The Unsolicited Review: Earn to Die 2
This is the second post in my ‘The Unsolicited Review’ series where I review games based on them driving my 7 day engagement. Find the first post here.
How did I find it?
I remember having fun with the original Earn to Die flash game a long time ago and when this one was suggested in the ‘New+Updated’ games section on my Play Store, I decided to give it a spin. Adding to that was the fact that it had 10 million+ downloads and close to 1 million reviews giving it a 4.6 star rating.
Day Zero (D0)
After being introduced to the story with a loud intro sequence (where I lowered the volume and eventually switched off the music in the game), the premise was perfectly set for the epic zombie escape journey and reach somewhere in Florida to evade them.
Without much of a hassle I was off to mowing down zombies. The whole on-boarding experience was captivating and fun. I kept on going to kill the zombies and came back to see enough coins accumulated to upgrade one of the parts of my cool vehicle.
Without any in-your-face tutorial dialogs, the experience was very smooth. Over the first 10–15 tries, there was always something new to look forward to. Every attempt I was progressing further than what I had done in the previous one and it kept me glued for a long time.
In this duration, there were some watch-to-earn advertisement triggers which were giving me some great value of coins. These were very smartly laid out to make me feel like I want to watch the ads and get rewarded handsomely. In my first session itself, I ended up watching 5 video ads voluntarily.
After playing a really long session (didn’t time it but could’ve been around 45+ minutes) and enjoying it to the fullest, finally out of fatigue, I gave up at the end of Day 26 in the game. My car was looking way more swankier and better equipped to kill the hoards of zombies at this point.
Day 1 (D1)
After all the fun I had on the previous day, surprisingly, I didn’t return to the game this day. Well, regardless of the game doing no effort in reminding me of the impending zombie apocalypse, I did remember it. However, the memories of the long first session also made me think that I would require a longer dedicated time to enjoy the game to its potential and after not managing to make that time, I ended up avoiding the game completely this day.
Day 2 (D2)
The game didn’t seem to care whether I had returned or not for the past 2 days. Although, the memories of the fun session were still fresh and I wanted to get back to zombie killing. I managed to make to some time this day and resumed my journey where I had left off on D0.
I had seen that there are other cars available and just wasn’t sure when exactly I would be able to unlock them. It was finally at around Day 34 in the game that I had already upgraded my current car completely and was able to unlock the next car. As I got the new car after fully upgrading the previous one, there was disappointment post the first ride which was way shorter than what I was used to having in my previous car. The game also blocked me from selecting the previous car at this point and suddenly my fun levels had dropped. The way I had understood the game now was — 1. You can get the next vehicle only after completely upgrading the previous one, and 2. The new vehicle will be substandard compared to your previous one and you have no option to choose the previous one even if you want to.
After the couple of tries that I attempted with the new car, there was a rewarding moment where I was given 7500 coins for free and it felt great again. I could upgrade the new car now and feel better about my performance again.
However, on the flip-side, after spending all the coins for the upgrades and managing to almost progress to the next level, I realized that the amount of upgrades necessary further would be even more. While the reward of free coins through the in-app purchase tutorial was gratifying, it also ended up making me aware of the amount of coins it would require in the long run.
Finally, the eventful session was over where I gave up at Day 41 in the game.
Day 3 (D3)
Didn’t return to the game.
Day 4(D4)
I did come back again this day. At this point the game was going on as usual. The game has a stickiness factor of you expecting that you can do better next time. This keeps driving you to do one more try. This ‘one-more-try’ also ends up tiring you out after a few sessions. With no specific moments to point out this day, I ended my session at Day 53 in the game.
Day 5(D5) to Day 7(D7)
Nope. Didn’t play at all.
Final Thoughts
This still stands as one of the amazingly fun games I have played. It is very well made and had no dull moments. The experience of mowing down zombies is still as entertaining as it was for me many years ago on that flash game. The game also has many more modes which would unlock after playing the story mode so there is no scarcity of content.
However, the uncontrolled session times and the realization of the huge grind requirement tired me and I dropped out of the game soon.
Having put down all my experiences here, I also understand that the long term engagement might not be what the developers were looking at for this game as it is only free on Android and a $0.99 purchase for iOS. Still, I think Earn to Die 2 had a lot more potential to be an even more long term engaging product which is a missed opportunity.
My Rating: 2/7
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