This review is pretty short and to the point but that’s because so is Death Road to Canada. Expo events became even worse after soap became a rarity The only downside ( if you care about them) is that the trophies/achievements are ludicrous and you’ll be hard pushed to ever complete any but the absolute basics. Your first playthrough to a game over screen might only take an hour but there’s plenty to do here. There are multiple types of story runs to with some zany extreme characters and others with insanely difficult challenges. Boosted skills can be slotted in for customising people to make it an easier experience. Longevity is key here with finding Zombie Points in rare locations, events and moments that outside of the run ( from the main menu) can be used to boost base skills. It should be obvious by now but you’ll get the most out of Death Road on multiple playthroughs. Plenty of combat noises are recognisable ( a weapon breaking for example) and help you navigate the swarm and loot quickly. Don’t expect any voice work but the text all has specific noises similar to animal crossing where you can tell the noises apart.
It all bleeds into itself nicely in a sort of sickly horrific zombies are cool at Halloween kind of way. The sounds and zombies all work nicely and nothing is so pronounced it overwhelms the rest. There are some great music tracks here that are still enjoyable on your 50th playthrough. The quality of Death Road really shines through into the sound design as well. Customising characters is a little limited but it’s enough to make a game that’s a lot more enjoyable than generic characters. Very rarely you’ll take damage or lose a member due to being swarmed by zombies you didn’t see coming but this usually happens due to poor crowd control more than anything else. When the action hots up you’ll find you’re easily able to see where and what needs doing, most of the time. For a heavily text-based adventure the text is easily readable and well written so expect to be reading how your party is progressing with each invisible dice roll. It slips between 2D sprite graphics for the action and old IBM adventure for the text but it all clicks together so nicely that it works well. There’s some cracking visual design at work with Death Road to Canada. The entire game is balanced enough that each attempt is drastically different and you’ll find yourself getting attached to a story only to lose due to a stupid/unlucky choice and starting again. This may all sound super tedious but the gameplay loop is incredibly enjoyable.
Almost all of the stats are hidden at the start of each run and you’ll only learn what they are by trial and error.
As you progress between each zombie slaughter random events will happen to your crew and you will need to guess the best possible outcome to each scenario, typically resulting in either a bonus or more likely a detriment. The biggest challenge isn’t the action scenes with a simplistic run and smash zombies loot mechanic but the dice rolls. A leader sets out to get to Canada and along the way recruits a team, collects gas, health kits, food, ammo, weapons and cars to survive as they go. If you’ve ever played The Oregon Trail ( or the zombie spin-off Organ trail) you’ll know what to expect here it’s a very similar setup but with more fun involved. This is Halloween and what better time to do a special! Although this isn’t really a special of sorts it’s more a game I’ve wanted to review for years with a loose tie to Halloween ( zombies right?) Death Road to Canada is a randomly generated action-RPG so is this a game you want to be rolling the dice on or just another YouTube bait game with no substance? Lets roll! Experience Brexit early!