[Multi] Dead Island Review

[DoctorFinger]

Dead Island Review

Title - Dead Island
Platform - Xbox 360*, Playstation 3, PC
Developer - Techland
Publisher - Deep Silver
ESRB Rating - M (mature)
MSRP - $59.95 (360/PS3); $49.95 (PC)
Editor - Michael "DoctorFinger" Chauvet

What's Hot: Big open world to explore. Constant stream of loot keeps the collector in you happy. Nice difficulty progression.

What's Not: Missions can get a bit repetitive. Combat is a bit too basic at times. Some glitches. Derivative of other games.

The first thing you have to know about Dead Island: it’s not Left 4 Dead. It looks like it on the surface, but it plays like a totally different game. If you go in expecting a quick and dirty campaign, you may be disappointed by the more methodical and deliberate pacing in Dead Island. But if you go in with an open mind you’ll find an ambitious but flawed experience.

You begin the game choosing from one of four characters. Each of the four - Xian Mei, Sam B, Purna and Logan - are somehow immune to the zombie disease, so they’re the only ones who can go outside of the safe havens with any degree of safety. The characters get fleshed out a little in cutscenes but are mostly differentiated only by their unique abilities and stats. Each of the 4 plays a bit differently and those differences give the game a bit of replayability.

T-minus 2 seconds to decapitation

Once you leave the hotel you find yourself waist deep in zombies looking to suck on your sweet, sweet brains. The game is set on a tropical island, and the early part of the game is centered around a beachfront resort. It’s not the sort of environment you see in many games of this nature, and it’s a nice change. Later on you’ll travel to the slums of the capitol city and the interior jungles, each with their own distinct look and ‘feel’. But they’re all populated mostly by zombies, most of whom are pretty quick. You have basic Walker zombies, the much faster Infected (who I presume are infected people who haven’t died yet) and a few boss-type zombies like the Thug, the Suicider and the Floater. At points you’ll even have to fight off completely unaffected human Punks, mostly armed with guns. Deadly guns which will kill you. You’ll die in this game. A lot. But it’s okay, since there’s very little in the way of a death penalty. You’ll lose a little bit of your cash, and respawn a few yards away from your death site after a short delay.

I mentioned before that Dead Island doesn’t really play like Left 4 Dead, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be familiar. It plays mostly like an Oblivion or a Fallout 3. You wander the world taking quests, managing inventories of weapons and choosing new skills when you level up. Most of the combat is up close and personal and while there are guns and grenades, they’re somewhat rare, especially in the early going. There’s also a hint of Borderlands with the weapons. Everything has it’s own stat line, and you’re constantly finding new and (sometimes) better weapons. Weapons also degrade as you use them, so you’re constantly having to spend money to repair them. As you play you’ll find blueprints which let you juice up weapons, adding fire, or electricity, or bleeding mods to the tools of destruction. The weapons get very powerful and complex looking as you go up in levels, and the collecting/loot hauling aspect can be pretty addictive.

They're zombies, but they're pretty, well dressed zombies

So you’ve got some phat weapons. What do you do with them? Why kill zombies, of course! You swing with the right trigger, kick with the left button and jump/dodge with the A button. And that’s the vast majority of the combat. You can aim and throw any weapon too, but it’s not that effective for 3 of the 4 characters. Weapons can be recovered even from the still moving bodies, but generally when you throw a weapon you’ll have to switch to another until the end of that particular battle. You start out with a small-ish inventory, but it grows as you level until you have a veritable armory on your person. Combat can get very hectic at times - especially when there are Infected around - but it never gets that tactical. After a while you unlock a Rage attack, which can devastate enemies around you, but it takes a bit of time to recharge the Rage meter, so you’ll find yourself saving that for boss zombies. As mentioned before, there are guns but the ammo for them is pretty precious. They’re good when fighting Punks who also use guns, and therefore cough up ammo when they’re dead. However I’ve found that the guns don’t seem to do very much to the zombies, at least not the boss zombies whom I’d like to use them on. The molotovs and other grenade-type weapons are much more effective.

