There is no pay to win The War Z. You can buy masks, food, addons like silencers and scopes (really, if you need to buy these to win, you suck anyways), etc. All these items can be found in game, some rarer than others, and if you buy them and die, you lose them just like any other item. Since I won't be home until the weekend to make a video, I'll give my thoughts here.
First things first, this is "alpha". Sure, whatever. Apparently everything wrong with the game can and should be chalked up to that excuse, so if you can't climb ladders, don't worry, it's alpha. Yes, that is correct, you can't climb ladders. You don't release a game to the public, regardless if it is just a "pre-order bonus" in alpha and not see half the problems they have right now.
The graphics are that of a PS2.5 game, being generous. The textures are absolute shit on most things, especially the foliage. The skyline is painted on, the trees have paper leaves, the rocks look like grey blobs. The animations are stiff and slow. The character animations are a bit better than the zombie animations, but still bad. The zombie animations are pretty bad. You just kind of have to see it to know what I'm talking about, but the way they move, run in place, and hit you is just retarded looking.
The sound is average at best. The music is annoying, and sort of like DayZ, where it just has random moments where something should be happening and isn't. It got old really quickly and I turned it off. The zombie noises come from everywhere, even where the zombies aren't. Unless they spawned one on top of a building, I was hearing one on top of what looked to be a fire station (not enter-able) just making noises (and no he was not behind or to the side of the building). They either breathe heavy or don't breathe at all, or breathe then stop breathing completely then breathe again...it's pretty annoying when they are chasing you and you don't know if they are still chasing you because they stop making noise. When somebody spawns in, you hear an annoying "ding" noise signaling somebody is in. The players also make noise when doing things like jumping (which gives away your position). The forests sounds are annoying and unrealistic, super loud birds chirping and woodpeckers and other wildlife.
The gameplay is horrible. I'm not a big fan of how DayZ works gameplay wise. It is stiff, animations tend to suck, the ability to not jump, and all the glitches are annoying as hell. That said, it works, and I have gotten used to it. The War Z sucks in this regard. While I could get used to it, I don't want to. There is first and third person in the game. first person is a better view as it doesn't allow you to see your retarded looking character move around. However, you have no idea where the item in your hand is showing. For instance, your flashlight is in front of you in third person, but in first person it is to the right of your screen (it is in your right hand, but apparently your character is too stupid to center it so you can actually look at things). When hitting a zombie with a flashlight or a club, you have no idea where you are hitting them in first or third person. Apparently you can only kill zombies with headshots, and I've hit zombies literally 20+ times and they haven't gone down with both a flashlight and a hammer, even with a baseball bat (spiked at that). Either the hit boxes are super small, or the aim is off of where it should be. The zombies are also IMPOSSIBLE to lose. It is super easy, easier than DayZ (regular) honestly, to gather a horde of zombies. They don't slow in houses and there is no way to get rid of them besides weaving in and out of houses quickly or standing on a car (yes, they leave you alone if you jump on top of a car). Which would make sense, except that trees do not seem to get rid of them nor do fences as they just seem to jump right over or find the only hole in the fence. Of course, this wouldn't be such a problem if zombies didn't kill you in four hits, or you could actually kill them with melee weapons.
So not only that, but things like the loot and houses are terrible. The loot is literally almost nonexistant besides food and other occasional things like flares and lights. I've manged to find 2 crossbows, with no ammo, and 2 masks. The other things I've used I got off of bodies (bats and hammers). I attribute this partly to everyone hounding the servers and only having 30% of the map open, but still, there is literally nothing in most of the buildings. Also, all the buildings tend to be the same. You can go in the diner, post office, garage looking sort of thing, barns, and some houses...and that seems to be about it. The placement of the towns is okay, nothing special, but lots of places aren't enter-able or are certain deathtraps where there is no way out, and if the 2 zombies that follow you inside hit you, you're dead. Not only do you die, but you can't use that character for an hour. You can have about 5 characters, and you can delete them, but if you get flashlight killed as soon as you spawn in and want to keep the character, you're SOL for a little bit. I'm told this is also 24 hours in the full game.
Oh, and the PvP. So DayZ PvP is somewhat balanced in terms that you either have to sneak up on someone with a hatchet or get into a firefight (sans sniping) and is generally fair in a "real world" situation type of way. Again, even seeing there is only 30% of the map open (albeit with only 40 players, some less per server), the PvP is ridiculously unbalanced. For instance, a flashlight to the back of the head and you're dead. 1 hit, done. 5 hits with a spiked bat and you're dead. See anything wrong with that? So they start you off with the most overpowered weapon in the game, that can't kill zombies in 20+ hits mind you, and just spawn everybody within spitting distance of each other. Makes so much sense.
Uh, so yeah. Within my 2-3 hours of play that is what I've come up with so far. I'm horribly disappointed. I'll play it again this weekend to see if anything is fixed in 3 days, and I'll wait until the beta to try and get my refund. It is horribly disappointing. Guess I'm waiting on the DayZ standalone.
Oh, and here's my video of the first 5 minutes of gameplay. It is unlisted.
Untitled - YouTube
