Survival-Crisis-Z posts

The sandbox genre hasn't always been populated by games with delusions of complex storytelling. Back before Grand Theft Auto 3, most sandbox games were almost arcade-like, with more of a focus on doing what you want and being rewarded regardless of what you did. The original Grand Theft Autos had a score that doubled as cash, allowing you to complete a mission entirely by killing pedestrians and hijacking cars, if you really wanted to. This week's Freeware Friday game is similar to this mentality. However, it offers much more in the realm of replayability, thanks to its procedurally generated environments and missions. I am talking about a game I previously featured in a news post, the incredible Survival Crisis Z.

Ah, E3. The time of year when game writers go into overdrive. The next week ahead will involve long nights, lots of transcription, and spending quality time with the lovely and talented C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ -- caffeine. We here at Big Download will be no exception to this, and as such, we bring you the E3 roundup for WRUP; the "dude, where's my plane" edition.

Our fearless Managing Editor, Steven Wong suggested a networked game of Diablo II before we all jumped on planes this weekend, but several of us who still had packing to do just looked at him funny. As such, he's been hanging out in Civ4 and City of Heroes. John Callaham figured he'd take the "jump in, frag someone, jump out" route and opted for a little Team Fortress 2 to ease the stress. David Craddock was one of the people who thought Steven had a good idea, though and replied to Steven's request with "Is there any other game besides Diablo II? Yes - there's Diablo III. But that's not out yet. So I play Diablo II. Always. For long time."

On the writer side of the table, both Rafe Brox and Xav de Matos expressed plans to spend some time in WoW. Of course, Rafe said he'd also be playing with power tools, and Xav expressed the intent to play the "omg, get caught up on features" game, which this blogger certainly knows all too well and will be joining him in playing. James Murff is relaxing (not having to jump on a plane) with some zombie love in Survival Crisis Z. When he's not buried in brains, he'll be hopping between Team Fortress 2 and Dwarf Fortress. And of course, most of the crew will be playing the uber-leet Sleep Deprivation game. Luckily, we've all managed to beat that game several times over and we've memorized the content.

So, readers -- What aRe yoU Playing this next week? Will you play Sleep Deprivation with us and stay glued to the tubes for all the news, or will you instead kick back with your favorite game and relax?

How could we have missed this? Thank god for Alehkhs over at TIGSource, otherwise I would've never heard of Survival Crisis Z. A mixture of arcade action and traditional role-playing sensibilities, you play a man trying to survive the zombie apocalypse however he can. It has everything from sandbox gameplay to a living city. The city is even procedurally generated! Talk about replayability. There hasn't been a game that has drawn us in this much since Dwarf Fortress. It's an excellent game and well worth playing. You also might know the developer, James Silva, as the man behind one of XNA's stars, Dishwasher.

[Via TIGSource]