Steam NextFest First Impressions: Welcome to ParadiZe

Hello and welcome to my sixth and last Steam NextFest Demo post! 😁 Well, last for now. I'll be back with more for the next NextFest, but this is it for this current NextFest.

This NextFest I downloaded 6 demos. I didn't like the first three, I loved the last two, and now I'm hoping that Welcome to ParadiZe will be a good 'un to even it all out.

Welcome to ParadiZe is perhaps the largest of the demos I downloaded at 22gb. According to its Steam Store description, it's an open-world survival-craft Zombie game... where you get to capture zombies and have them work for your base as slave labour and defence.

What else are zombies good for, right? Sounds like a good premise!

Upon starting a game there are 12 characters to choose from, 6 men and 6 women, all of whom have their own style and appearance. Coloured people, white people, a goth girl, a bimbo, etc. While you can't create your own character at least you have a healthy choice.

I choose a lady who doesn't look like she should've survived the past decade of zombie doom — a woman in business attire.

It's also very clearly a multiplayer game, although you can play it in single player too.

Once I've selected my lady I'm greeted with a very amusing cinematic. Apparently some scientists have discovered how to control zombies and have created a protected utopia where people live in peace and harmony, waited upon by their zombie slaves and protectors.

My person is eager to find this place and leave the desolate, horrific city in favour of greener pastures.

For the first minute or two, a Player Two Press To Start notification pulsates in the bottom corner of the screen. I guess the devs really want this to be a multiplayer game and not just a solo adventure.

Either way, it soon goes away when it's clear no one else will be playing, and my character makes her way to ParadiZe... which doesn't seem at all like it was advertised to be.

A man watching a few mind-controlled zombies at work seems surprised to see me, and directs me to another man named Bob to get my own Zombot device so I can control zombies and be allowed to live in the area.

The map looks sizeable and the icons are decent.

Meeting Bob though... I felt some deja vu. His voice. Where had I heard that before?

How to Survive. Another fantastic zombie game. I quickly looked at the developer page, and LO! They did indeed create How to Survive. I am suddenly more eager to get right into this game.

Bob directs me to craft a helmet to jam onto a zombie's head which will allow me to control it.

I swiftly do so and now I have my very own zombie slave to command.

Initially controlling my zombie is as easy as pressing 'Q'.

I see an enemy in the distance? Press Q on it and the zombie-slave will race over and kill it with one hit like the super stronk zombie-friend he is.

I make my zombie-friend leave dozens of corpses in his wake which I proceed to casually loot.

Heading back to the man who originally directed me to Bob, we find him under attack by a bunch of feral, non-enslaved zombies.

I jump into action! Directing my zombie to kill these rampaging zombies whilst I watch in admiration.

THEN THE GAME CRASHED. I mean, it's an alpha demo. But still. It crashed. The audacity.

Back in the game, the zombie rampage was over despite crashing half-way through it and now it was time to wander off and build my own little base in this ParadiZe.

Whilst gathering resources to repair a bridge to cross over into an area more suitable for my base building, I discovered that I could ride my zombie like a mount! xD

I found a nice, suitable spot for a base, near a wood resource spot, and proceeded to make it my own.

I'm a little miffed that I can't just chop down trees and things, but I can overlook it.

Base building is easy enough, accessible from the crafting menu, and I got to work setting up my new little base just outside of the logging area.

Once my base was set up, I created a mind-control pylon and set some zombies to work collecting the nearby wood. I need that stuff for my wood-powered generator that gives me some form of electricity.

It's easy to understand how to control the zombies, how to craft, how to build, how to equip things, etc. It's a very intuitive game.

My only dislike of it is I can't remove resources myself. Like, I wanted to chop down some trees to better make my base more accessible, but alas, the trees are static and can't be removed.

Despite that one dislike, it is a fun game and I'm chuffed that it's multiplayer too. Hopefully my partner likes it and we can play it together!

 

And that wraps up this current lot of Steam NextFest demos! Three games were awful and three games were worthy of adding to my wishlist. I can't complain about that! 😁 I consider that a win.

 

Until next time! 😊

 

---

 

_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game demo: Welcome to ParadiZe.}