The core of the game are the missions, and it’s unfortunately a bit weak on that count. Like most open world RPGs you’ll get quests from various NPCs, who in turn give you rewards for completion. The majority of the missions are simple fetch quests, but there’s little variety in them. You can’t really choose a playstyle the way so many other sandbox RPGs of this nature let you. At most you can choose a path through the map to get to and from your destination, but there are very few real choices to be made. You want to complete the side quests to get the reward, but a few of the missions can get tiresome. There are some more interesting and complex missions, mostly involving more restricted areas, but the game screams out for a little more variety in the missions. I should also mention that the game as a whole scales, so as you get more powerful and snag better weapons the enemies gets similarly stronger. I like the scaling, but I know it's the sort of detail some people dislike.

This is The Ram, one of the boss zombies

Dead Island’s visuals are very inconsistent. Some areas look great, and for the most part the zombies look amazing. But there’s a host of small graphical glitches. Clipping, missing textures, pop-in. Techland’s proprietary Chrome Engine 5 handles the rendering duties and it’s clearly could use a bit more polish. It’s not bad, but it’s also not up to the level of the major graphic engines used in these sort of major releases. On the flipside, the audio in the game is tremendous. You’ll be able to identify which direction the zombies are coming from just from by sound alone, and the subtle soundtrack and ambient noise make for an aural treat.

Multiplayer is fun, but it doesn’t feel all that integral to the experience. Multiplayer felt noticeably easier than solo play, but otherwise playing with friends didn’t change the experience that much. There were a few quirks with the matchmaking, but generally things went smoothly online.

Score: (3.5 out of 5 Cogs)


Michael says, "Dead Island is a bit hard to grade. The combat can be a bit flat, there are some dull missions and you’ll run into the occasional bug. But I found myself consistently wanting to go back and play it some more. If you’re looking for a fast-paced shooter, take off half a point. If you’re looking for a methodical, occasionally obsessive RPG, give it an extra half a point.”

* Review based on 360 version.

[Karak]

I think that is the thing about Dead Island, and maybe why I would have given it 4 Cogs, it's level of fun seems to just be higher and probably due to the intangible aspect of "right mix, right atmosphere".

[Hawkzombie]

Even with the annoying as hell bugs...It feels like it has heart. For all its faults I keep playing it like crazy with Savok.

[Wilkz07]

Good review, disagree with the score, easily a 4.5/5. Switching to analog combat is a much better feel for 'better than actually being there' melee combat.

and if you haven't taken a high level character and joined a friend's low level game and slice zombies and thugs in one blow... well sir, you haven't fully enjoyed your experience. Also act 1 truck races is fun with friends until you get side swiped and end up down on the beach.

[National Kato]

I'm with everyone else: the sum of its parts outshines the rough edges. Have had a ton of fun playing this and can see it remaining in my collection.

Co-op is hands-down some of the most fun. My own score would be a 4/5.

[Bone]

I don't know whether it's my choice of analog combat or what, but I find throwing weapons extremely effective and I'm not playing the "thrower". Even though my target shows a red "X" in the stomach, I can use my analog to aim and still "unofficially" target the arms or head. I had a great grouping on a Thug where all 6 blades were right between his eyes.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Bone

I don't know whether it's my choice of analog combat or what, but I find throwing weapons extremely effective and I'm not playing the "thrower". Even though my target shows a red "X" in the stomach, I can use my analog to aim and still "unofficially" target the arms or head. I had a great grouping on a Thug where all 6 blades were right between his eyes.

Agreed. I would have to yell at everyone to NOT TAKE MY WEAPONS, because I would toss everything at any enemy I could. There is something "action movie-like" when you toss a weapon, run up, take it out, slash a couple times run backwards and repeat it

[AversionFX]

Disagree entirely with the score. I would've put this at a 4 or a 4.5 just on how much fun I've had with it.

I guess I forgot about the part where we play games because they're fun, not because a texture popped in, or because a mission boils down to "move flag object to flag destination."

Also, Rage ability is generally the first skill point you spend (which you automatically gain after finishing the tutorial), and thrown weapons are always effective.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by AversionFX

Disagree entirely with the score. I would've put this at a 4 or a 4.5 just on how much fun I've had with it.

I guess I forgot about the part where we play games because they're fun, not because a texture popped in, or because a mission boils down to "move flag object to flag destination."

Also, Rage ability is generally the first skill point you spend (which you automatically gain after finishing the tutorial), and thrown weapons are always effective.

