Parents' Guide to Last Day on Earth: Survival

This would be a fully entertaining survival game were it not for the overzealous use of timers to restrict your play. Like many other free-to-play games, its strategy for making money relies on giving players a limited energy pool, and the result is a serious fun-reduction. Things start well: Last Day on Earth: Survival has no story preamble to speak of, but it does a fair job of walking you through the basics. To start, there's lots of repetitive gathering, but the auto-play button minimizes some of this. The good thing about auto-play is you can't totally take your eyes off things. Roaming zombies and wolves can attack at any time, and you can run into not-so-friendly players who'll kill you for your items. It's gratifying to watch your base take shape, and it's fun crafting things and growing your own food. Random supply notifications give you reason to travel around the map, but then you're hobbled by a limited inventory and limited energy supply. You need energy to travel, and what little you get is gone in a flash. Once it is, you either wait through a minutes-long countdown or spend money for more energy. This money-hungry system's designed to blow through your wallet faster than a rabid zombie through a trough full of brains. Still, if you're patient enough to wait or have big bucks for micro-transactions, there's a good deal of survivalist fun to be had.