Xbox REVIEW | Quarantine Zone : The Last Check

It finally happened: the zombie apocalypse, and now, you are what stands between the last remaining dregs of humanity and the undead hordes that ravage the cities. You have to make the hard choices, filter out those who are infected and ration your resources for the last of humanity in your section of the country. It’s not an easy job, but it has to be done.
Ok, so something I have to admit here, I have played Quarantine Zone before on the PC and thoroughly enjoyed the concept of it, but in going into this review, I had to cast aside my previous experience and judge the game based on how it plays on console compared to keyboard and mouse. Not the easiest of tasks, right?
So here is my review of Quarantine Zone: The Last Check for the Xbox Series X with a few small returns to my previous playthrough of the game on PC

Things I liked!

• Story | The story of Quarantine Zone is quite simplistic, but that’s what it really needs to be. Your character is not in high command; they aren’t in a place of power. In fact, to be honest, you are nothing more than a lower-end grunt who has been given tasks above their paygrade. Given the tasks of scanning civilians, organising the camp and also staving off horde attacks, it would be a lot for a large group of soldiers, but you are just one person doing your best to keep the zombies at bay. There lies the charm of the game, that hopelessness and hopefulness combined to make you feel like the world is on your shoulders. I think that they have the right idea in that sometimes the story you make up in your head is better than a lot of unneeded exposition.

• Inspection Mechanic | Inspection is one of my favourite mechanics of this game; it starts off simple with a few things to look out for here and there, but as you progress, it becomes more and more difficult to determine who is infected and who is not unless you are paying very close attention. The gadgets you use are a lot of fun to get to grips with, and some of the characters that come through the gates can be a little odd, so even if you think they might be a zombie…it pays to double-check. I actually wish there was even more to the inspection side of things instead of some other parts which we will come to in a moment.

• Graphics | The look of Quarantine Zone might not stand up to a hyper-realistic AAA game, but it has everything it needs to have. There are a large variety of character models, so you don’t often get repeated ones in a day… Just pretend they are twins if you do see that, though. The medical devices you use look fantastic, and the general atmosphere of the world you observe is dark, dingy and has a hopeless feel to it. Graphically, it does the job of putting you in the mindset of being somewhere that has very few options left.

• CAT | There’s a cat!!! You can pet the cat! The cat is amazing!

Mixed & disliked!

• Controls | Here is where it gets to where I need to compare the Xbox version to the PC version. Quarantine Zone was designed to be played primarily on PC, and there are sections of the game that show that more than others. The drone shooting section feels cumbersome and unintuitive using a controller rather than a mouse, and the sections where you need to sort out resources for the camp just feel off with a controller. It feels like the port to console was rushed more than it should have been because although the game feels the same…technically it shouldn’t; there should be more allowances made for controller usage, which just haven’t been implemented, and it makes it more of a chore to play through those sections. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the inspection sections, but the frustration I feel when playing the other parts of the game made me want to switch off and play somwthing else entirely.

• Length | Another problem I have found with this game is that later on once you do unlock all of the medical devices and techniques you need, the game becomes extremely repetative. Not always a bad thing in some cases, but for a game like this, I think perhaps it means that it has overstayed its welcome in terms of gameplay length. I don’t often say a shorter game would be better, but in this case I feel like less would have been more with an option to return to the universe with a sequel one day.

• How long did I play the review before publishing? 2 hours on Xbox/ Multiple hours on PC
• How long to beat the story? 10 Hours
• How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 6
• How long to get 100%? | 17 h
• You’ll love this game if you like these | Papers Please, That’s not my neighbour

Score: 62/100

Quarantine Zone : The Last Check was a game that was fun to play on PC, but the console version just misses the mark thanks to bad controls. If I were to mark this down purely as a PC game, I would have given it a higher score because it is a lot of fun to play in that format, but the console version just feels like a bad port, unfortunately. Playing it on PC instead would be my suggestion.