I'm at a bit of a loss for words as I'm typing this introduction. Death Road to Canada is a very special game in that it's not so much hard to describe it as it is hard to do so in a way that doesn't sound like you're having everybody on. To put it bluntly, this game is ludicrous. This is the kind of game where you can create your two best friends, incompetent and utterly ineffectual to start off, carefully guide them on a whacky, cartoonish road trip across the eastern coast of the United States, and eventually teaming up with Octodad (no, seriously) and a border collie named "Gaylord" only for it all to fall apart in seconds as you watch them all get eaten alive by a gaggle of pixel art zombies because you made a bad call during a siege event, all of this topped off with a bizarre mix of exasperation and simple joy, as well as an overwhelming urge to try it all over again immediately. I have spent almost 90 hours in total playing both the PC and mobile versions of this game and I can tell you that this game really is a one of a kind experience. I also think it's safe to say that you're probably not going to find anything quite like it anywhere else on the market.

So let's start with the basic premise: It's the "Zombocalypse" (yikes) and your journey begins in the state of Florida. For whatever reason, the United States' federal and state governments have all effectively collapsed, and so everyone is pretty much left to fend for themselves. Your character starts hearing rumours that the Canadian government is doing just fine, and that the country is for the most part secure and zombie-free. Seeing as you don't have much to look forward to staying in the U.S., you decide to set a course for the Canadian border. Along the way, you will make frequent stops both in trader camps and areas overrun by zombies in looting and siege events. In addition, your adventure will be peppered with a very wide variety of randomized, text-based events that range from hypothetically ordinary in the context of a zombie apocalypse to the kind of antics that would be considered nonsensical even by the standards of an average Saturday morning cartoon. Every event provides opportunities to improve your odds by gathering weapons and supplies, teaching your characters a variety of survival skills, and bringing on new people, if you're so inclined.

It's not as much of a hassle as it might sound. In fact, one of the most charming things about the game is that it takes the tired zombie apocalypse concept and decides to have fun with it rather than simply delivering another bland, uninspired open-world survival game, or otherwise trying a bit too hard to make you cry. The game’s quirky, ironic humour ensures that there is almost never a dull moment. Looting and siege events are littered with a variety of relatively mundane businesses and stores with tongue-in-cheek names like “Yall-Mart,” trader camps are home to a number of unusual characters including a “Wandering Anime Salesman” and a talking dog peddling ammunition of all types, and those are only on the moderate end of game’s bizarre spectrum, and we’ve already established that the text events are silly. Even the brief, seconds long periods of time between these events are peppered with the zany banter of your current party members, and these interactions vary depending on the traits and stats of the characters involved, even going so far as to raise or lower characters’ morale depending on how well they’re getting on with each other. To top it all off, it’s all pseudo-random, and while I feel the phrase “no two playthroughs are ever the same” is overused in game review and critique, the game features such a huge variety of charmingly bizarre events and scenarios that every run feels fresh, and you’re frequently stumbling onto new content. All of this taken together with the total of ten different modes, each tweaking the rules and mechanics of the game’s base campaign, adds up to an impressive amount of replay value.

All that said, this game is certainly not for everyone. For one thing, the sense of humour isn't exactly high-brow, often invoking internet memes and pop-culture references, and it is by no means above the occasional fart joke. If that sounds immature to you, it is. Unapologetically so. I can understand why someone might find this game's brand of comedy tasteless, and if that sounds unappealing to you then you're probably better off doing something else with your time. There's also the matter that this game is somewhat challenging by design. Even on its lowest difficulty campaign modes, you will probably not make it to Canada on your first attempt, and learning things like which locations you should be visiting during looting events and the best solutions to the randomised text events will involve a lot of trial and error. The game has more than enough content to alleviate that frustration, but if you're the sort that finds it hard to appreciate games with permadeath mechanics then you are, again, better off playing some other game.

Fortunately, I have seen very little in the way of mechanical flaws and glitches while playing this game. About the only bug I can even recall during my time playing is one that occasionally crops up during looting events with particularly long but thin urban layouts, the ones featuring only about two or three buildings per street. For whatever reason, these maps in particular occasionally won't properly spawn the building you selected for the event, which can be a major problem considering you usually have a particular item or resource in mind when you select these events. This is mercifully mitigated by the fact that these maps generally feature a number of extra houses and hotels you can search for additional supplies, but it's a problem all the same. Also worth mentioning is the fact that every major update seems to also reset your local stats, which has a side effect of locking upgrades and character traits and perks you had previously unlocked, as well as resetting your progress on certain Steam achievements tracking things like how many zombies you've killed, or how many times you've trained a particular stat. I'm not sure why exactly this happens, but I also have to point out that it didn't happen during the last update around Valentine's Day, and so it may no longer be relevant. Still, it's worth bearing in mind, as losing that progress can be rather irritating.

Overall, though, I'd say this game is an absolute joy to play, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, light-hearted take on the whole "zombie apocalypse" trope.