Deadlight

I Love the '80s: Zombie Edition

It’s hard not to be reminded of previous Summer of Arcade stars Limbo and Shadow Complex when you fire up Deadlight. Like its Xbox Live Arcade forebears, it’s a side-scrolling puzzle platformer, it emphasizes exploration, and it boasts breathtaking art direction. But is Deadlight as good as the Out of This Worlds and Flashbacks from which it clearly takes its inspiration? No, but it’s still one of the finest XBLA titles of the year.

Deadlight is set in 1986 – a time when the absence of modern communication devices amplifies the sense of despair and isolation. Seattle-area resident Randall Wayne is a mess. His wife and young daughter are missing, he’s having painful flashbacks to when he lost his family, and, oh yeah – the city, country, and presumably world have been overrun by zombies.
“Zombies for the 7,369th time?” you ask with rolling eyes? Yes and no. Deadlight is no Left 4 Dead-style action game. It’s true that you do sometimes wield an axe or a gun and must, on occasion, liberate an infected person’s head from their undead body, but Randall progresses by running, jumping, rolling, and generally trying to avoid the red-eyed menace that hungers for the flesh of you and your missing family. You feel anything but empowered as everyman-Randall; it’s possible to mash the B button and shove off one zombie who gets a hold of you, but you can kiss your life goodbye if two or more get within grabbing distance. This ups the tension, often making you think quickly to figure out the ideal escape route from the area you’re in. Occasionally – and thrillingly – the noose that’s perpetually loose around your neck gets pulled a little tighter during the handful of straight-up run-for-your-life scenes as Randall’s chased by an overwhelming undead horde or a machinegun-firing helicopter.

Finding out why non-infected humans are shooting at you is one of Deadlight's fun mysteries.

It’s the search for your wife and daughter that drives the surprisingly engaging narrative forward, and it takes you from the outskirts of the city, through an unexpected trip into the sewers, and into downtown to an alleged survivor safe haven. Naturally, things aren't what they seem, and the story’s numerous mini-twists – all told in graphic novel-esque stills narrated by Randall – paint a bleak picture about the state of humanity. The final, giant-sized plot twist was a shocker, and I appreciated the game all the more for successfully surprising me.

In fact, it’s Deadlight’s presentation that surprised me most of all. Quite simply, its aesthetic is gorgeous, with a silhouetted Randall in a darkened foreground running for his life in front of a drab, muted, crumbling Seattle. Several of Deadlight’s set-pieces are so stunning that I had to actually stop to admire them before pressing onward. Randall’s gravelly, determined-yet-pessimistic voice acting is also laudable, as is the somber soundtrack (seriously, just fire up the main menu and listen).

Like a trapeze without a safety net...

Unfortunately, the overly long sewer section features some frustrating platforming sequences whose solutions blend confusingly into the muddy backgrounds, and worse, its murky look makes you long to get topside to the city’s jaw-dropping backdrops. You’ll also inevitably make a fatal leap in an undesired direction every now and again, and the gauntlet-running final sequence will likely require a frustrating number of attempts and has the only semi-annoyingly spaced-out checkpoint in the game. Compounding this is Randall’s head-scratching inability to swim, meaning any water that comes up past your ankles becomes instant death, a la Grand Theft Auto III. These flaws are the difference between Limbo’s transcendent excellence and Deadlight’s mere greatness.
At five-ish hours – complete with a trio of playable, Easter-egg pocket videogames that each parody modern hits – Deadlight is extremely easy on the eyes and almost as easy on your hands. It never outstays its welcome, and you simply must finish it to discover the story twist you’ll likely never see coming. Thus far, Deadlight is the star of Xbox Live Arcade’s summer.

The Verdict

Deadlight lacks neither style nor substance, and it lasts just about the perfect amount of time. The story is minimal but engaging, and the ending is unexpected -- in a good way. A couple of sections stumble a bit, but not enough to detract from what is an engaging, memorable experience.

PC Version
Download Links:
Part 1 - 600MB;
Part 2 - 600MB; 
Part 3 - 600MB; 
Part 4 - 600MB; 
Part 5 - 600MB; 
Part 6 - 600MB;
Part7 - 190MB;

Have a nice trip.