You are asleep. Then you receive a call; it’s your boss, and he says that he is sorry to call you during your vacation, but the other operator went missing and they need you. You reluctantly get ready and leave to do your job. When you get to the office, you are told that you need to find the code so you can leave. After exploring the city, watching, and reading some suspicious messages on the wall and some PC, you find the code and are ready to leave. It seems like a normal day of work, but the thing is that you are working on the day the end of the world takes place.
That is basically the premise of The Last Station. You are tasked to operate your train in the middle of something called The Second Coming. Your objective is to transport a special cargo (I’ll try not to spoil much), and if you find some survivors, take them with you. Now the game play divides into two parts: exploration and scavenging for supplies and the train operation. When you are exploring the ravaged city, you have two objectives: find the code so you can get to the next city, and look for survivors and supplies. When you get to each city (each more destroyed and lonely than the other), you start working your way through the empty offices looking for whatever you can find and for the access code. The Code can be given to you either by another normal human, or in a note…or corpse. It’s important to find the survivors and get all the supplies you can get because they can be used to create more ammo for your weapons and first aid kits for your passengers. Also it’s important that you get all the food you can find.
Now when you find the code and leave the city, it’s time for the second part of your mission: give great customer service. Not only are you the train operator, you are also the face of the company, and you have to keep the clients happy and alive (so to speak). This is by far the most challenging part of the game because here is where you show your resource managing skills. You find several survivors, and they are a little bruised, but alive nonetheless. However, one of them is bleeding, so what do you do? Do you attend the bleeding man and spend the limited kits you have, or do you let him die? Or the Fat Artist whose hunger gauge depletes fast, do you feed him each time he is hungry or do you save it for the Old Lady? These life and death decisions that you must take are what keeps the game engaging. And not only must you cope with passengers, but you also have to be sure that the train is working in top condition. The air conditioner is broken? It’s your job to fix it. The cargo is overheating? You guessed it; it depends on you.
One thing that makes The Last Station stand out from other games is that there is no music. This helps the game so much to create this dreaded and creepy atmosphere. There are little touches like the screeching of doors when you open them, the wind sounds, or a little piece of newspaper flying through the screen give the game the tone and personality needed to immerse you in the story. I felt so immersed that whenever I opened a door, or entered the dark subway area my heart was stumping on my chest. The pixel art goes so well with it that I definitely loved every second of it.
Bottom Line: The Final Station is a interesting game that combines zombie survival with train simulation in an odd but satisfying combo that will have you on the edge to your seat while playing I totally recommend it. I recommend playing it with earphones, and it includes the DLC The Only Traitor, in which you will enjoy the history under a new character.