Dead Trigger 2 uses the same basic mechanics as its predecessor, Dead Trigger, a free-to-play zombie shooter. But it is a technical spectacle. Madfinger took what was an okay zombie shooter, made it look better, control better, and improved the gameplay too. You can't teach a zombie new tricks, as the game's still somewhat similar at its heart – but it's just a better game.
There isn't much to the execution of combat in DT2 - point at zombie, shoot at zombie, revel in said zombie's comical dismemberment. No updated mechanics like cover or crouching, no big changes to the gun firing experience. That said, Madfinger did pretty well with the basics in the original Dead Trigger. For all the criticism one might levy on account of simplicity, the DT combat system is very approachable, which is absolutely critical in a free-to-play title, especially when you're in the mobile FPS genre.
- Gameplay
Weapons and new items are unlocked either with gold (surprise!) or by finding blueprints, which drop from super zombies (more on those assholes later). Once you collect all the pieces of a blueprint, you can research the item in question through the appropriate member of your team. If it's a gun, this means you also get the gun once the research is done, thankfully.
And yes, there is a time element here: while research and upgrade tasks start off at a rather innocent 5, 10, or 20 minutes, they quickly become six hours or more. You know where this is going, too - a speed-up button, which costs gold.
Predictably, your team members themselves also require upgrades in order to upgrade your weapons or build new, more advanced ones, many of which are all but explicitly necessary to advance in the game. And, I'm not kidding, your team members' upgrades require an upgrade.
So far, all of these upgrades have used in-game cash (acquired through missions / level-ups), not gold (gold is a separate currency, as in DT1), but it's easy to see how the entire experience is insanely frustrating because of this, and even a bit confusing.
- Controls
Controls in DT2 are superb. The touchscreen controls, a reviled part of any mobile first-person shooter, are actually quite solid here. I've been using Shield most of the time, but I did try it on a Xiaomi 5 and even on a 5" screen it remained quite playable.
Perhaps it was a deal with the devil, or just a year-plus of work to make touchscreen controls work properly, but this is the best-controlling mobile FPS, period. Playing with the touchscreen is an acceptable option.
Of course, there's gamepad support. I myself am playing with GameSir G3s, which is perfectly available. The controls are fully customizable for any preferred button layout. Navigating the menus with the gamepad is a bit unwieldy, though. As well, disabling auto-fire and enabling aim-down sights controls isn't automatic, it needs to be configured in the pause menu, though for those who want to play like that, hey – go for it.
Anyway, this game would be substantially harder with touch controls, and I doubt I would have had the patience to make it as far as I did without the GameSir G3s gamepad.
- Conclusion
Dead Trigger 2 can be a bit of a free-to-play grind, but really, it's far from the worst kind of grind – I'd rather be shooting zombies while waiting for wait timers to end than just, well, sitting around and watching paint dry. Plus, the game is so well-made that it's hard to complain.
Source: androidpolice, androidrundown