Dead Island - Review

Dead Island

            Like most zombie loving geeks I was very impressed with the very cinematic and now in/famous Dead Island trailer. In fact for a short time after I was done frothing at the mouth with hope and rabies I realized that perhaps I had become more optimistic than I should have for the game. The amount of care and detail in the well scored cinematic brought a lot of expectations to Dead Island and unfortunately it doesn’t deliver.

            The premise is simple. You chose one four characters who are unfortunate enough to be trapped in a zombie infested island resort yet resistant to the zombie outbreak. Each of the four very obnoxious and poorly voice acted characters has a weapon specialty and a skill tree based on the specialty. You’ll be given a short abysmal character narrative when selecting which made me wonder why I’d want to pick any of these assholes

            Dead Island’s game play can  be compared to games like Fallout, Dead Rising 2, and Borderlands. It begins sluggishly as you are graced with a clumsy introduction before waking in your hotel room after a drunken debauch. You then spend the next few minutes rummaging through luggage, something you will be doing at length for the duration of the game, before a cut scene sends you to the beach. On the beach you soon discover that you have become the survivors’ bitch. The majority of things you’ll be doing from here on will be an annoying collection of go here get this and bring it back type missions with a few mini games interposed here and there to cut the monotony. Also there is little consequence for your mission choices other than losing out on money or a mod blueprint for refusing a quest.

            Dead Island does give players a massive area to explore. I enjoyed the size of the Island and the open world you’re free to loot. The city area quickly captured my interest because of the frantic turn compared to the island. You’ll find in the city that zombie attacks can easily become overwhelming and thus necessitates the need to create better weapons and build that obnoxious skill tree.  

            There should’ve been a lot more attention paid to the details of in game animations as well as the in game mechanics which can be buggy and intensely frustrating at times. It’s no fun throwing a gas can in the back of a truck a half dozen times because for some reason the gas can keeps popping up on the outside of the truck after it’s set down in the truck bed. Weapons can randomly disappear after being thrown. Zombies may materialize out of nowhere and attack you though walls. Exploding zombies may kill you even if you are hiding behind a wall. The characters are absolutely insufferable during the game with obnoxious one liners as they kill zombies.

             Zombie combat does serve well to break the monotony. In fact this is where Dead Island shines. Some attacks are almost cinematic in their memorability and they happen with a vengeance, especially when confronted by the Infected class zombies running dead at you while screaming.  When you finally get to the point where your character isn’t having their ass handed to them by groups of the undead you’ll find that the combat in Dead Island is well composed even with it’s odd animations and problematic aiming. Blade weapons dismember with relative ease and blunt weapons are capable of crippling limbs. With the help of mod blueprints you can really do some damage. You’ll find workbenches all over the island that allow you to repair, upgrade and create weapons. With mods you can set your enemies ablaze, electrocute them, dissolve them, and more.

            Multiplayer is a good addition though the PS3 version is missing what would be a great co-op offline experience. Online you can join forces with up to three other players who will probably end up taking the majority of items from the things you kill.

            Dead Island can be fun while you’re killing zombies. In fact, it can get downright addictive. Yet the zombie carnage only takes the game so far especially when players have to deal with numerous bugs some of them potentially game ending aka no exit room traps. The full experience seems rushed and incomplete and based on the time this game has spent in development that's a hard thing to overlook.

A note of fail:
            I really enjoyed how Dead Island shits all over that nice little trailer by allowing your character ,in the beginning of the game at the resort, to see the aftermath of the dramatic confrontation in one of the rooms. This half assed easter egg gives you both the mother and father from the trailer lying stiff and dead, without wounds, on the floor... thanks Dead Island.