15 Hours of Dead Island (pc)

[Biff The Understudy]

Just thought id do a quick review of Dead Island based on my 15ish hours spent on the game incase anyone was on the fence trying to decide if it is worth picking up.
This is in no way an rpg so probably does not belong here but since deep silver insists on marketing it as such i might aswell post it here.

Lets start with the positive aspects of the game:
It has zombies and you get to dismember them in a variety of ways.
Thats about it really.

As for the not so good bits:
It has zombies and you got to dismember them in a variety of ways.
There are an endless amount of zombies thanks to the almost instantaneous respawn of previously cleared areas so the 1click combat gets very old very fast even with tons of weapons to choose from.
This is also a console game in every sense of the word so there are loading screens everywhere, qte's, minigames, achievements, checkpoint saving(only), clumsy controls and awkward inventory management even on pc.
All this could be tolerable if there was a solid narrative to keep you going but the oh so promising trailers were in no way based on anything found ingame.
The npc's are all devoid of personality and the quests are allmost allways of the fetch and carry variety with the occasional escort thrown in.
Since your caracters entire vocabulary apparently consists of affirmative or negative grunts every conversation in the game is basically an npc talking at you with you grunting yes or no at the end depending on whether or not you feel like fetching him 10 packs of food/booze/ammo/whatever.
At no point did i care about any of the npc's or the overall narrative (wich seems to be "get off the island" and thats it).
Grafix wise the game is prettymuch what you would expect this day and age neither ugly nor particularly stunning.
If you are a console gamer this might be tons of fun but if you prefer some substance to your games i would sit this one out.

 

[skavenhorde]

Seems there are a wide variety of opinions on this game. Dead Island goes from 30 to 90 in six reviews from Kotaku.

I bought it today and have around 7 or 8 hours before it unlocks and can't wait. Every negative review I've seen focusing on things I don't expect to find anyways. Give me zombies, tons of weapons, sidequests and I'll be happy. Basically just give me a mix of Dead Rising and Borderlands and I'll save the expectation for something more for when Dead State is finally released.

 

[Ball_Breaker]

I'm pretty curious to try that, even I hate games where zombies are the only enemies...
Anyway, I don't think I'll pick it up on day one.

 

[JDR13]

I played at a friend's house for a few hours earlier today. Unfortunately, I have to pretty much agree with everything the OP said, especially about it being a console game in every sense of the word.

The checkpoint-only save system by itself is enough to knock a few points off this game. Imo, such a system is inexcusable in an open-world game.

The visuals look like those of a first generation X-box 360 game. A lot of the textures are glaringly low-res, and extremely bland. They also went way overboard with the bloom.. even to the point where it literally hurt my eyes to look at certain things. On a positive note, what I saw of the Island seemed well done in regards to map layout. It truly looked like a tropical resort.

It has the typical "let me hold your hand" quest structure of most console games, with markers on your mini-map showing you exactly where to go. What's really funny is that there's a menu option called "Enhanced navigation" that takes the hand-holding even further by actually drawing a dotted line between you and the objectives on the map.

When you die, you simply wait for a respawn timer until you're resurrected, then you pop back into the game like nothing happened. Zombies and weapons will also magically respawn in the exact same places, even if you had cleared them out prior to your last save.

To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement.

 

[CelticFrost]

zero interest

 

[skavenhorde]

So Dead Rising and Borderlands mixed together on a bigger world. That sounds good to me. Thanks JDR for pretty much confirming that. Maybe someone will mod that respawning nonsense out of the game later on, but for now that seems like that will be my only complaint.

I'll always get a little giggle out of anyone complaining about graphics now-a-days. I've seen the gameplay trailers and a Let's Play video and have no clue what people are complaining about. It looks great to me. Granted my standards for graphics are a lot lower than other peoples. Heck, pretty much every AAA game since 2000 looks great to me. To each their own I guess.

 

[Khalus]

Yeah, this game is horrible. Only lasted a few hours and promptly deleted it and sold it on eBay!

