Death Road to Canada (Switch)

Geoffrey Wright | May 8, 2018 | Review | No Comments

Some decisions are made for you in life, especially when all hope has gone. This is more apparent during a Zombie Apocalypse when every decision is life or death and when you hear a rumor that Canada is a safe place, you are willing to risk everything to get there.

Your journey begins in Florida as you and your buddy begin your epic journey along the Death Road to Canada.

The game will randomly create your journey from beginning to end. Along the way you will be exploring locations for supplies, picking up new party members and trading your items at rest stops. It can be an exciting, tense journey and if a party member dies, they are gone for good. Once all are dead, it is game over.

The main heart of the game is when you explore locations. Two will be randomly chosen at a time with you having to select which you would like to visit. Each location will have certain conditions such as size and zombie activity but the main goal is to survive and loot as many suppliers as you can.

Whilst exploring you will have have to fight off a few zombies and the AI for these is great. The zombies will see and follow you around the buildings, gathering more as they move. This can result you being ambushed by a large pack of zombies if you do not quickly take them out one by one.

As for controlling your characters, I felt they was a few flaws that niggled at me during my time surviving. The first is the movement; you bounce around the screen. I believe it is emulating walking but I felt it did not work to great. In fact, I left the game alone for a few days and when I came back to it, getting use to the bouncing took a lot longer than it should. Once you get use to it and get lost in the gameplay, it is not very noticable but I did feel slightly handicapped due to it. As well as this, I did find that whilst you are attacking, you cannot change direction mid attack So align yourself up before commiting!

My other gripe with the gameplay is there are no visible character statuses on screen. Health deduction and stamina lost only appear when they happen, which caught me off guard a few times. You can see your health if you pause the game, but for a game that does not allow you to health whilst exploring, I feel this is important information. The same goes for the stamina; as you use one of your many weapons you pick up on your travels, you use up stamina but the problem is that you never know how much you have to begin with. As it is about to deplete, you will get a teardrop show above your head, but if you are caught in a pack of zombies when this happens, it is all too late. Two simple issues that could make surviving a little manageable.

With so much variation between plays, Death Road to Canada is meant to be experienced multiple times taking advantages of upgrades and lessons learnt from previous attempts. It does have a few issues that you can adapt too but with multiple modes to unlock, along with 2 player local co-op, Death Road to Canada offers you hours of entertainment.