The Student’s Guide To Free Gaming, Rebuild 2

Welcome to the new weekly column, offering cheaper alternatives to gaming. Each week we€™ll feature one of the best gems in free online gaming that shouldn€™t be missed. Keeping with Whatculture!'s '31 Days of Horror', we€™ll be looking at Northway Games', Rebuild 2

Anyone who has played the original Rebuild game will be able to tell you, that it is a great addition to the zombie-survival genre. Unlike most of the flash games you'll find of this style, it's not a run and gun where you are forced to blast your way through hordes of undead. Of course we're partial to a bit of boom stick blasting, but the rebuild series is a real fresh look at what seems to be a genre that makes it difficult to tell one game apart from the next. Rebuild 2 is an improved version of the original, with enhanced visuals, sounds and interface. At it's core, rebuild is a turn-based management game. You are placed in charge of a small fortified town and a group of survivors, expanding your territory, rescuing survivors, managing your food supply and defending against the growing hordes who attempt to destroy everything you've created.

In a nice new feature, you begin your journey in a sort of subtle choose your own adventure style. Selecting the size of your city, difficulty and which trusty item you carry with you, each of which grants their own bonuses. Upon creating your character, you're placed in control and given one objective, reclaim the city and city hall. Of course the actual challenge, is rescuing the surrounding survivors, keeping up morale, managing rations and defending against the nightly attacks. The first thing you'll see on your map is the surrounding buildings, each of which have their own unique properties. Survivors can be ordered to manage bars, or farms which will increase rations and morale. Laboratories can be used to discover or rediscover helpful technologies, malls can be fortified to increase defences and homes can be built on bare plots to increase the number of survivors able to occupy the city.

A number of survivors will come, and despite your best attempts a number will likely go, however there are some specific characters and circumstances which add their own story lines to the game. Invite a crazed scientists into your fort and a small number of disappearances begin to occur, a small price to pay but eventually leads to a unique ending. A travelling gambler allows you to risk your rations and another allows you to trade your food to spend some quality time with a number of ladies to raise morale.

Giving survivors specific jobs and roles grants them experience in certain fields so over time you'll most likely shape up your own specific teams of troops, scientists, and builders.

The great thing about Rebuild 2 is the unsettling realisation that if ever there was to be a zombie outbreak, it would likely be similar to the events that unfold through the games story. Now this is just a small portion of the games features we've focused on, but included is a number of different buildings, characters, scenarios and endings that we can't possibly fit in this article. With all of the reasons above and the replay value, is why Rebuild 2 has been featured as this weeks must play, free-to-play game.

Hope this keeps you busy until next week! Rebuild 2 is available to play at Kongregate. Produced by Northway Games