Quarantine Zone: The Last Check was a surprise drop into PC Game Pass. This Paper’s Please style game mixes in a fully 3D environment full of delightful Euro-Jank. Devolver Digital picked up publishing rights, and it shows, with more polish than I’m used to for this style of release. You work the gates at a Quarantine Zone during a zombie outbreak. You’ll look, poke, Grok scan through clothes, and blast the infected in the face in this surprisingly fun title. It isn’t perfect, but it is damned fun.
Good Job, Soldier
You play as a typical B soldier-man of the US Army Marine Navy Corps. As a fresh recruit, it is your job to inspect every civilian who comes through your base’s gate. Alongside checking them for symptoms of a zombie virus, you’ll have to maintain power, food, and more.
Every five days, you’ll send out a contingent of survivors, some who may turn while waiting for the escape convoy, or on the way to ‘freedom’. There is a campaign, which I completed in roughly six hours, alongside an endless mode.
Smack, Scan, Shoot
Quarantine Zone does a good job of steadily feeding you more tools and tougher situations. At first it’s basic, look for symptoms on people’s bodies. These can range from the obvious, like giant bight marks, to more subtle ones, like skin rashes or jaundiced eyes.
Each symptom has a level: green, yellow, or red. Green means it’s good to go, don’t worry ‘bout it. Yellow, like always, means caution. Time to put that person into quarantine and see how their symptoms change over time. Red, well, we don’t talk in public about red. In private, it means you merc the poor bastard in your killing room.
As you progress through the game, you’ll get a temperature and pulse meter. There’s a hammer for testing reflexes as well, with the infected having their opposite limb jerk if you hit one. You can also bonk people in the head or hit guys in the nuts for some Three Stooges-style comic relief.
There is even a Grok-style gun that can see through all clothes except for underwear. The timing of the ability is a bit ominous, with a fellow soldier saying, “Keep this one from the perverts!” after handing it to you. The entire gameplay loop for checking people in at the gate evolves into a fine groove. By the 26th and final day of my campaign, I didn’t miss a symptom, and sometimes there can be 5 or more on a single person.
Base Building and Side Missions
Alongside all of the looking for red eyes and peeking at panties, you’ll build up the base around you. Every successful check-in unlocks a currency you’ll use to upgrade your tools and base capabilities.
From the food-providing canteen to the medicine-providing clinic, you’ll need to maintain the power. There is a basic generator that runs on gas. As you complete tasks, you’ll earn cash, which you’ll need to use to buy more fuel, medicine, food, and upgrades.
By the end of my game, I had completed enough side objectives, like murdering a lady with specific looks and symptoms because she was a serial killer, to automate most base tasks.
There were a few fetch-quest style side missions that look like they can change every run. Bonking rats with my hammer was a bit sad, but he $1200 I got made up for it.
After a short period, you’ll have a laboratory, in which you’ll have to sacrifice infected civilians to learn new symptoms. The mini game to yoink out the organ you need is basic and fun. It all works well on mouse and keyboard, and is playable but not great on a controller.
There are some shooting parts. Eventually, infected people at the gate start to get ornery if you send them to quarantine or confiscate too much of their stuff. Being a soldier-ma,n you’ll get a gat to blat blat and end each spat.
Euro-Pretty
I talked about Euro-Jank in the opening, and this game is full of its traces. From the asset store models to the clipping and animations, it feels like some of my favorite EJ out there. There is a layer of polish on all of it, alongside a quality to the voicework that I imagine came from the publisher, Devolver Digital.
DD has a solid relationship with Xbox, and this title was a late announcement for PC Game Pass, just 3 days before launch. That is how I played it, though it is, of course, available on Steam as well.
When you shoot a (hopefully) Infected civilian in the face or body, they will go flying. Body shots send them spinning like you’re playing curling up in the tundra. Head shots give a satisfying slow-motion effect as they crumble backwards in full ragdoll splendor.
While there isn’t a lot of music, what is there fits the mood of being a psychopath with a God complex on a military base mid-Zombie outbreak. Everything was fun, worked, looked good enough, and didn’t overstay its welcome.
Wrapping Things Up
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is a fun, repeatable, relaxing time. Few games let you stare so much before blowing a hot load of lead directly into the target of your gaze.
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check
Played on
PC and Xbox Ally X
PROS
- Fun main loop
- Base building is just deep enough
- Good ragdoll physics
CONS
- Lots of texture clipping and slow loading
