When the first State of Decay came out, it was unique in the way that it focused on the survival aspect of a zombie apocalypse rather than the all-out destruction and gore of killing countless zombies. With the new game, the developers have focused their attention on the community aspect of survival.

Right from the start, you get to choose two characters instead of one and each group and character has their own strengths, skills and background. Like the previous game, you can make your posse and build a base of operations complete with a farm and fortification. There are three open world maps — each the size of the map in the original game.

This huge world is littered with empty cabins, new places to build outposts and gather resources. Risky as it may be, the game forces you to explore resources simply because weapons break and you can run out of fuel, food and medical supplies. Venturing out also helps you meet new people to add to the community. State of Decay 2 really hits you home with all the death — losing a built-up human resource can be painful. You can die by getting killed in combat or by way of infection.

Dying in combat is also rare as the AI-controlled characters do a good job of handling themselves, while you take care of business. The only real time you are in danger is when you encounter morbidly obese super zombies that can tear you apart. These guys are tough, but they are the most fun combat you will face in the game, second only to running over zombies with a car, which could have been better if the cars handled better.

Plus, it pays to remember that fuel is a limited resource that you might want to save. Scavenging for resources is fairly simple — if you need fuel, you can raid a gas station; if you need food, find a convenience store or abandoned encampment. Gathered resources can be used to build up, upgrade and fortify your own camp. While there is a ton of stuff to do in the camp and in the surrounding areas, State of Decay 2 does have a main story.

The story mode is a great way to learn about the game and experience various situations as you search for plague hearts to destroy. Plague hearts are throbbing masses of flesh, and it is what produces the infectious plague zombies, identifiable with their glowing eyes. To reduce their numbers, you need to find and destroy the hearts. While the story mode is fulfilling, the camp building and exploring is where the game's strength lies.

We played an advanced copy of the game and the final game will be released on Tuesday. State of Decay 2 still has a lot of bugs, which hopefully will be ironed out soon. Some bugs we encountered on the PC version of the game were floating zombies, breaks in rendering and freezing. This is not a big issue and the developers are sure to patch this over time. And, while the game is very competitively priced, we would recommend waiting for a future bug-free version before jumping in.

State of Decay 2
Rating: 3.5/5
Developer: Undead Labs
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform: PC, XBOX
Price: Rs 1,924

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How do you improve on a 1998 game that is so good it is still played today? Not many games can make that claim but Starcraft can with legions of fans and stadium level competitions not bad for a 20-year-old game.

The original Starcraft is free and so anyone with a battle.net account can potentially download and play it, no fancy hardware required. The remastered version, however, costs $15 and it is worth every penny. The game's graphics and sound have had a major update, you can also play multiplayer online complete with leaderboards.

While the new game is friendly to first-time players the online multiplayer is brutal. Prepare to die in minutes. Unfortunately, there is no system in place to train players in the complexity of multiplayer battles in a game that people have been potentially been playing for 20 years.

For fans of Starcraft there is everything that you would ever want in the game. The original game mechanisms are untouched which means everything plays as it should.

Starcraft Remastered
Rating: 4/5
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Platform: PC, Mac
Price: $14.99 (Rs 960 approx)

Detroit: Become Human is driven by a melodramatic story set in the US city of Detroit in 2038. The story is told through exploring the day-to-day lives of three androids Kara, Markus and Conrad. How the story unfolds and where it progresses to is all determined by the choices you make while playing these characters. Actions performed affect the people around you and, in turn, affect your interaction with them. There are no wrong or right choices in the game. No matter what you choose, there are people who are going to get disappointed in you.

The story is divided into tiny slices where you play one of the three characters. At the end of the slice you get a story-tree where you can see where the choices you made changes the story and multiple branches where the story could have ended up. The good news is you can replay the game and explore all the different choices. The characters are all-player by actual actors and, needless to say, this game looks amazing, its as close to a real human as a game can probably be right now. The facial movements in the game are well constructed. The world too is carefully crafted with elements of the past integrated with something modern.

It's the way things are now modern integrated with older structures. The three characters you play are also very distinctive and come from different strata of society, giving you a peek of how life might be in the future. Kara for example is an android owned by a violent unemployed man who is bitter about the way his life has turned out, while Markus starts out with a well caring owner that treats him as an equal and Conner is an employee of Cyberlife, the company that makes and sells the Androids and is investigating why the androids are turning into deviants.

The plot is the oldest in the book, which is sad. But the way it plays out and the options you have to make along the way make it more than intriguing. Your choices at times will hurt your soul and that is the object of the game, to make you connect and feel for the choices you make and its consequences. Even the menu narrator doesn't spare you from the emotional drama.

When you start the game, you are greeted by a Cyberlife android that is constantly on screen talking to you. It will make you fill a survey and will slowly and steadily make you feel for it. As mentioned, the core of the game is the story, but there are a few puzzles, some timed single button combat situations also thrown in. But most of the time, especially at the start, you are doing menial tasks: press this to open the door, twist this to wash the dishes and more boring instructions. Even though it was slow and boring, it gave us a window in the life of a robot slave. We wish, however, along with the upgrade in the emotional status they were allowed to do more than just walking to places and activating things.

If we really had to complain about anything, it would probably be the dialogue. It's not bad by any standard, but if it was better, this game could have been something else. Most of the dialogue and reactions are what you would expect someone who just got in to script writing to write. The lines are not crisp and fail to provide a punch, you couldn't or rather wouldn't want to quote any of the characters in the game. If you are looking for a movie experience like no other, Detroit Become Human is perfect for you. It is jam packed with twists turns and is an emotional roller-coaster. Much like a binge worthy series you will want to play this in one go and then repeat till you have explored all options and it doesn't hurt that it looks so good.

Detroit: Become Human
Rating: 4.5/5
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony
Platform: PlayStation 4
Price: Rs 3,999

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