Dead Island review [360/PS3/PC]
Jamie Donnelly September 7, 2011 - 2:25 pmA zombie game focused on survival and melee combat, set on a beautiful tropical island, is an interesting and unique premise. Does DEAD ISLAND live up to its potential, or would it be better off dead? Read on to find out.
I don’t think I can review Dead Island without mentioning the infamous trailer that blazed through the internet and moved this zombie game from relative obscurity to blinding limelight, so I might as well get it out of the way now. This is not the same game that you saw in that trailer. The people behind that video focused on narrative and emotion; they showed us the brutal reality of how a zombie outbreak would play out, and pulled hard on our empathies. Dead Island does none of this. Instead, it shows us corpses, characters mindlessly staggering about, and not a lot else.
A zombie virus has broken out on the remote Banoi island, a picturesque tourist hotspot. And you can see why people would be drawn there: it’s beautiful. Walking through a brightly lit island scene fit for a postcard is a surreal experience when you know zombies could be lurking anywhere, and it makes a very nice change of pace from the usual dark and dingy environments that we have come to expect from the genre.
You play as one of four characters who happen to be immune to the virus and are thus in the perfect position to help all those stuck on the island. Each character specialises in different categories, and I played as Sam B – a washed up rapper who’s still riding on the success of his one hit, ‘Hoodoo Your Voodoo, Bitch?’. He specialised in heavy weapons, and so I took great delight in swinging sledgehammers and mauls into the faces of oncoming rampant zombie folk.
Not enough braaaains
Aside from a short backstory when you choose your character, that choice doesn’t make the blindest bit of difference. It’s a game that’s designed as a co-op experience, but when playing singleplayer you are on your own – at least, until your teammates mysteriously appear in cutscenes. It’s interesting that despite being immune to the virus, the main characters (and most of the supporting cast, for that matter) are all as lacking in emotion and personality as their zombie cohorts. They’re nothing more than a blank template for you to fill, and as a result it is hard to feel any attachment with their struggle and plight.
What’s most problematic about the lack of decent storytelling is that Dead Island is very much an RPG. There are experience points, quest hubs, skill trees, and everything else that is part and parcel of the modern-day genre. The amount of time you can get out of the game is huge if you partake in all the side-quests, and the main quest line has you in for the long haul as well.
The main quest is all about your attempts to get yourself and everybody else off the infected island. There are plenty of other survivors there, holed up in various locations (ranging from the tourist resort to the tribal jungle), and they all have plenty of things which need doing – you quickly discover that when the world is facing its end of days, errand boys will be the real heroes. Quest hubs are extremely busy, and as a result the game is fantastically fun to begin with, as there’s simply so much to do.
Which is why it’s such a shame that Dead Island soon falls into the trap of repetitive and unimaginative quest objectives. Every quest you take on seems to be a fetch or escort mission, and none of it really adds up with the main narrative of the game. You are painted a picture of desperation and struggle, as people barely have the means to survive – many missions task you with finding food and supplies. Despite this, you are constantly walking past crates of fruit and vending machines full of drinks, none of which anybody seems interested in. The escort missions are also a source of frustration: escortees are not designed to take a beating, and powerful zombie types can often kill them before you’ve really had a chance to do anything.
Great baseball bats of fire
Just like the quests, combat starts off fun and exciting. A first-person, melee-focused zombie game is a unique premise, and at first it doesn’t disappoint. However, as the game drags along towards the latter stages, the combat becomes a repetitive slog and the fun of killing zombies is lost as they simply become an annoying barrier between you and the next objective. At least it’s redeemed somewhat by the weapon modification system – building bombs out of tape and deodorant that you’ve scavenged adds a new dimension to the game, and being able to set fire to your baseball bats or turn a knife into a throwing explosive spices up even the dullest of weapons.
