Dead Alliance Review: Quite Unfortunate

Illfonic Games has made a tremendous mark in the gaming industry with the launch of Friday the 13th on consoles and PC. Partnering with Maximum Games and Psyop Games, Dead Alliance is officially here for all platforms as well with more undead action. But the zombies aren’t what you need to fear!

Dead Alliance is a PvP consisting of two teams of four looking to complete different objectives. If you’ve ever played Resident Evil Umbrella Corps then you have the general concept in mind. The twist is creating weaponized zombies to assist your team in each game mode.

Now in saying each mode, please note that the full version will later unlock a single player mode that’s not yet available as the development focused closely on the multiplayer aspect, the same method when creating Friday the 13th.

There are plenty of weapons to choose from and up to six loadout slots available which plays an even bigger role. The lighter you are the faster you layer will be able to move across each map efficiently. Each class has additional weapons, perks and zMods that can be upgraded over time as you earn cash during each session. After choosing your primary and secondary weapon, along with perks, skill streaks and grenades, it’s onto the battlefield full of the undead.

Almost! What type of zMod are you carrying? zMods are essential to owning the turf as it allows you to put those infected pest to work.  Starting off I used the Enranger which only turned one zombie but made them extremely powerful. Another often used zMod is the PAM grenade which can weaponize four zombies at once. The downside however becomes having weaker zombies that can die with just a few bullets.

Three are various game modes to play: Free for All, King of the Hill, Capture and Hold and Attrition. What are those? King of the Hill is where your team needs to find the different objective areas and hold them until one reaches the maximum point goal. Capture and Hold is like Domination on Call of Duty where you attempt to hold multiple objective areas until one reaches victory. Then there’s Attrition which plays close to Conquest on Battlefield. Pretty sure you’re familiar with Free for All.

Don’t expect zombies to be much of a threat as you will your enemy, unless weaponized. Unlike Dead Rising or Dead Island they aren’t eager to chase after you. They are simply the undead bystanders walking around for the most part aimlessly.

Bullets are scarce in Dead Alliance. If you waste all of your bullets before dying, quickly find yourself a plan B. I love that strategic feel required as timing mattered when turning zombies.

Unfortunately there were too many issues with Dead Alliance to genuinely offer a stamp of approval. The biggest disappointment is dealing with A.I. in a multiplayer session. With players  running 4v4, if someone leaves it fills that position with a A.I. bot. And in Dead Alliance, these bots literally does little to nothing. For example, in its capture the flag mode the A.I. on my team grabbed the “zulu juice” and then stopped midway. I had to wait for him to die just to grab the canister and push back to home base.

Some can deal with low frame rates, but the consistent animation issues became way too frequent. From zombies clipping across the map, jumping through windows something fall back inside the same side you jumped out of and more, it slowly decreased the replay value that appeared at first.

As for controls, I found myself needing to adjust sensitivity to the max, only to have a normal experience. Movement is extremely slow and clunky; unbearable in some aspects.

Attrition suffers the most, surprisingly from the same issues found in the beta which removes players randomly and doesn’t read team capturing points as you attempt to progress in the longest game mode there is.

It’s only fair to mention that Dead Alliance also deals with the same server issues found in Friday the 13th, including the most recent “User Login Failure.”