Dead Age Review

Zombies! Quick, grab a weapon and learn some German, cause you’re about to play Dead Age. This new mobile title is focused on the zombie apocalypse and you are a survivor who must make their way through this terrifying new world. Perhaps it’s not a new idea, but developer Headup Games is dedicated to making this experience as fun and dangerous as possible.

Earlier I mentioned the need to learn German, well that’s only on the opening splash screen, actually. Beyond that point, as far as I could tell, the game is in English. Or at least that’s how it was the first time I loaded it. Headup Games is a German company, and this is actually their second zombie based title, their first being Anybody Out There: Dead City, an adventure text based game. Dead Age is an RPG with a turn-based fighting style. Be prepared to gather weapons and fight zombies to stay alive, of course, and there are consequences if you fail the fights. Specifically, permanent death.

In the past year or two, permanent death, or permadeath, has become a big thing. Deaths in a lot of games have been a bit of a wash, rinse, repeat kind of thing. As long as you save properly, most titles give you unlimited lives and you’re pretty much OK. Permanent death means you lose EVERYTHING. If you only survived for a day or so, it doesn’t sting so much, it just kind of sucks. If you’d managed to survive for a while, though, and then finally got taken down, that can more than sting, but it can also fuel your desire to see if you can survive for even longer the next time around.

 There are player types when you enter the game, but only one will be available at first. There’s: student, soldier, medic, bodyguard, and engineer, and it appears that each can be leveled up. I’m assuming that, as you get further in, the other types are unlocked. You can also customize the characters as you go, as expected in RPG’s, so the further you go in the game, the more fun that will definitely be. There’s also casual mode and hardcore mode, and you can name your character whatever you want or just leave it the random name that pops up. You can skip the prolog or read it all. As it is an RPG, it’s probably important.

In the first mission of Dead Age you are a man in search of his sister. There are some Walking Dead elements to the title, as the first party member I got was a sheriff. There’s a lot of hand holding at first, but it’s very helpful. If you’re new to RPG’s, this is a good one to start with. The graphics are really nice, and the gameplay seems smooth. The device I have is an LG V10, and it ran very well on it. Honestly, I was quite impressed with everything involving this title.

When looking on the Google Play page for this game, I found a few complaints, though I struggled to find any on my end. Even the writing was fun. It seems there were some issues on LG V20s, but Headsup Games is pretty proactive on trying to fix any bugs that players are reporting. Obviously I wouldn’t recommend this game for kids, it is stated in the store for teens. It does cost £2.99 in the UK and $2.99 US. Honestly, I’d say it’s worth it. For a mobile zombie horror survival turn-based RPG, it’s well made. Don’t expect console level graphics, of course, but the graphics are good for a mobile title, and it is fun. I started playing it again as a refresher while writing this review and ended up getting distracted by the game halfway through. For zombie fans, I would highly recommend giving this Dead Age a chance.

9/10