It is unfortunate that weapons deteriorate the more you use them, so your highly powered best friend that you’ve spent lots of money upgrading and modifying will often become useless halfway through a quest without a repair bench nearby. You’ll then break your four backup weapons, and be left hitting zombies with a mundane piece of pipe that is scattered on the ground. I get that it’s part of the survival element, using whatever you can get your hands on, but it seems pointlessly frustrating when you are shackled from using the coolest things in the game for long periods of time.
The combat hits its lowest point when guns are introduced. Gunfights are a tedious stepping stone between you and your objective, and you’re unable to go in close-quarters when faced with humans with ranged weapons. As a result, the single unique premise of Dead Island – that it’s a close quarters, first-person zombie game – goes completely out the window. And by that point, the engaging and entertaining game that was promised has become little more than a faint memory.
Dead Island starts off as an interesting and fun game, but by the end the bland storytelling and repetitive objectives will have rotted your brain and left you in a zombified state.
Dead Island, from Deep Silver and Techland, is out now in North America for Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3, and PC. It’ll hit the UK on Friday 9th September.
Comments (5)
Are you retarded or do you just not understand that there are melee and ranged classes that are to compliment your play style? Also how far have you gotten in the game? It seems like you played the first act and wrote the review based on what you heard.
I can confirm that Jamie played the game in its entirety. And that he’s not by any means the only person I’ve spoken to who feels that way about the ranged weapons. Less of the “retarded” stuff, please. We play nice here.
I ask because he played a class that has a wobble of the hand and less accuracy. He played a tank class that has ranged weakness. That’s why I’m surprised he complained about it. There are very few escort missions in the game, maybe 12 all together out of over a 100 different missions. Most of them are to get things and kill things. Most fights can be run through if you don’t want to do them. The entire review seems to be rather bland and written by someone who doesn’t understand games very well or even the class or the concept of classes. Most people who complain about the ranged weapons also haven’t gotten through the first act of it.
It’s also based around having multiple people to play to fill in the gaps that each class has. The single player aspect of it is for farming weapons/items and the like not a true game.
The levels are also designed so you can engage in close hand combat with ranged people, putting them in covered positions which you can easily overwhelm. There’s only one or two that’s not and as I’ve said before, he picked a class that’s made for melee and has ranged hindrances. Which is where the co-op aspect comes into play.
I’m all for playing nicely but his review didn’t seem to take anything but single player and one class into thought.
Hey Kennai,
To clarify – I did only complete the game with one class as I didn’t have time to play all the classes all the way through, as I’m sure you can understand. However, I don’t think my issues with the ranged system would have been solved by a more specialized ranged class. Even if the character I was using was better at shooting the enemies, I still would have found the actual shooting a bland and uninteresting experience that detracted from the whole unique premise that Dead Island was. It felt like they were throwing guns in simply because guns are the norm in video games, and as a result the gun segments felt extremely tacked on and poorly designed.
Sorry the review wasn’t clearer about that, but only got a limited amount I can fit in (otherwise I could have written about 3,000 words on Dead Island – most of it negative unfortunately).
As for your point about “Most fights can be run through if you don’t want to do them.” – you are exactly right, and this was my major problem with Dead Island. I did want to run through the fights – towards the end of the game I wanted to run through every single fight. When you find yourself wanting to avoid the main brunt of the gameplay in a game, it tends to mean there is something not quite right with it.
Hope that clears up some of the issues
Well there are two versions of shooting, shooting against the undead and shooting against humans. Each one follows different rules which having played the game you should understand each set. The other classes are actually geared towards it and have different perks, upgrades, and abilities that make shooting an enjoyable and non-clunky experience. I played the same class as you and had the same problems with shooting people and handling it.
However, I was told by my friend beside me that they worked on a different set of rules with a ranged class. Which is why you felt that way, each class handles completely differently and even more so as you upgrade your levels.
Wanting to run through the final fights in the game would leave out on a lot of the best gear in the game, as well as the most challenging fights. Granted if you didn’t go the right route developing your character till that and had no other people with you, you’d hate the game.