Dying Light: Gladiator

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

Returning to the tower we meet an even more upset Brecken. There's no time to sort out feelings though as Dr. Zere's lab comes under attack! We rush to the scene and kill some of Rais' goons but find the good doctor has been kidnapped.

We tail them back to Rais compound and find it suspiciously empty, until we all get knocked out via cut scene ambush. We awake in a pit arena with no gear. Rais is there gloating with Dr. Zere at his side. After monologing he unleashes zombies on us, because they collect zombies in containers for fun apparently.

The "real" Harran virus.

The litter makes decent weaponry and we manage to fight the waves off. As a finale he even drops in a demolisher, but given we just fought three of them at the prison this guy is a piece of cake. Especially after I knocked off his helmet via a thrown table leg. Rais is not pleased, and when he comes down to gloat we take the opportunity to disarm him and kill a few of his dudes.

Dr. Zere is hit in the commotion and says that all hope now lies with Jade who is taking his research to a Dr. Camden in the next sector. A massive parkour escape sequence follows, though not so much escaping from DL who specifically goes back to kill some snipers. Scott free, we get out on the road and promptly collapse from our injuries, only to be saved by Brecken and surprisingly, Karim who delivers bags full of our confiscated gear.

Insight: There is an skill unlock to throw melee weapons. I found that it's not really useful (especially if you want the weapon back) outside of this particular fight.

Dying Light: Junk Collectors

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

Side quests continue, as we clear a motel, unlock caches and pawn shop supplies, fetch chocolates and movies for Gazi the hilarious retard and help General Jeff at the makeshift Fort Jefferson to turn on the gas for his "firewall" defense (which results in his entire safe zone exploding).

Shields keep you alive against explosions. And bullets.

Their usefulness drops as you level up though.

We also climb a freaking high bridge to collect the bridge lights which doesn't result in fun times for Jim, but we certainly all have fun with a gun challenge provided by a zombie movie producer who gives free temporary firearms and unlimited ammo to kill zombies in a time limit.

Eventually we make it back to the Tower where Brecken is losing his people and his morale. Jade suggests we go raid one of Rais supply dumps at a nearby school so we do, arrowing the thugs inside and find a supply of dynamite. Almost as good as antizin I suppose?

We are rewarded with a grapling hook which makes travel faster exponentially, though not so much for DL who likes to loot every single corpse. On the flip side, this means we have an over supply of junk that clears some of the lesser fetch quests. What Dr. Zere asks for next though is something we don't have... the insides of a "bolter" zombie.

Insight: The grappling hook trivializes escaping from volatiles, as long as you remember to have it equipped and aren't caught in an open field.

Dying Light: Nightmare Scenario

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

We don't get to watch the medicine burn for long since horrible screams pierce the air and announce that night has come. And so have the nightmares. These beasts are fast, agile, good climbers, strong and pretty damn tough as I quickly find out when trying to fight one which does not go well at all.

My brothers scatter, splitting up the horrid monsters and leading Jim to find that for all their strengths, they can't swim - much like regular zombies. It takes some effort but we all make it back to the Tower where Brecken is shattered at the "no antizin" news.

There is a lot of crouch walking involved.

This forces his hand into trying to deal with the brigand group and its leader Rais. Naturally, we are sent as emissaries (as planned), and begin the long hike to their base. On the way we scavenge through cars on the street, save other random survivors and secure more safe zones - some of which involve intense climbing of radio towers because apparently zero ladders survived the zombie outbreak.

Then we come across an old tunnel called the Bright Mountain Quarantine zone. Apparently its one of the original places the outbreak spawned from and is crawling with infected, but by the same token all the supplies inside would still be there. We decide to go in.

Insight: The night time monsters can out run you, but you can out climb and out parkour them so get to the rooftops.

Dying Light: Getting the Drop

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

After spending the night snoozing at the safe house, I return to the Tower to finally meet up with my brothers (coop mode! yay!) and the Tower leader, Brecken - who is injured and upset that his team got pwned during their failed supply run last night. With Antizin running low, there's not much choice but to try again. We outsiders volunteer.

Called in some backup!

Since the better armed and more violent "brigand" faction seems to get to air drops really quickly during the day, we need to go for night drops and risk the "horrors" instead. Sounds like a plan! There are a bunch of other fetch tasks the other plebs at the Tower ask for as well, so I make a shopping list.

In the meantime Jim goes to stock up and craft supplies while DL goes and hits on Jade, the woman that saved me on arrival. Once we're all done with our *business* we move out and start clearing out as many safe zones as we can, all while moving towards the last reported drops... which are empty - to no one's surprise.

Just as the sun gets low, a cargo plane flies into view dropping another crate of vital supplies. This is it! We race to it and find it is full of antizin, then like the obedient GRE dogs we are, we take a handful for ourselves and TORCH THE REST. Just like we were ordered to.

Insight: More people makes it more fun, but also less scary. :)