But D.F. did a good job at explaining why he rated it what he did. And it wasn't just GFX issues, and so forth. Though I too would have rated it higher, he explains pretty well why the "fun" was impacted by certain things. Totally fair review, just lower than some of us would have given it.

[Bone]

I didn't buy rage until I finished the game. It's cool and all, but I saw too much in Combat and Survival that I wanted to max out.

[txshurricane]

Originally Posted by aversionfx

i guess i forgot about the part where we play games because they're fun, not because a texture popped in, or because a mission boils down to "move flag object to flag destination."

omg u dont lik my favrit gaaaaammmmeeeee

[Ghostbear]

I think you guys are focused entirely too much on the score. If you read the review, Doc clearly enjoyed the game. It sounds like you're all in violent agreement with his thoughts.

Dead Island is a bit hard to grade. The combat can be a bit flat, there are some dull missions and you’ll run into the occasional bug. But I found myself consistently wanting to go back and play it some more. If you’re looking for a fast-paced shooter, take off half a point. If you’re looking for a methodical, occasionally obsessive RPG, give it an extra half a point.

So there you go, he scored it a "four"
The score isn't a referendum on your opinion of the game or you.

[iHap]

Still waiting for a fix to the video card problem that people are experiencing. Ever since 1.2 my computer will crash hard and overheat my nvidia 570 even with all my fans turned up. It's almost been a whole week...

[Crittias]

Graphics engine puts out some pretty impressive stuff on PC. I've found the game enormously fun and addictive. And the game changes alot depending on how many people are playing. 1 person = survival horror, 4 person = comic goof-fest of craziness, 2-3 = somewhere in the middle. Every day at work I'm itching to get home to play more.Definitely 4.5/5 for me personally (not arguing with the review score, just stating my POV). I agree, more varied missions would add a lot to the game. Maybe hope for some DLC?

[Bone]

Oh yeah... graphics! They are good. I can't believe I'm playing this on the computer I built in June 2007. It really will take another Battlefield to finally shoot this old rig in the head. Deus Ex looks great on it too.

[Uatu]

I don't get the love for this game. Got to about lvl 10 and quit due to the repetitiveness. All of my friends who wer eplaying with me stopped asking about it too. Fetch quests everywhere, with mindless mashing combat.

I also don't understand how people say it is hilarious fun in co-op. I have played nothing but co-op and no particularly zany or exciting things have occurred. Every enemy is a just a clusterfuck of all the players beating the zombies down, rinse, repeat.

I feel Left 4 Dead outshines it in every way, and the experience is subpar.

[Blue]

I think the score is actually pretty spot-on (not that that matters, really). I didn't care for the game in the slightest and it's easily the biggest reason I need to go with my gut and not get swept up in the hype of something. With that, all of the points made in the review seemed true and fair.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Bone

Oh yeah... graphics! They are good. I can't believe I'm playing this on the computer I built in June 2007. It really will take another Battlefield to finally shoot this old rig in the head. Deus Ex looks great on it too.

Ya I was pretty surprised how well it works on my wife's system which is sort of a dog. Most likely some console roots there But ya. Battlefield will probably take me out to the park on both systems

Amazing game though. I have not had this much fun in a good long time on a game. Just a fucking ball. I also agree that it changes a bit with the number of people. But there is no way I am playing without Kato, Santa and Ronin to beat it. After that, single player. But until then, 4 player amazing times galore. Stupendous fun.

[Zero]

Played it for about an hour by myself and decided it wasn't for me. It annoyed the fuck out of me right off the bat but I kept playing and just decided I'm not a fan of this type of gameplay. Pretty game though, aside from the occasional glitch.

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by Uatu

I don't get the love for this game. Got to about lvl 10 and quit due to the repetitiveness. All of my friends who wer eplaying with me stopped asking about it too. Fetch quests everywhere, with mindless mashing combat.

I also don't understand how people say it is hilarious fun in co-op. I have played nothing but co-op and no particularly zany or exciting things have occurred. Every enemy is a just a clusterfuck of all the players beating the zombies down, rinse, repeat.

I feel Left 4 Dead outshines it in every way, and the experience is subpar.

Shun the unbeliever! Shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnn!