My thoughts on Dead Island (may contain a spoiler or 2)

Hey guys, I haven't posted in awhile since my first blog but I figured it was time to update this space. So I decided after a bit of contemplation of what game to review, so to speak that the best choice would be the recently released Dead Island. First of all, when I heard about this title from a friend of mine, I didn't think much of it at all. I do love zombies and I thought the prospect of mindlessly killing the undead hordes would be fun but I thought it sounded like a Left4Dead clone and to be honest, personally I wasn't such a huge fan of Left4Dead or the sequel. I mean sure killing zombies is fun but it becomes monotonous after awhile and the levels become seemingly pointless as they all have more or less the same goal. But to get back on topic Dead Island surprised me in a few ways and of course has it's pitfalls like most other games.

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this post I heard about this game from a friend and that was exactly that I HEARD about it but had not actually seen any gameplay or trailers for it yet. So I eventually took it upon myself to youtube the game and see what I could find. I sat back in my chair waiting for the video to buffer (Sadly our internet connections in South Africa are ridiculous) and to my surprise I found that the official game trailer looked particularly well done and entertaining. So with that done I watched a few more videos more focused on the gameplay and naturally I decided to give it a spin.



A view of the Island Banoi



To begin I must say that graphically I was very impressed with Dead Island and the scenery was nothing short of eye candy (with the exception of the part of the game dealing with the sewers), the character models were done nicely and all in all it is a very visually appealing game. To add to that it's nice to see video game developers stray from the traditional sort of dark sort of gloomy type horror genres. I was also delighted to see that round about the very beginning of the game you can actually see the door where the zombies broke through in the official trailer of the game, and I thought that it was a nice touch.

The brutal plumbers of Banoi Island

As far as weapons go you begin with an oar and decide to brave the beach of the infected Australian island of Banoi, on which you find yourself. I found the game had a very Dead Rising kind of feel in regards to weapons just due to the sheer amount of items that can be used as weapons throughout the game. In Dead Island, firearms only become available fairly far into the game and I found that in my experience it was often more effective to simply run and start hacking the zombie hordes to pieces. This brings me to a negative point of the game. I found the combat system in dead island to be a bit clunky, for the most part hacking off limbs of mindless zombies can be fun but it just doesn't always feel like you have full control over your weapons at times besides the guns of course.

As mentioned in a couple of reviews before, the fire fights with the "Rascals" bandit gang in the game are particularly lackluster and further emphasises the focus of using melee weapons in Dead Island. Another negative point I might add would be the quality of the quest content. Dead Island is not a game for anyone expecting intricate storyline, as the quests are usually quite linear.

Despite these negatives Dead Island shines in it's coop and multiplayer capabilities. I found the game to be about over 9000 times more fun playing with my friends than I did alone. There's nothing more satisfying than fighting off the zombie hordes with friends (at least not in my opinion. I'm waiting for the zombie apocalypse!) and I had a lot of fun expressing my surprise as a zombie ran up behind me only to have it's head shot off by another player watching my back. Or doing a driveby and sitting on the back of a pick-up truck shooting at the undead horde.

All in all Dead Island takes the cake as being a really fun game with solid coop and with a few drawbacks that could be improved apon. But essentially the concept is good and I've been waiting for a zombie game that made me excited for awhile. If you're looking for non-stop zombie killing action with light easy going quest chains, Dead Island will be sure to keep you satisfied.