There’s no denying the teaser trailer for Dead Island was fantastic. It was emotional and put the spotlight on Deep Silver and Techland. After becoming so excited over Dead Island it was an instant pre-order for me. Now after playing it one thing is for sure, it doesn’t reflect the trailer we saw at all. That can only mean one thing for me – disappointment. Unfortunately, it’s a recurring feeling all the way through Dead Island for me.
The game revolves around a zombie outbreak on the fictional holiday resort island of Banoi. You have to choose from four playable characters, each have their own skills set and special abilities, which is then followed by a very cool short intro video. Characters available are a hotel receptionist, a retired American football player, a rapper and a female security guard. Don’t expect to become connected with the characters or for them to have a distinct personality because they simply don’t. After the intro video you crash out onto a hotel bed and wake in the morning to something quite extraordinary. Nearly everyone is a zombie! You are literally thrown in at the deep end fighting your way past the zombies in the hotel, and then helping the lifeguard fend off a zombie attack on the beach. The lifeguard, Sinamoi, then becomes one of the main characters in the story. It is from him that you accept story missions. These missions are the main story path, and are usually followed by cut scenes in which all characters are present. The lip syncing and voice acting is horrendous. Other than that there are dozens of side missions to complete which are given to you by other survivors on the island. Dead Island is of course a RPG so even if you don’t want to do any missions you can simply roam the island freely. Overall the main story is lacklustre. The emotionless characters and poor cut-scenes are the main cause. Also it is all slightly confusing to why all four characters appear in cut scenes and then disappear after them. All these issues are what make is so disappointing for me. The trailer and earlier video’s showed the game to revolve around an emotional story, sadly this isn’t the case in the full game.
Visually Dead Island is fantastic. Stylish hotel blocks, bar pools, ocean view villas and palm trees are present by the bucket loads in Dead Island. The water is crystal clear, the leaves of the trees glisten in the sun’s rays and you can clearly see sand blowing in the wind on the beaches. Other than that, the game also takes place in the main town on the island. Here it is much darker and scarier. There are multiple abandoned houses, burnt out vehicles, flood drains and tight narrow streets. The atmosphere is tenser than in the lush resort. Even walking through the town is sure to get your heart pumping and blood racing. The textures are crisp and realistic. For a huge game screen tares and frame rate drops are few and far between. The sound is also perfect. If you close your eyes the sounds of swaying trees and gulls cackling make you think you are in paradise. Techland has gone all out on how Dead Island looks and I’m pleased to say they have done a marvellous job of creating such a wonderful setting.
From the first person perspective fighting zombies is as fun as it sounds. You can attack zombies with anything you can find. There are blunt weapons, sharp knives and even guns to utilise against the zombie hordes. There are multiple ways of dealing with the countless zombies. You can simply swing or throw your one handed weapons at them, blast them down with powerful pistols or opt for good old melee combat and batter them with your bare fists. There are unlimited amounts of ways to fight. Weapon degradation is present so managing you arsenal is key to survival. Workbenches dotted around the island allow you to repair weapons, upgrade them and even add modifications to them. Such Mod’s include adding nails to blunt weapons and also electrifying blades, giving your weapon an extra kick against zombies. One serious flaw I have noticed in the main gameplay is the inability to block an attack. Shouldn’t you at least be able to block an incoming arm from a zombie? I think so.
Dead Island reminds me a lot of the Fallout series. This is because the weapon degradation, inventory, level progression and currency are extremely similar. The in-game currency in Dead Island is dollars. You gain dollars by completing missions and looting dead zombies and storage items. Another way of gaining money is by selling looted items such as scrap metal, rubber and car parts to in-game vendors. Money collected can be used to purchase new weapons from vendors and carry out actions on workbenches. It is quite extensive and works very well. As mentioned above there is a level system based on XP, again completing missions and killing zombies gives you XP. Once you have levelled up you are given a skill point to spend on improving your character’s attributes. These can be assigned to improving combat, survival, or your character’s rage mode. Such improvements include the ability to stomp on fallen zombies heads, percentage increases in the amount of damage you deal and the amount of money looted can be increased with a skill point. There are dozens of levels to progress through. As you gain a higher level so do the zombies, meaning as you get better they become much harder to kill and defend against. Also at no point do the zombies become too difficult to fight against, their abilities always reflect whichever level you are on.
