First off, lets start by saying that Zombie games so far have been one of the most popular genres of gaming. With Call of Duty Zombies, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, Left 4 Dead, Nation Red, Dead Nation and various others, where run & gun and hectic frenzies of zombie slaying are it's standing points, you would be lead to believe that a game like Dead Island would be hard to fit in this genre with it's various fallout/borderlands gameplay mechanics. And much to my skepticism and dismay for the title, I am absolutely astounded by it's overall fun factor.
Dead Island is a game set on a fictional island paradise called Banoi, located in the Papa New Guinean Islands, north of Australia. It stars four unlikely heroes who find out that they're somehow immune to the disease that has caused a zombie outbreak among the innocent civilians of the lush wonder. It starts off with a nice in-game engine cinematic of a party, where you follow a man who's had just a bit too much alcohol. Once the cinematic ends, you're able to choose between one of the 4 protagonists.
Logan, a football player who lost it all, is the first choice. His specialty is throwing weapons (this means ANYTHING). And while he's great at taking out his foes from afar, he's limited in his stamina, and thus must be used carefully and tactically. Next, we have Purna. The spunky woman who is considered "the Leader". She's proficient with guns and her abilities revolve around buffing the others. After this, we have Xian Mei, the woman who was raised in China. She has a proficiency for sharp weapons, and is called "the Assassin". She's quick, and has high Stamina. And last, but most certainly not least, we have "the Tank", named Sam B. This man is a regular brick; being able to crush the undead under his feet (literally!). He has high health and takes less damage than the others. For this review, I went with the foul-mouthed Texan, Logan.
To start off, every character has three skill trees. Fury, which is a special ability that each character has, and can be used to quickly deal with the zombie infestation. Combat, which involves enhancing your damage dealing skills. And Survival, which revolves around well, surviving. Being able to lock pick, increasing your health, resistance to certain damage, and other various skills that will also aid you in your struggle to survive. Logan's fury allows him to enter a temporary state of circus freak knife throwing, allowing him to barrage multiple zombies with a flurry of knives. His combat tree enhances his handling with blunt and sharp weapons, as well as his ability to throw weapons more proficiently. His survival tree however, is one of the more interesting things to invest in, as he has the "boomerang" ability. This gives you the chance to have whatever is thrown, even if it misses, to return to your hand, and can be upgraded a maximum of three times (15%, 30%, 50%).
As you explore the vast island, you're left with the feeling of insecurity as you explore the dense paths of the zombie infested world. Your ultimate goal obviously, is to escape the island. Rather than just following a main story, this is done through questing, where you take on missions assigned by the small survivors for specials weapons, weapon modifications, money, and experience. And while there's a main story, there's also an abundant amount of side quests to do to help you gain the levels you needs and items you want. These quests revolve around helping others find their loved ones, retrieving lost heirlooms, gathering alcohol, canned food, or water, and various other tasks. This is where the game succeeds immensely. Through my time playing, I almost never felt that there was nothing to do. And when completing quests and earning rewards, you level up in the process, which slowly turns your ordinary protagonist into a zombie killing badass.
The infected aren't a pushover either. This isn't Left 4 Dead style killing where spraying your gun mows down hundreds of enemies. These infected are downright humanistic, and are as tough as nails. During the first act, you may not find too much difficulty when dealing with your foes. However, as the game progresses, you suddenly realize that at almost every turn, you're being overrun with enemies who are just as strong as you are. Not to mention, the undead aren't just mindless drones who stumble towards you. You'll find quite a variety of undead in the game, ranging anywhere from walkers, to newly infected civilians who can still run at their full potential. The thug, who is a slow moving, heavy damage dealing, high health zombie who will literally knock you on your ass if you come too close. The ram, who is a gargantuan monstrosity tied in a straight jacket, who does as his name implies. The suicider, which resemble a thinner version of the boomer from Left 4 Dead, will explode on contact and spit a vile that causes anything to become extremely flammable. The floaters, who have similar traits to the boomers, are able to take quite a beating and will vomit on you, causing you to take damage and be temporarily blinded. And last is the Butchers, who are fast and can do a lot of damage with their broken off limbs.
