Dying Light

(Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows, Linux)

ZOMBIE fiction usually lurks in two camps.

There is the George A. Romero school of thought that the living dead should lurch and stumble towards their victims in swarms.

Then more recently we have had the terrifying 'rage' zombies popularised in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later which run, shriek and want to tear you apart.

Dying Light, developed in Poland by Techland, has to be one of the first zombie apocalypse stories that combines both.

The game, which offers a first person perspective, follows the well fleshed out premise that light dulls the undead's senses.

So by day the zombies stumble around and can be avoided or easily dispatched. But you still have to watch out for large groups that can leave you trapped.

The idea is that you use this time to scavenge for resources or go on missions to help survivors.

By night, Dying Light becomes a genuinely terrifying prospect as the zombie's senses become a lot more acute and they actually hunt you down.

It is not for the faint-hearted as you hear them grunt and yell as you run for your life.

Your best defence at night is ultraviolet light to stun the zombies and you can set up 'light traps' and unlock safe rooms to see through the night.

Set in a quarantine zone in the fictional city of Harran, the open world game offers a brilliant introduction to your character Kyle Crane with a skydive followed by a rather nasty incident with a zombie.

After that, you rely on a vaccine called 'antizin' which gives the story its urgency.

The first game that Dying Light will make you think of is Dead Island and that is because the same company developed both games.

Like Dead Island, you have a variety of handheld weapons which mean you have to get up close and personal with your biting foes.

But you can also set throw firecrackers to distract the zombies, set traps to electrocute them or lob the likes of Molotov cocktails.

Developers Techland have also worked hard to give Dying Light its own identity.

The main difference is the free running gameplay which allows you to navigate Harran's rooftops with ease, safe from (most of) the zombies.

Crane's parkour abilities do not quite match Faith's in the underrated Mirror's Edge but it is fun and makes the game flow better and the night time escapes more intense.

Dying Light might also remind you of Far Cry thanks to its similar skill upgrade branches and mission structure but that is no bad thing.

Add to that plenty of intrigue – your character is a double agent after a political figure gone rogue – and you have a game that will keep you coming back for more.

RATING 7.5/10

- Dying Light is in shops tomorrow, Friday. It is available to download now.