for death to shamble up the stairs, we reminisce about how we first met - oh, it seems like only yesterday! We expend the rest of our ammo on the first few to climb the ladder, though there are many still filing up the stairs.
 
We back as far away from the entrance as we can and wait. Guns as empty as our stomachs (and my veins), we watch as the first zombie steps floor on the roof. The chat was unusually dead, so it wasn't hard to see the message in my peripheral vision - "Goodbye, battle-brother. We made a hell of a team." I turn my head as he takes a single step and leaps off the edge.
 
The rest, well, you can probably figure it out.

Quelques infos sur Dead Space 3
 
Annoncé officiellement aujourd'hui et prévu pour le mois de mars 2013, Dead Space 3 refait parler de lui via plusieurs informations en provenance du site d'IGN. Comme on pouvait s'en douter, la série suit donc lentement, mais sûrement le même parcours que Resident Evil puisque les développeurs ont a priori pensé à un mode coopératif pour ce troisième volet. Bref, voici ce qu'on sait actuellement, en plus des infos scénaristiques, même si le tout reste à confirmer :
 
- Le jeu ne serait pas uniquement jouable en solo et proposerait l'aventure complète en coop puisqu'il semble qu'Isaac ne soit pas le seul survivant du crash de sa navette sur une planète de glace, lieu de l'action. Il sera ainsi possible de résoudre des puzzles et de surmonter des obstacles main dans la main tout en s’échangeant armes et munitions. Par contre, s'il sera possible de soigner son compagnon, on ne pourra pas le ressusciter, la seule option possible dans ce cas étant de repartir du dernier checkpoint. Notons aussi que certains traumas ou hallucinations vécus en solo n'apparaîtront pas en coop.
 
- D'un point de vue du gameplay, Isaac pourra bénéficier désormais d'un système de couverture en se protégeant derrière des éléments du décor. Par ailleurs, il pourra effectuer des roulades de côté ou utiliser la télékinésie pour faire tourner des objets afin de résoudre des énigmes. Enfin, les armes profiteront d'un nouveau mode de tir alternatif à l'image du Cutter Plasma qui disposera d'un tir repoussant les ennemis pendant que le Pulse Rifle pourra cette fois tirer des scies circulaires. A ce sujet, signalons que le système de customisation d'armes sera revu et amélioré.
 
- Pour la première fois, on pourra affronter des humains. Certes, on en trouvait dans Dead Space 2 mais eux seuls pouvaient nous tirer dessus depuis leur navette. Cette fois, il faudra affronter des soldats en armure armés de grenades qui pourront bien entendu se transformer en Nécromorphes. En parlant d'ennemis, on retrouvera des versions plus grandes des horribles gamins de Dead Space 2 ou bien encore des boss sous forme d'araignées géantes ou de gigantesques vers. Notons enfin qu'il faudra parfois composer avec l'environnement hostile lorsqu'on évoluera en extérieur. Un côté Lost Planet ? A voir.

Bioshock Infinite repoussé
 
On peut dire sans trop s'avancer que Bioshock Infinite était l'un des jeux les plus attendus de cette fin d'année. Il risque visiblement d'être attendu encore un peu plus longtemps puisque Take Two vient d'annoncer que sa sortie est repoussée. On attendait ce frétillant FPS pour le mois d'octobre prochain mais son lancement vient d'être décalé au 26 février 2013. La nouvelle est d'autant plus étonnante que des rumeurs circulaient ce matin même concernant une sortie prématurée de Bioshock Vita... Bref il faudra prendre encore son mal en patience pour découvrir la mystérieuse cité aérienne de Columbia qui ne dévoilera ses charmes qu'au début de l'année prochaine.