 

[badmofo]

Oh dear it sounds like I've wasted 45 bucks, and it's not like I don't have other games waiting to be played - what was I thinking? The tropical resort just looked so nice after a chilly Melbourne winter.

It unlocks tonight for me so we'll see, I do like going into things with low expectations so thanks guys.

 

[fadedc]

Well everything (players and enemies) respawned in Borderlands so it shouldn't be a big surprise that they do in Dead Island too. My understanding is that it's not exactly a game you play for story or realism but for leveling up and killing zombies with crazy weapons. Sounds like some people were expecting more of a gritty survival horror.

From the reviews I've read money extremely tight in the game with your stuff constantly breaking. When you respawn you take a painful cash hit that you tend to want to avoid at all cost. At the same time it sounds like the respawning zombies do have cash and can be an important way to get back on your feet if your broke and you have no working weapons.

 

[bussinrounds]

Doesn't sound too appealing. The only zombie game i'm looking forward to is Dead State. If it ever comes out, that is.

 

[epithumia]

Sounds like it will be worth a spin with friends. Once it goes on sale for $10, of course.

 

[Melvil]

The Borderlands comparisons are fair, but keep in mind that Borderlands is a much better game

 

[Gokyabgu]

Aside from endless respawning of zombies this game has the level scaling system in it's purest form like Vanilla Oblivion or Sacred 2.

So, Endless Respawning + Pure Level Scaling = Disaster for me.

 

[Gokyabgu]

The Borderlands comparisons are fair, but keep in mind that Borderlands is a much better game

At least in Borderlands enemies levels are tied to the area. So, this gaves the player some sort of achievement. Somebody tell me what is the point of leveling if all the monsters also will level with me? Is it because of a design decision or some lazy developers?

 

[curious]

don't buy the hate hype— it does have its flaws but unlike borderlands it has crafting rather than just endless weapon looting. also the questing to me is quite grand as they seem realistic to the survival setting and there are tons of side-quests than can give you great mod recipes, etc. i'm on the 2nd act now and its much tougher, though you can actually go vertical in the city which gives you moments of reprieves. also i like this game much better than the left for dead series another co-op zombie game that is a huge zombie popup fest though its brevity keeps it from growing stale.

i am also greatly looking forward to dead state, but i think some people are a bit ludite/elitist if they dismiss this game as not having many of the same elements (besides just zombies) that dead state will have. leveling in this game makes sense, as much as i'd prefer otherwise, with the sheer amount of openness and side quests means there's no way they could have static enemies also do to the fact that there are so few archtypes of enemies in the game. basically though chosing the right weapon and maintaining it along with relevant skills are all that matters as even with weapons well below your level and the enemies you can still take them down without much trouble if your strategy is good. also since the levels are so large respawing only occurs when you travel quite some ways on the map. it is true it would be nice if they had some kind of regions on the map that related to respawning when you leaved. no respawing though wouldn't make sense as the zombies are constantly turning and theres no reason to think you could clear a whole city or resort without any fresh ones showing up. also some zombies that spawn are quest related and won't show up in the future when you return to the area.

for reference i'm playing as the asian female who specializes in sharp weapons which don't have the range for the most part but have speed and you dismember quite easily. kicking is your best friend though especially with a few enemies.

who knows i may begin to though the respawing and scaling as i push further into the city as last night i had a few times where i kept getting overwhelmed by zombies, especially the "infected" which are the running/rabid dawn of the dead remake type. i imagine if i stuck to the quests it would be simpler but i always play by the region space exploring that has me covering the entire map which in this tight/dense city has been slow going.

in truth this is the best zombie game i've played (haven't played dead rising though capcom usuallly equals pc stinkfest), and one of the best survival/horror games i've played in a long time so far i couldn't tell you the last.

edit:
also i fine the save system to not be a problem as unlike borderlands which system i hated doesn't have seperate maps that take hours to go from one end to the other which you may end up having to redo.

 

[JDR13]

The Borderlands comparisons are fair, but keep in mind that Borderlands is a much better game

I absolutely agree, and I don't even have a high opinion of Borderlands.

What's sad is that Dead Island could have been so much better with just a few small differences. The single-player design just reeks of laziness.

A manual save-load system, respawning that isn't so blatantly overused, weapons that don't break after 9-10 swings, and a crafting system that actually makes a bit of sense, would have gone a long way imo.

 

[curious]

i'm kind of wondering why most of the peeps on this site haven't had a game that's been released in the past year that they haven't been disappointed with or found flaws in other than a horrid jrpg ridiculous demon souls game. to me that's the furtherest thing from pc crpgs, but maybe i'm alone in that. every other game has been "a disappointing sequel" or "lame in some other way".

been having a great time in the dead island city tonight and thankfully haven't died once after last nights not so fond memories. weapons may get dull depending on their stats and your skills (hardly in 9-10 swings) , but like i said there's other tactics and you can carry quite a few weapons. also once you have any enemy on the ground you can go to town on them with a completely dull weapon, and later on even get finishing moves which don't use a weapon of even the old kick. there's also a number of explodable items that you can throw your weapon that doesn't dull it and also is great on the larger zombies. then there's the vehicle driving and vehicular manslaughter not applicable in the 2nd act. also i'm not sure about other characters but the female asian has a fury mode that lets you slice and dice all which uses some "magic knife weapon" that is wielded despite whatever weapon you have equiped. also it should be noted that guns which do pop up quite a bit in act 2, though only on the "punks" which aren't even zombies but gang members/looters, do not degrade and you can use a gun to your hearts content though ammo is limited in how much you can store and its not effective on most zombies anyhow other than a few though its highly effective, ie 1 headshot 1 kill, on human enemies.

cheers to all the comments on the game though by those who have not played it

ill keep having fun on this game which has some of the most detailed "modern" level design since bloodlines or swat 4. I much prefer a gameworld filled with all kinds of "real world" items than fancier graphics. one of the best "action" rpgs i've played which i call action based on not having any speech skills, or non-violent approaches to quests and story progression.

 

[DArtagnan]

Tried it for a bit and quite liked it. Pretty much what I originally expected, actually - and I'll be buying it when I get the time to play it.

The save-system is a staple of the genre, and I wouldn't expect anything different from a multiplayer game like this. It's not really about where you are in the story, but where you are with your character. It also saves on quit, which means you don't have to "get to the next checkpoint" before you can stop playing.

The visuals are decent enough, though I think the engine handles object pop-up rather poorly. I'd have preferred some PC specific options to extend the distance for that. The performance was EXTREMELY smooth - and I think we're talking triple digit frame rates. So, there should be plenty of room for improving the visual side of things. Oh, and I agree that the bloom is terrible - but for once it's somewhat appropriate for the setting.

The gameplay is nice and responsive, and the location in itself is very well done. I think they went overboard with the looting of containers - and they should have made the process faster. The pace of the game would have been a better match with "instant looting" - but that's not really a big deal. I didn't get to see firearms in action - but I found the melee combat very satisfying. It reminded me of Dark Messiah with the kicking and generally very active and responsive flow.

The quest structure is totally run-of-the-mill - but the quests themselves make good sense in the context (at least so far). I'd say they seem less arbitrary than the ones in Borderlands, which were quite MMOish - and I definitely prefer both the location and the atmosphere in Dead Island.

It's not as polished or refined as Borderlands - but I'm not sure I would say one is better than the other. The jury is still out - but Dead Island certainly has the potential to match it.

So far so good. After the excessive negativity here, I was expecting a dreadful game. It's definitely not that. It's really a rather entertaining game with tons of potential, especially as a co-op experience.

It looks and performs like Far Cry 2, it plays like Borderlands with Dark Messiah combat.

That's not so bad, is it?

 

[Dhruin]

Have to agree with most of that. Go in with the right expectations and it's quite a fun romp. Nothing more cerebral than bashing in zombie skulls but sometimes that's the ticket.

 

[JDR13]

It looks and performs like Far Cry 2, it plays like Borderlands with Dark Messiah combat.

That's not so bad, is it?

Well, like Dhruin said, I guess it depends what kind of expectations you had. Mine were evidently much too high.