When you go on holiday you pack the usual things such as clothes, essential electronics, hygiene utensils and zombie repellent......
Dead Island is a zombie survival horror game from Techland studios and Deep Silver. The game was shot into fame by its mind blowing teaser trailer, being on pretty much every media internet site known to man and generating quite a bit of controversy. The trailer showed the transformation of a little girl into a zombie and then be killed by her father, the game showed off next to nothing about the game apart from zombies and a very hard hitting storyline. If you don’t get shocked by the ending or get attached to one of the brilliant characters in the game you are already a zombie.
The one thing that Dead Island really teaches people though is when you make a first trailer that good you have to follow it up and that’s where Dead Island falls flat. The game is told through the eyes of 1 of 4 people, all of which are immune to this plague that has swept across the beautiful island resort of Banoi. Each has their own skills and weaknesses making online 4 player co-op a real hoot, however solo play isn’t anywhere near as fun. If you picture Borderlands with zombies your going down the right road but Borderlands made single player fun, Dead Island quickly becomes a tedious set of repetitive find and fetch quests in increasingly boring areas. The game starts off on the resort itself, sun, sand and sea which is a fresh departure from the greys of today, however it all goes tits up in act 2 where it starts to rain, your in a grey city and you get plunged into sewers, act 3's jungles are OK but no act 1 beach and the final act is in a small prison with no life in colour whatsoever. The game doesn’t favour itself by having a engine that looks like its from the previous generation of consoles making textures jagged, rough and ugly.
The story is hard to explain without giving much away but its a half decent one considering the quality of the overall game. Its hard too, really hard at times, enemies level with you and weapons degrade, ammo is scarce and your very weak making this extremely frustrating in times of overwhelming groups.
The sound is some of the worst I've heard in years, all the characters either have a shitty Australian accent or a shitty American accent with no variation, its like they hired 2 voice actors for the entire game. Sound in general is poor too as its muffled, overpowering everything else or non-existent.
This makes the A/V experience of the game generally poor, I've seen indie games with better sound and graphics than this game.
Your character handles like a fridge with feet and vehicles aren’t much better, your hit only registers if your cross hair is over the enemy and some types of zombie have a ridiculous amount of range. I regularly get stuck in or on scenery and the textures always have to load back if I look away from them for a split second.
Not all is bad though, like I said the story is well told but usually through collectables or the tie in book that’s sold separate. The characters are engaging yet poorly voice acted and its a fresh departure from games like L4D or CoD zombies. The skills system is well balanced yet occasionally frustrating as some skills are only useful when fully upgraded. It will last you a decent amount of time too if you stick to it, the main quest is about 10 hours and the sidequests come by the bucketload, I spent about 20 hours on my 1 playthrough. However saying this there isn't enough to do, all the quests feel the same and all take place in the same areas.
I hope Techland make a sequel of Dead Island to rectify the mistakes, it wouldn't be hard to make a sequel either due to how the game ends. The game is full of flaws and the good bits are hard to come by and this is definitely a love it or hate it game. Under the 10 layers of crap there is a gem of a game but good luck finding it. Dead Island is for hardcore zombie fans only or for people who have 3 friends that like zombie games.
Dead Island – 7/10
+One of the Best Co-Op Games Around
-Unfinished In Areas
