System Jazz

The village is smaller than expected, surrounded by a waist-height fence.

It acts as an impassable barrier in most sandboxes, so it's tempting to jump over it.

The area is empty. While the players only pass through the main street, the other parts are accessible too.

"Screw it. For science."

After a short run, the obstacle is in the past, with the feet clipping it, and the landing isn't as elegant as planned. Both leg and face hurt, in a way it's amazing, and the clothes got dirty too.

It's so many details for a game without a goal. The first hostiles appear outside the fence a moment later.

It's easy to tell they're enemies when they look like zombies, and the minimap indicates them with red dots.

While the graphics are amazing, they aren't the visceral and horroristic kind.

They must be some low-level mobs this close to the starting point so the perfect opportunity to level up on them. I dash with the axe in hand, and there's no reaction.

The smell of rotting flesh forces me to recoil as the weapon connects, again, crazy details.

It would be enough to make anyone throw up, even if you can smell worse in the slums.

Still, it gives me goosebumps, and my heart speeds up more than during any fights before. And those happened in the real world, albeit without weapons.

The adrenaline here is the real deal too.

It suggests this has a stake. Is it by design or this body's reaction?

It triggers the stress of the fight or flight decision. For someone who lived through it before, this feels eerie and accurate.

It fills me with dread of what happens if the attack misses.

It does not, the axe cuts the arm clean off of the closest undead which finally makes them react.

They moan and strike with their bare hands, and one manages to land a hit.

This hurts more than landing on the face and the HP bar drops by almost half.

Things on the UI appear only when they become relevant.

It's hard to tell if it's my terrible perception or if this is how they try to ease in the newbies.

There's no time to think about it though, when four little hearts disappear in a single attack from the ten.

Their only redeeming quality is how slow they're moving.

There are four of them in total, and they each attack once every six seconds.

That's enough to hack at the mob twice, and since he already lost an arm, after the third strike he goes down.

[You killed a Zombie +30 Exp.]

Thirty? That's not bad, but the others are still here so better slice them up before they tear me apart.

If one gives so much, the four will be enough to reach level two.

There's no need to worry about that government quest, after all, this will be a walk in the park.

Their attacks are slow and predictable, and they still have me on the back foot.

It's easy to dance away from them until the fence blocks the escape route.

If this were a regular VR headset, there would be no sign of why the character can't move anymore.

Here it's obvious how my back bumps into it, and it's easy to tell what blocks the way even in the dark.

How could you hate this controller when it's so crazy lifelike?

The undead are coming, and there's no way to run, so the closest one gets a taste of a kick.

Axe or not, the moves aren't limited to the usual attacks, and this street fighting style is handy.

Let's start thinking outside the box, not like I'm such a famous wrestler.

How much can the experience of always getting beaten up by the Boss help against the dead?

The kick for example pushed the fucker back enough to swing the axe once more.

He goes down too, yet the popup about the kill isn't appearing, so another swing into his skull for good measure.

That does the trick, and the corpse turns into pixels, with only two remaining.

[You killed a Zombie +30 Exp.]

Let's not get cocky when another strike lands and now the HP bar is down to two hearts.

To make it worse, the whole scene turns red, like those hurt effects from other titles. Why bother, when this character can feel the pain? And it isn't a pinprick either.

"Fuck you!" Yelling doesn't give a bonus for the next attack, it only helps push them back.

If this continues, they'll win, so think of an escape plan.

They no longer surround me, so even if the fence blocks the way back, there's a chance to slip away to the side.

As a bonus, the third one goes down from a backhand blow, and the last one misses by a long shot.

It's too early to celebrate, as the message won't come. Other enemies do. This red effect hides them until the last moment, and an arrow flies by.

"What? You can shoot now?"

It's a skeleton with a bow, lobbing arrows from a few meters away.

This heart is about to explode from the adrenaline. The monster sent to the ground stands up, only to disappear from the next hit on his skull.

[You killed a Zombie +30 Exp.]

While some popups are annoying, this one's handy.

Sometimes the visual cues aren't enough to confirm a kill, especially with all this red.

Only ten Exp remains until the next level, and this would seem tempting for an ordinary guy. For someone with my experience, it's a final call.

The golden rule of the slums is that whatever can go wrong, it will.

The archer needs one lucky hit for the kill, and the mob's next attack is already coming.

Rather than dancing away, the axe blocks his claws, and while this is a new experience, it's better to run.

The fence isn't impassable, still, climbing over it while these two are here seems a bad idea.

It has a gap a few meters away, so it's better to sprint towards that.

While the zombie is too slow to catch up, the skeleton manages a glancing hit, bringing the bar down to one heart.

It throbs like crazy, and the character's legs no longer move at the same speed. Even the monster catches up, and it seems impossible to dodge arrows like this.

I'm not about to give up, it took three hits for each undead to go down, and this one already took one.

Even through all the red obscuring my vision, the axe finds its way and the resistance shows the hit landed.

This isn't a VR headset. It's like disabling that panel with eyes closed, it's better to go by the feels and repeat the strike.

What's the worst that can happen anyway?

[You killed a Zombie +30 Exp.]

[Congratulations! You reached level 2.]

[Government Issued Quest: Reach Level 10 within 3 days. Importance: Utmost. Difficulty: Average. Progress: 2/10, Exp to next level: 20/200. (68/72 hours left).]

The text is visible and clear through closed eyes, yet these legs won't go any further.

At least the mission finally progressed, even if only a little. Shit, the Exp bar shows two hundred for the next level.

The grind will be more difficult if the required amount grows at that rate.

It's a future problem.

An arrow comes, and all that intense pain built up until now is gone. It doesn't seem like a good thing...