Welcome to ParadiZe [Xbox]
Eko Software’s Welcome to ParadiZe is an interesting new take on the zombie survival sub-genre. It’s the zombie apocalypse - but instead of only running away from the zombies, this time they can be captured and put to good use. With the aid of some trusty ‘hacking helmets’, you can have yourself your very own Zombot; they can fight for you, they can gather for you, they can even automate your power for you. And having a Zombot or two (or five or six) by your side as you deal with the actual brain-eaters makes things all the more fun and enjoyable.
You can play alone, or in co-op - though I must admit, in the many hours I’ve spent in the game so far, I’ve not really bothered to bring another player along for the ride. I like the freedom of exploring off my own free will, and whilst another player might help in terms of protection, I’ve got my Zombots, so I’m fiiiine. Kinda.
The world map is surprisingly large and well varied, with the starting area being mostly made up of the run-down city and forest, before you move onto desert areas, swamplands and snowy mountains, to name just a few. As you venture into each new location, a banner appears to alert you to the average difficulty of the enemies in the area, with some areas having certain factors such as intense heat or extreme cold providing an additional threat, too. Fast travel points called Hoopz can be activated to make getting around much quicker and easier; though if you’d rather have some semblance of being on foot, then you can always strap a saddle to your Zombot’s back for some speed. Most of my early experience with the game was spent exploring and activating Hoopz in advance, just to make things a little bit easier for future-me, though there were still plenty of times that travelling around the good ol’ fashioned way was my go-to choice.
The main threat in this world, naturally, is the zombies. They come in a wide range of options, with different weaponry as well as alternate ‘powers’ in the form of wearable items. To begin with, they’re mostly all quite straightforward to deal with, even in large hordes, but later you’ll have massive groups of zombies with a mix of hazards: some might have huge columns of fire blasting in every direction, some might have huge wooden spikes to keep you at bay and some might just toot their trumpets, alerting the masses to your presence, making things increasingly more overwhelming as they very quickly swarm around you. As well as the main zombie foes, you’ll sometimes have to face larger, more dangerous enemies: a bunch of circus animals have escaped from Lady Tamer and have become zombified. You’ll come across these spread out across the world; with each having the ability to face them additional times if you want to farm for some experience. As well as the animals, there are human enemies that have become tyrants in their own ways, so you’ll need to deal with them and their massive machinery too, if you want to survive ParadiZe.
Defeating enemies will reward you with various pickups, such as the weaponry and other items they had on them (with some wearables requiring you to ‘collect’ them a bunch of times before you truly unlock them for your own Zombots to use), as well as crafting items and more. Crafting is a massive part of Welcome to ParadiZe; you’ll need to craft items such as the hacking helmets you’ll use to ‘train’ Zombots, keep your arsenal stocked with plenty of crafted ammo, and you’ll even need to stay on the lookout for materials to use when building up your base, as WtP has a fair bit of tower-defence styled gameplay to deal with, too. There’s plenty of variety here, and if you really enjoy certain aspects such as the wave based attacks against your camp, it’s great that you can repeat them multiple times to improve your techniques and learn how best to lay out your defences.
There are three skill trees, with each using the same points to upgrade, so you’ll need to plan out what you’re looking for in your build. Luckily, there’s a reset button in case you pick things you later come to regret. Testing out the different options available to you is a lot of fun, and prioritising certain skills depending on your playstyle will be a huge factor. For me, most of my skill points went to enhancing my Zombots, eventually giving them the ability to recruit their own Zombots so that I’d have a decent-sized army of my own to protect me.
Overall, I’ve had a great time with Welcome to ParadiZe and have found it to be a truly moreish game. Completing all of the side-quests proved to be quite a challenge, but making sure to explore every nook and cranny helped to prevent me from missing any golden knives or Twinkies - sorry… Twinkles - that would later come in handy. There are two possible endings, though there’s not like a big variance in things to do to achieve each; it just comes down to the final mission itself, so thankfully you don’t need to worry about specific choices (or completing vs not completing certain missions) affecting things at the end. If you like the look of Welcome to ParadiZe, then you can pick it up on Xbox for £34.99; though the Zombot Edition - which includes extra content in the form of cosmetic packs and an archaeology side-quest - is currently down to £31.49 (for the next four days at time of posting this), so I’d recommend nabbing that one while you can.
In the end, we decided to give Welcome to ParadiZe the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in Welcome to ParadiZe? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Dead Good Media for the Welcome to ParadiZe Xbox review code!