Each character has a unique rage mode. When your rage meter is full (this fills during fighting or getting hurt) you can unleash it on the zombie hordes with the press of a button. The character that I play as uses his fists in rage mode, but the damage dealt from each blow is huge. It doesn’t last long but seriously helps you against a mass amount of zombies as most hits are usually one-hit kill. The other characters have different rage modes, such as a gun rampage and also a throwing knife rampage. It offers something fresh to the gameplay, and once activated the screen turns black and white which is a nice touch. However, I found that sometimes I was unable to enter rage mode even though my meter was full. No matter how many times I tried it would just not activate.
Another good change in gameplay is the first person driving. It works great and is very helpful in travelling across the island. You can mostly drive Jeeps but in some missions you are able to drive unique vehicles. One mission for example required you to retrieve an armoured van from the hotel garage. The vehicles are actually really fast which is certainly good for one thing…running over zombies. The blood splatter is quite extreme. A good touch is the fact that the windscreen becomes cracked meaning you have to punch it through to be able to see the road again. At first you are left admiring the attention to detail, but after having this happen over a dozen times it becomes tedious.
There are plenty of different zombies to fight against. All require different tactics to fight against. I won’t mention them all as some of them will give you a surprise when you see them first. But first up is the Walker which is basically the bog standard zombie, it’s slow but packs a punch up close, and is the most abundant type of zombie on the island. An Infected, however, is fast and agile and very quick in its attacks. They also let out a scream as they are about to run at you which is a good way of warning a player that a zombie is near. Stronger types of zombies include the Ram (the name should give away what its main attack is) and the Thug. The variety in the enemies keeps the game from becoming too repetitive. They are all designed very well and actually freaky and scary to look at, never mind encounter during the game.
At numerous points in the game you will die, there is no question about it. However, the game doesn’t punish you that much. All that happens is that you lose a few dollars and you re-spawn in an area free of zombies. The damage that you recently dealt on enemies before you died remains too. I was expecting a bigger punishment for dying, but the lack of this does help make the game slightly easier.
Of course you can complete the game in single player but online coop is also a feature. You can play with up to 3 buddies online. With another player you can complete story and side missions or just mess about and take on the zombie hordes together for a bit of fun. The ability to ride shotgun on the vehicles is a plus, allowing you both to traverse the Island easily. Joining someone else’s game is simple enough too. Available games are clearly shown on the menu and also a little message pops up in-game asking if you would like to join someone else’s game close by. This does give the option for others to join your game. If you don’t want this you can switch your game to private invite only in the settings. The only problem with the online coop is the fact that other players can be at different levels. A really high ranked player has joined my game and been able to kill zombies with a single hit whereas it has taken me a considerable amount more. You may think that this is a good thing but it ruins your own experience of the game. When it’s vice versa, when you’re playing in a higher levelled players game, you might want to leave as quickly as possible as you will fight it too hard. I haven’t experienced any connection issues with the coop thankfully. When playing with another person it is just as smooth as when playing offline.
I feel there is so much to mention about Dead Island, it’s so vast and expansive. I could talk forever about the countless encounters with zombies that I’ve had in the game. Repetition is present in the quests though, after completing the first few they all become quite similar. For example most quests revolve around this formula: go to A, kill zombies on the way, collect an object, zombie wave is triggered and then return to the person who gave you the quest. This gets quite boring after a while but there are enough unique missions to freshen it up.
I cannot express my disappointment about the story any more. It is what lets Dead Island down. It is not emotional at any point, and the scripting and cut scenes are cringe worthy. I cannot fault Dead Island on its gameplay, visuals and design. It is stunning and literally immerses you into a tense atmosphere that is present throughout. Coop is also a great feature that doesn’t suffer from many connection issues. So if you are looking for a zombie fest and mindless fun then Dead Island is to die for.
7/10
Tested on PlayStation 3
