Here, everything begins shortly after the passage of a hurricane on the city of New Orleans. Ravaged, the city then waits for help from the government when a disease leads the vast majority of the population to turn into the living dead. Not really motivated to face the hordes of undead that roam the streets, the army withdraws and abandons the survivors who will therefore have to manage on their own. In this post-apocalyptic setting, the player embodies a man or a woman (whose voice and complexion can be chosen at the start of the game) who will have to struggle to extend their life expectancy as much as possible. After a very brief tutorial that explains the basics of the game, we find ourselves in a kind of clearing near a cemetery where a yellow school bus sits proudly. Welcome to The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners hub. This carcass, which is now our vacation spot, contains everything you need to perk up between two expeditions to infested areas.
We will be able to store our equipment, our weapons, our crafting materials and tinker with lots of things using the three workbenches available. In short, the first will be used to make weapons, the second will serve as a kitchen, while the last is a kind of library that allows us to improve our skills and statistics. Indeed, who says survival game, says gauge of life and endurance. Each hit but also each sprint will tire our character, which will therefore have to be rested from time to time. But by dint of effort, hunger will tickle the stomach, which will then have to be fed as best as possible. Given the shortage of food that is still edible, we will often not end up swallowing anything, which will start our life gauge, already undermined by the fighting. To reinflate the latter, no other choice than to find the rare drugs hidden in the levels, which takes an infinite time. In short, you have understood that survival will be extremely time-consuming in the game.
BOB THE BUILDER
From the first moments, we therefore understand that a large part of the game will consist of bringing back a lot of crafting materials in order to transform our basic camp into a real cozy little nest, with an armory as extensive as that of John Wick. Of course, there is no question of being able to tinker with the best blasters in the game immediately, since each workbench will have to be improved thanks to tons of materials that we will recover from the nose and the beard of the infected who thrive in the ruins of New Orleans. But survival will not be the only goal of the game. After recovering something to fix the VHF radio lying around in front of our bus, we meet a survivor who explains to us that a secret bunker full of resources are stashed around. We will then spend a large part of the game looking for this underground Eden, while meeting a mysterious survivor who lives, like us, on the fringes of the two main factions who are tearing each other apart for control of the city and the rare resources it has. just stay. If we will not dwell on the scenario for nothing spoiler, know that it is not really central, and that Saints & Sinners remains above all a survival game. Moreover, if the studio had sold us crazy dilemmas that would transform the adventure, the reality is a little less sexy. The choices are not very impactful (except at the end), and the two main plots do not really differ in the objectives set. Concretely, we will spend most of our time going to collect items, whether for our personal benefit, or to complete a mission. The choice dialogue system is no different, and our influence is mostly confined to choosing the order of questions/answers.
A LIFE OF BIFFIN
With the story aside, The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners turns out to be a good survival game, provided you know how it works up front. Indeed, the adventure is divided into days, and each day gives us some time to go snooping in a specific area of the city. When the time is up, the bells of hell will ring, and you will then have to scamper off, otherwise you will have to face real hordes of enemies. Once back in our bus, we can then craft without pressure, then drink a little hooch to forget this day, and collapse in the arms of Morpheus. Only then, with each passing day, the zombies are more numerous and more tenacious, while the resources will be less and less abundant. The consequence of all this is that if you have mismanaged the start of the game, it can be extremely complicated to finish the game.
Worse, when we realize that we screwed up, we often spend several days going to fill our backpack with crafting materials in order to increase our chances of survival, without even being able to advance in the story. So, after messing around at the beginning of the game, and after wasting several days trying to improve our equipment as quickly as the zombies get stronger, we simply preferred to start the game from scratch. Moreover, in the event of death, we will have only one chance to find our corpse and thus recover our equipment, otherwise everything will be lost. The less sentimental players will however be able to drop their favorite blaster, especially since as in any good survival game, each weapon has a stamina gauge, and it is downright weak here. Clearly, your super hunting rifle assembled with the sweat of your brow, after hours of grinding the components, will inevitably end up snapping between your fingers, and this, after a few shots.
With bladed weapons, it's even more fun, since you really feel the resistance of the cranial box to the blade, especially when the latter is a little blunt.
As a result, we will be satisfied most of the time with edged weapons, and fortunately, they are the most fun to handle. Indeed, Saints & Sinners offers particularly polished gameplay, which lends itself very well to VR. Taking the form of an FPS, the title offers us a view where each hand is modeled, and we will have to use it to handle a whole arsenal, but also to nab the zombies. Concretely, our character has hoslters at hip level for handguns, a slot on the right shoulder for a long weapon (rifle, studded bat, axe, etc.), while the left shoulder allows us to grab our backpack in order to manage our inventory. On the chest, we can catch our newspaper, as well as our flashlight that we will have to shake vigorously with an unambiguous gesture in order to recharge the batteries. Switching from one weapon to another is therefore surprisingly natural, and all the more so since the pistols work very realistically. To reload a revolver, you will have to open the cylinder, empty the casings, then place the ammunition one by one before closing everything. With the Beretta, it will be necessary to change the magazine as in real life, without forgetting to manipulate the breech in order to chamber the first cartridge. Similarly, aiming is done quite naturally by holding the weapon in front of you, which is essential for chaining headshots. Indeed, headshots are the only way to get rid of the infected effectively. With bladed weapons, it's even more fun, since you really feel the resistance of the cranial box to the blade, especially when the latter is a little blunt. We will therefore have to hold the skull of the zombies in order to pierce it with several blows, or to remove a stuck blade.
BLIND EYE AND BLINDNESS
Two-handed weapons are even better since you can really feel the inertia of the movement. Thus, if we try to handle the studded bat with one hand, the precision and the impacts will be more than random. Conversely, by going there with both hands, we will break cranial boxes as easily as an eggshell. Our hands will also be put to use when searching an abandoned house, each cupboard opening as if in real life, while we can inspect each item found. Better, we can even use makeshift weapons if necessary, like a bottle that we will break to make it sharper. Overall, the exploration is quite pleasant, and we often find ourselves progressing on tiptoe, in order to try to fill our backpack without attracting attention, and without having to fight. If this infiltration approach is rather easy against the infected, it becomes much more complex when attacking humans.
On several occasions we will have to seize things in the heart of a camp of survivors, and there, the story will not be the same. Given the equipment of the enemies, the confrontation is suicidal (unless you grab the aggro, and flee, eliminating the inhabitants of the camp one by one, which takes a considerable time), and the infiltration will be almost obligatory. Moreover, it seems to have been planned by the developers since at certain times it seems to us that certain "paths" are voluntarily cleared. The problem is that the abilities of humans are very variable. Thus, we can almost gallop an NPC without the latter noticing us, while others will be able to spot us at more than 100M, even if we are hiding in a bush.
