I've been fairly excited playing this game in the last little while. I'm currently writing my thesis for graduate school and Dayz has been a great source of distraction for my breaks. Perhaps a bit too distracting at times. I thought, because this game is so new and there isn't much out there in terms of material on DayZ, it would be a good one for me to post about it.
DayZ Standalone is the standalone version of an Amra II mod that became very popular. To be honest, I never played Arma very much and it doesn't matter. DayZ is a game of its own and I won't be surprised when it surpasses Arma in terms of popularity. DayZ is a multiplayer survival game where you basically start off in a huge map wearing a T-shirt and pants and you have to try to survive. What that means is that you have to find water, food, better clothing to protect you and eventually weapons to fend off foes. While this is a zombie game, the zombie aspect of it at this point is fairly small, they are sparse and mostly just a nuisance. The most scary part of the game is coming accross real people. Real people (for the most part) will try to kill you to take the equipment you spent hours gathering, and then you'll have to start over. So as you can imagine, the game is very punishing if you are not ready.
Overall, the idea of a survival game is not particularly novel and I have played a fair number of them over the last couple of years. However, what I think makes this game in particular stand out is the level of realism that these developpers are trying to put into this game. They are really trying to make the environment look beautiful and real, trying to give you the sense that the world out there is hostile and that it only takes one mistake to lose it all. Not only can you die from being shot by another person, or eaten by a zombie, but you can die of thirst, sickness, infections, food poisoning and a miriad of other things. It all really adds up to a game that makes you feel on edge the entire time even though nothing is actually happening for the most part. As I mentioned, the map is very large so even getting from A to B takes quite a bit of time on foot (which currently is the only way to get around), so a majority of the time I've been playing this game has consisted of running around scavaging for scraps. The truths is, to me that all just adds to a more realistic experience.
One warning though, this game has been out for less than a month, and it is only a month of Alpha. So if you are reading this and considering buying this game, do it with full knowledge that it is still in development. It's buggy as hell and very much unfinished (check out my photo on the right of me beating myself up after my character lost all its gear and bugged out). Regardless, it has been a ton of fun playing it with my sister and bother-in-law. We're just three survivors, trying to get through another day.
