So, wound up buying the game while it was 20% off. Figured I'd take a risk since it had the best elements from some of my favorite games, plus its own flair.
Only 2 hours in, but I'm having a blast so far.
It ran fine with no crashes, but I did notice two bugs. Firstly, there's no explosion or fire for things like moltov cocktails or explosive tanks. There's lighting, sound, and actual damage but no visible flames or anything. Secondly, I swapped the Use (f) and Kick (e) keys. They performed their new function, but the new kick key (f) also still did the Use action. It was interesting to simultaneously kick and pull my weapon out of the zombie, but it was a PITA when I went to kick something but it also grabbed the nearby energy drink mid combat. Neither bug is critical or serious, but they aren't something that should be on the back burner, so to speak. Note that I haven't researched to see if anyone else experienced these, so it might be isolated to just me.
Once I edited the config file by hand, the graphics are actually pretty good. Texture resolutions can be a little low at times, but don't fall quite as low as some textures in DEHR. Textures are certainly more consistent in DI than DEHR. Animations seem fine from what I've noticed, though that's mostly just been two types of zombies doing their thing. As a whole, for a DX9 game, it looks good. Certainly nothing record shattering, but it looks significantly better than on a console.
I like the weapon degredation system. Non-upgraded basic weapons degrade faster than upgraded ones, but still last a plenty long time. I upgraded a low-durability knife to Tier 3 (as I call it), and it lasts MUCH longer than it did at Tier 1.
The inventory system also seems fine to me, though it could be improved since it still is designed for a controller on consoles. Thankfully they did add a few mouse-based shortcuts which speed things up, but it still has some annoying console-oriented layout and features.
I also love the weapon throwing system. It's a blast to throw a propane tank into a group of zombies, throw a knife to blow it up, hurl my other knife into a chest of another zombie, and jump kick a final zombie. By that time the zombie with the knife in his chest is staggering back, so I pull it out, decapitate him, then execute the final zombie as he tries to get up.
It ties well into the location-specific damage and dismemberment system. For example, on one zombie I threw a knife directly into his nose, and I noticed that it cut off *just* his nose. I hit a zombie on the left side of their head with a pipe, just the left side of their head caves in. Stuff like that. It reminds me heavily of Die by the Sword.
The voice acting -- without accents -- is actually fine, but once the actors start faking Australian accents it goes south fast (ha, bad pun). I did also notice one or two clipping issues where my hand went through a door or a parasol. And it seems like in this game zombies need air. I kicked a few zombies into a pool and if their head is underwater they continually take drowning/water damage. It was odd, but strangely amusing as I kept kicking a zombie to keep his head underwater until he drowned. Oh, and the voice acting seems to assume you're male and are with more than one person, at least the first main quest giver. He keeps using both singular pronouns such as "him" when referring to you even though I was one of the female characters, and plurals such as "you all," implying there's more than one player when there aren't.
Anywho. I only played some single player, but like I said, it was a lot of fun. It needs some spit and polish for a few things, but at least on my setup it ran good, looked good, and played good (sans the two bugs I found). I just hope it doesn't bomb out as I progress
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