Survival Part 1:Modern games and Theory

I hope to write a series of small articles on games that shone out in the past with this concept and modern games that shine with it. So anyway to cut the chitchat and move on with business :D .

Survival mode is the latest craze. I decided to touch on this subject as more and more games are introducing this feature either into the game or series, Gears of War2=Horde, Call of duty: World at War=Zombies, Resident Evil 5=Zombies are just a few of the more famous modes out there then there is Company of heroes Tales of Valor= Stonewall which is not yet that famous but hopefully will garner its support as it is a RTS survival mode.

The famous Gears of War 2 Horde mode.

The even more famous Call of Duty 5: Zombies.

And the silent new comer Company of Heroes: Stonewall.

Well the reason I presume it has gained such popularity is that because of 2 factors:

• 1. Co-Operative play.
• 2. Satisfaction of finishing it.

The first one, co-op is one of the greatest things a game can have. The reason being is that it has a social aspect and a difficulty aspect. The social aspect is that because most times you play it with a friend on the same console or at a LAN, thus you are now interacting with your friends and having a food time. The difficulty aspect is that it’s not like say the Wii where you playing random sports games where half the people nowadays cheat by not doing the full movement or the Playstation where 90% of people play racing versus mode. These modes have the difficulty rating in that there is strategy and a bit of skill required and you are working together.

The second one, the satisfaction of finishing it in games like say for example Gears of War 2: Horde mode where 50 levels of a scaling difficulty after every 10 levels. It gets harder and you are almost there so when you do in fact finish it off, the enjoyment and satisfaction you feel is well indescribable. In games where there is no end like Call of Duty: World at War the satisfaction of beating your previous record level.

Now on to the modes themselves, they vary from defending a building to surviving in a zoned area. Certain games give you certain freedoms and others give you certain restrictions.

But what they all have in common is the balance. In not one are is the mode so im-balanced that you can survive forever. Games like GOW 2 and COD 5: WAW give you points and kills to measure your skill, others like COH: Sonewall jus give you kills.

The real question is can you make a strategy that will make you near-invincible?

So on a final note I just would like to say that any game that has this mode and introduces a certain difficulty level in it, is bound to succeed and get a fan base.

Please note all the views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely the author’s.