Another fantastic aspect of this game is the loot system. Throughout your adventure, you'll find a surplus of weapons, ranging from blunt, to sharp, from single handed, to two handed, to different guns. There's weapons ranging anywhere from weak, homemade weapons, to the rare colored ones you'd expect from Diablo. Once you have your weapon, you can take it to the work bench and upgrade their damage and durability and other various traits. Then, once you've done this, you can create new weapons from pre-existing weapons much like in Dead Rising 2. Where elemental attributes can be added such as Fire, Lightning, Poison, and Bleeding.
I don't want to talk to much about the story, as I don't want to spoil anything. However, I can say while it may not be the greatest piece of literature written, it does have it's surprises and is worth following.
Do I believe that this game is worth picking up? Absolutely. It's nothing but pure enjoyment, albeit filled with it's fair share of bugs. Is it for everyone? Probably not, but if you'd like to have your good ol' fashioned zombie killing with splash of RPG, you're set for a good time. It's not perfect, but it might be one of the best zombie games to come out this entire generation.
We might be in the age of remasters, but it doesn't look like the Dead Island 2 devs believe remaking the original game is the right move for the series.
but remakes require far less effort for these companies and they can still charge $70 for them!
Feel like everyone makes fun of Skyrim re-releasing like 18 times yet applaud these remasters elsewhere. Would much prefer NEW games
Making sequels really is the way to go. Otherwise we'll be stuck playing only the first entry, forever!!!
Josiah Motley of KnowTechie writes: "I love video game trailers. While I don’t believe they are an integral part of a game’s success (especially these days), there’s something about a well-produced trailer that really just reminds me why I like video games."
How so? Because it focused on a family that you see dying? (innocent question, haven't gotten a chance to play any Dead Island game yet)
More the tone of it - the tone of the trailer suggested something personal and dramatic, but the game was very much reminiscent of Left 4 Dead in that you were just there to kill zombies and nothing more
You play as a singular character there is no family involved at all in the game. Still a stand out trailer that I remember clearly from years ago.
Did you not like the game?
I remember going in expecting a L4D style of game, but the excessive camera swaying honestly made me feel ill, and it's rare for a game to do that to me, still don't understand why the need for anything other than maybe a subtle slight camera movement when doing melee attacks etc. Other than that i didn't really find the game that good. In all honesty i had more enjoyment out of DNF, and i know many people crap on that game.
It’s the music. It’s perfect. I agree with this for sure, it is well choreographed….unfortunately the game didn’t live up to the trailer.
Maybe not, but it was still a good game. I liked how they expanded things with Dying Light, but Dead Island was a great first attempt! I really liked all the Easter eggs and homages to other horror franchises sprinkled throughout. Sure it was a little cheesy and over there top, but it was a good happy medium between Far Cry and Fallout with zombies.
Have you ever seen any of the MGS 3 or MGS 4 trailers? Those blow this out of the water for me.
They require prior knowledge of the franchise, tho. You show this trailer to anyone, and I mean ANYONE, and they can understand what's going on and relate to the family dynamic almost immediately. No need to know who is Snake, or Fox Hound, or Raiden, or Metal Gear...
Kevin F. from Link Cable Gaming writes: "Many of the best Xbox 360 games are playable on the Xbox One and Series X|S consoles. Some even with some enhanced visuals and performance. Unfortunately, not every game from the Xbox 360 library has received this glorious feat of being able to be played on more modern Microsoft consoles."
The Spider-man games will never happen. The xbox 360 Marvel Ultimate Alliance games have a better chance of happening than Spider-man titles but won't happen. The Xbox One Ultimate Alliance games delisted years ago
Yeah... you can totally forget about those entries that got delisted because of licensing issues. Those are not happening.
Almost all of the games people want to play are BC, and that's a hell of a lot better than having none available.
Almost all the games people want to play? Not true. Majority picks screw over the minority who have games collecting dust. Metal is right. Fans make it seem that it's all. 39/997 games from OG Xbox is NOT all. 568/2154 from 360 is NOT all. But you guys play it up like it is.
And from my count, there are 4,000+ PS4 BC games on PS5 that I see. And almost every VR game. Series X has no Kinect games or Kinect 2. But you played that up too. No more dancing.
As for the article, some of the BC games make sense. The others with Spider-Man aren't happening.
Great review.
I definitely pulled in over 50 hours on this game. I just hope there`s a sequel.
I love the game, it definetely deserves a sequel. I was a huge fan of L4D, but this game is alot more fun in my opinion. I like having to do quests so it keeps the games interesting. I'm really glad they didn't decide to nix this game because for a long time I thought they weren't going to make it.