How to Survive 2: What a Crap Game

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

To try progress a bit I decided to solo the herding of a few zombies for Kovac (which lags out in coop), as well as collecting some copper pulleys for bow upgrades all around. With Jim and DL we then try help Leslie destroy one of Kovac's zombie holding facilities but the game simply cannot handle the number of zeds being thrown our way now as we suffer disconnect upon disconnect. Thinking we can advance in a different manner, we attempt the Pylon-40 attack (#6), and not far in both Jim and I get disconnected, again due to having too many zombies, leaving DL the lone camp defender!

He somehow manages to win the battle at the cost of three traps on the East entrance and pretty much everything on the Western main entry. Once we reconnect we help him clean up the stragglers and rebuild the defenses but it's become clear this is as far as the game will let us play in multiplayer which reeks of bad design.

Going solo, I still manage to complete Leslie's task of destroying Kovac's zombie supply then getting vaccines for her, gaining a pet coyote for Madison, and learning Kovac has some sort of dead alien in the bunker basement - all because there are only a third of the zombies now. Unfortunately this now leaves me in another "leveling grind gap" which when played solo is really boring. With that, we bid this place farewell. It's a shame really, and I suppose it's now up to Kenji, Leslie, Madison and her coyote to fight against Kovac and his goons.

Stomping on a sewer croc while Madison kills zombies.

As it stands though, I can't recommend How to Survive 2 to anyone. Reports from DL and Jim indicate that How to Survive 1 (the first game) also suffered terrible connectivity/coop issues, so I say simply find a better zombie game that doesn't waste your time.

Insight: Egg launcher acid can kill gators even when they are submerged.

How to Survive 2: Difficulty Up

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

It seems like Kovac's goons are up to more than just thievery, as we investigate the "death" of Kenji's ally Leslie. While we do find proof that the goons were after her, the woman herself is alright having lost her tail by providing a headless corpse as her double. Of course we had to first gain her trust by running trial missions at the nearby army base which is full of armored zeds! Their bullet proofing means the fastest way to clean them out is via head shot archery, but their numbers and resilience really make the lag and disconnects unbearable, especially in one where we need to find and drag four supply crates around the map too.

Fortunately Jim volunteers to solo it while DL and I go on resource runs. This lets us continue, and are soon escorting Leslie to one of Kovac's towers where she plans to hijack the signal. After fighting the waves of zombies, she seems to forget why she was there so to salvage the mission we literally kick her into the spot she needs to go to. Her hack fails, but she still rewards us with a decent supply run location afterwards.

Kick it until it works!

This also reunites us with the child, Super Madison, who has made her base in the sewers. We help her with some expansion projects via killing the zombies and zombie gators down there while also upgrading our own base which is now level 40. The volatiles come in groups of 12 now, and on the last attack (#5) we actually lost 9 or so of the main side traps due to the sea of fatties that attacked. It looks like we're going to need to upgrade our equipment a bit to handle what comes next!

Insight: Some missions just have shit design (worse than others) when it comes to connectivity. Instead of getting frustrated, just let one of your team solo the damn thing and be done with it.

How to Survive 2: Base Expansion

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

DL was not pleased with our prior watch tower loss and has since been working solo to expand the camp and occupy the entire plateau (with storage chests) so that the zombies stop spawning nearby and being more heavy handed with wall side traps for those that do. For the most part, this seems to have worked. I also ran a solo mission - to help farmer Raymond shepherd some zombie pigs into a barn.

Trying to do this as a team was impossible due to the lag, but I managed the task solo to unlock the rest of his other voodoo related, lag-filled quests which we manage to plow through, the culmination of which is the killing of the same zombie pigs. Really Raymond? That guy is an ever bigger loser than Kovac, whom we learn is using his fans and the trappers to steal from the other nearby survivors (like Raymond).

He also setup some evil Easter Egg hunt which lured a little girl "Super" Madison into trouble. Needless to say we save the kid, and collect many chocolates along the way. Most interesting is the Egg-Launcher reward she gives us for doing so... as Jim quickly finds out it really is an acid grenade launcher! Combined with bait that lures all nearby zeds into a tight congregation, this makes for a great weapon.

These zombies seem to be expanding in size too!

Insight: Egg-splosions go through some fences and gates.

