Imagine yourself as one of the survivors of a viral apocalypse that turned your dearest friends, loved ones, neighbors, and even pets into flesh-eating zombies. Unfortunately, the zombie bite you're sporting means you're already infected. But the rest of the living need you to do one final act of service before you fully turn.
That is the premise of The Last Stand: Aftermath (TLS: A)- a game that sprung from one of the most popular flash games of its time.
However, it's almost been a year since the game was released. Is it still good?
Plot and Gameplay
TLS: A is a single-player game that puts you in the shoes of one of three randomly-generated Volunteers - people already infected with the virus responsible for turning people into zombies but still human enough to think for themselves.
According to the game's successful Kickstarter page, it takes place 15 years after the events of the last TLS flash game, The Last Stand: Union City. As such, the community the Volunteers found themselves in may very well be one of the last pockets of humanity left in a world infested with the undead.
As a volunteer, you're tasked to use the remaining days of your earthly life to scout the area past the protection of the community you found and scrounge up every piece of resource you can find, and figure out why the zombies are mutating into different kinds of horrific monstrosities.
Along the way, you'll need to explore various locations for supplies, equipment, and fuel for the car the community lent you for your mission. The items you scrounge up will accumulate, later on, slowing down your Volunteer due to their weight. A wise player would be smart to get a good balance between inventory weight and their Volunteer's speed.
Unfortunately, as you go farther and farther from what remains of humanity, you will begin to encounter more zombies and even mutated ones. The increased number of hostiles means that finding that balance will become more important as you play the game.
You can either take the horde of zombies and mutated freaks head-on with your weapons or use stealth to navigate your way across. With a firearm in hand, you can even snipe hostiles from long distances using Focus Mode.
Thankfully, the virus inside your body can help you evade or combat them as it slowly turns you into one of the undead. For a piece of your health bar, you can choose one of three possible mutations, each offering unique benefits and even setbacks to even things out. It's a virus, after all.
You can stave off the virus' merciless progress with a dose of Antiviral for a limited time. However, you can only carry a limited amount of them, and their effect will wear off over time.
In addition to the virus helping you as you lose your humanity, the game's isometric camera also helps in scouting ahead, allowing you to plot your course across the many locations you find yourself in.
Eventually, you'll die from either injury or the infection taking over your body. When this happens, you'll have to choose another Volunteer to explore what's outside. Don't expect that you'll see the same locations you did on your previous playthrough, as each run is different due to randomized locations.
Problems at Launch and Improvements
The game was buggy at some points in the game. Sometimes, zombies spawn at weird places. There was a time in my many playthroughs that the item you need to progress the game didn't appear. To fix the problem, I had to sacrifice my otherwise successful Volunteer to the ravages of the zombie horde to reset the map.
Thankfully, ConArtist Games uploaded a patch that squashes much of the game's bugs.
The company also released a patch that addressed a game-breaking exploit and solved the problem with inventory management and the resulting encumbrance.
Is It Still Good?
For all the randomness the game has, it doesn't help that it will feel increasingly repetitive in the end. This problem is evident once you beat the game's initial campaign. You get to do everything you did again, only this time, you get to set some challenges before you face the game's actual epilogue.
The Last Stand: Aftermath's tense atmosphere, coupled with its realistic treatment of its combat mechanics and rogue-lite loop makes for a fun game during its initial campaign. It makes for a good game to play in the short term, but unless you're looking to challenge yourself and/or a completionist, you'll be out of fun soon enough.
For fans of The Last Stand series, this game is worth its price. For everyone else, get it on sale.
This game is a solid 7/10 for me. It's still good, but don't expect you'll hold onto it for very long, as most players of the game soon found out if Steam Charts' findings are anything to go by.