How to Survive 2: Festivals of the Dead

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

In an appeal to get us working for him once more, Kovac sends us on strangely festive missions - clearing out a mardi gras festival, slaughtering through "Christmas Ville", saving a group of his fans hunted by a giant volatile in Chinatown, and fighting through the graveyard full of a zombified Jack O'Lantern cosplayers which somehow nets each of us pet bats!

It's always party time!

With a surplus of low grade ammo I've decided to switch to assault rifles too which has a great side effect of slowing sprinting zeds. This greatly helps when we assist the trappers in securing the wreckage and salvage of a nearby military plane crash. It does seem like the volatiles are getting far more numerous per night now though, and large zombie bears that make the ground shake when they walk have begun appearing in the forest.

None of this stops us from upgrading the camp to level 20 though and passing the Pylon-20 raid. The increased traps and wall strength helped us hold against the swarm, even though a small force led by one fatty in the final wave managed to break through our Northern watch tower. A minor loss that was easily replaced. Meanwhile the fans camp is progressing too as they've begun to construct a statue of their lord and saviour: Kovac.

Insight: The hook-blades from Chinatown are great melee weapons, but the Halloween event rewards steel tipped ammo which is worth farming at lower levels.

How to Survive 2: Pylon-10

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With the camp now at level 10, Kovac gives us the challenge of constructing a speaker pylon to try draw more survivors to the area - of course this would also draw all the nearby zombies too but this turns out to be not so bad, with not even one getting into our camp.

Get off our lawn!

As a result from this victory, Kovac gains numerous fans that begin camping nearby and begins experimentation with captured zombies. In exchange he rewards us with leads to gun making supplies and soon DL is able to replicate a rifle while Jim crafts a tommy gun. These are handy when facing the new, night time spawning volatiles who are quite dangerous when encountered in groups - especially if they catch us when we are split up.

Also new in the area is Kenji, who seems to be an old enemy of Kovac - and since he seems a more honorable sort, we begin helping him out too as his old crew has become zombie chow. This pays off for us very well as his missions lead to bountiful resource zones.

Insight: Kenji's first quest is a much better food grind than the first one, provided you can deal with the increased zombies.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What is your favorite thing to do in order to relax?" -Belghast

Play games! :)

How to Survive 2: Monster Fauna

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Now armed with machetes and bows, Kovac sends us to gather other nearby survivors - Raymond at a farm and a pair of trappers from the swamp. While variants of faster zombies and fatter explosive zombies are now showing up, it's obvious in the zombie food chain that the wild life zombie varieties sit at the top.

Zombie dogs and jackals are quick. Zombie seagulls barf acid. Zombie crocs can ambush from the swamp water (uh, guess that could be a regular croc too). There's even a zombie deer that seems to enjoy hunting DL outside camp at night... and hunting a flock of zombie turkeys was a lot scarier that I could have imagined.

Lure and kill works wonders!

Fortunately the camp is also expanding, with walls now protecting the kitchen, the weapons armory, the foundry and the armor and accessories craft shop. We can even create makeshift firearms now but have yet to find the molds required to make bullets.

Insight: Pitchforks are heavy but make great throwing weapons. When thrown they out damage everything you can create, at least in the early game.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What are you looking forward to the most over the course of the next year?" -UltrViolet

Hopefully a covid vaccine.

How to Survive 2: Camp Plateau

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With the disease spreading and the quarantine broken, there's no reason for the three of us to hang around anymore so we venture out to try survive in the forest and come across another survivor, Kovac, hiding in an underground bunker who uses a loudspeaker to communicate with us.

He has a crazy plan to build a new and better civilization out here and quickly ropes us into doing the heavy lifting. This involves bashing in the heads of a few infected and doing supply runs into the city to collect bottled water and canned foods.

Kovac isn't interested in hosting the new city in his little bunker though, which seems connected to multiple places. Instead he asks we start building a camp which Jim decides to place on a nearby plateau. At least the zombies here are really slow!

This looks like a good spot!

Insight: There is a food and water gauge in this game. The less it is, the worse you perform. Also, once it is empty you start to die as discovered by DL too engrossed in camp planning. Good thing we carried spares! Expect to run the food run mission A LOT. From my perspective, this is stupid design.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What piece/s of technology would you have the hardest time living without?" -Telwyn

Refrigerator, stove top and laundry machine - in that order. Phones and computers don't even rank.