Dead Island: Why all the hate?

[Patrick Buck]

I really did enjoy it, but after a while it started to get REALLY boring. I couldn't, and can't play it at all anymore. It's just no fun at all. This kicked in at about the jungle missions, I just couldn't be bothered to play properly anymore. It wasn't fun.
Still ended up finishing it though, I will get my money's worth!

 

[Zhukov]

The main problems for me:

- The combat consisted of either running up and mashing left click until everything is dead or playing the most stale FPS ever.
- The zombies respawn in exactly the same places. It's hard to feel like you're getting anywhere after chopping the same guy's head off for the tenth time.
- The writing sucked.

 

[Inkidu]

It sucks that's why. It's a bug-ridden piece of shlock. It's Borderlands meets L4D but without the polish and a lot more issues. I rented it, played for three hours and sent it back. Unless you have three friends willing to play as some of the more broken classes it's not worth it.

Blade and blunt are the only good ones. Throwing is a ticket to death, and firearms are too rare to be viable. So fuck that game.

 

[natster43]

From a person who really liked it and bought it day of, there were a lot of problems when it first came out:
Hit detection was pretty bad at points.
Infected being able to hit you multiple times for a shit ton of damage, especially in the city where they auto respawn, know exactly where you are and will chase you down.
There was/is a glitch that can wipe your save files if you have to many random items on you.
Guns are worthless pieces of shit that you should only ever use on people since Headshots are not one hit kills on zombies.
The level scaling makes you weaker as you go on, enemies will do more damage to you, but you need to hit them more to kill them.
ALSO people thought it would be like the trailer even after they told everyone it wouldn't be like the trailer and showed gameplay for it.


Oh also for anyone that cares they are making another Dead Island game, Dead Island Riptide, it apparently is going to be set on Banoi with other people and is going to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 whenever that comes out. http://www.destructoid.com/dead-island-riptide-is-not-dead-island-2-will-cost-50-229347.phtml

 

[Don Savik]

If you buy a game based on a trailer alone, then you're the dumbest type of consumer ever, and you deserve to be cheated out of your money. I know it sounds harsh, and the trailer WAS good, but when have CG trailers ever related directly to the game they are presenting? You should buy a game based on gameplay....not prerendered cutscenes.

It was borderlands with zombies yes, but the tone of the game still solemn and depressing. I found it to be quite atmospheric at some places. It wasn't emotionally grabbing, but the mood fit the trailer.

 

[Torrasque]

I found it super boring and repetitive. Travel was also really really boring, even when driving around in a car.
The combat system, which was supposed to be awesome and winsauce, was just about carrying around enough sticks to kill enough enemies until you could get to a place where you could repair said sticks. I tried being a specialist and badass by carrying fewer better sticks, but I eventually just said "fuck it" and killed stuff with whatever was on hand and saw very little difference. I also hated that evasion sucked really hard at times, and that kick was a clutch.

Overall, it was supposed to be this vaunted zombie survival game, but I found it really lacking.
Left 4 Dead is still #1 zombie game in my books.

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

To me it was like Diablo in first person and with zombies. I really like it and consider it the best zombie game out there ( haven`t played Left 4 Dead).

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

Oh also for anyone that cares they are making another Dead Island game, Dead Island Riptide, it apparently is going to be set on Banoi with other people and is going to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 whenever that comes out. http://www.destructoid.com/dead-island-riptide-is-not-dead-island-2-will-cost-50-229347.phtml

Fingers crossed they optimize the PS3 version better and reduce the screen tearing I keep harping on about.

I mean, look at this shit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm5HimIgyTI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9goNHlkBIaQ

I know that doesn't bother some people but all those screen tears make my eyes hurt.

 

[k3v1n]

Not that I hated the game. I found it pretty good, for a while. Then it got really boring for me. I think it's the only game I've ever played that made me fall asleep while playing it. I don't know, I guess it just got really repetitive.

also:
- Bad respawn places for zombies.(Killing the same zombie for the tenth time in the same damn
place)
- Only good when in co-op mode(and I couldn't play co-op, so I couldn't play how the game was
supposed to be played).
- I really, really didn't like the weapon degrading system, I don't care it's more realistic, I
don't care if it gives you the sense that you're never too safe and that it's supposed to be a
semi-survival game.

 

[cryogeist]

my reason for not liking it is because after a while the enemies get so hard that the game pretty much forces you to play co-op

 

[Rednog]

It got way too grindy way too fast. The city/sewers were abysmal. Overload of bugs on launch. Perpetually re-spawning zombies, especially those in your line of sight is just terrible.
Scaling has never been a good idea, and it is especially bad in a game like this. Half the time the special zombies aren't what will do you in, it will be a swarm of normal zombies.

The health system was just stupid, you took percent based damage from enemies, oh what's that you invested in the survival tree and have a huge life bar? Well tough luck, your ally that only has like 5 bars of health will take a bar of damage per hit while you having 10 bars of health will take 2 bars. Oh and have fun healing up, because healing items don't scale to you health like damage, so you'll be chucking an ungodly amount of energy drinks to fill your health bar.

Oh I can throw like 5 katanas in a zombie's skull and they don't go down, oh well I guess its one of those silly rpg things where a head shot isn't a head shot. Hey some bad guy humans...boom head shot! Wait...what?

Also the character balance was pretty bad, the throwing guy and the gun specialist just didn't shit at all compared to the blunt and sharp experts. I raged pretty hard when I went throwing specialist and was like oh man this is going to be fun being able to throw weapons at enemies constantly and have it boomerang back to me....wait where did my orange with the amazing mod go...oh it hit the zombie, fell, and clipped through the ground.

 

[Dryk]

If you buy a game based on a trailer alone, then you're the dumbest type of consumer ever, and you deserve to be cheated out of your money. I know it sounds harsh, and the trailer WAS good, but when have CG trailers ever related directly to the game they are presenting? You should buy a game based on gameplay....not prerendered cutscenes.

Most of them do a pretty good job of establishing setting and tone, that trailer did neither very well.

The game fell off my watch-list as soon as they revealed that the trailer was completely unrelated to the game. Then Naughty Dog decided that they should develop that game instead, and I don't have a PS3 <.<

 

[Signa]

To each their own, but here's my problems:

- Involved and highly satisfying combat

I was not satisfied at all. My weapons broke too easily, and kicking the enemies was the only reliable tactic. I will award bonus points for allowing flying jump-kicks do more damage.

- A great selection and variety of weapons both ranged and melee

all of which broke too easily or weren't keepers until you find your next piece of trash to bash zombies with

- A surprisingly interesting and detailed storyline with plenty of logs and diaries to read

and zero likable characters. I wanted to kill my player character more than the zombies. A few of the NPCs were retarded too

- An upgrade system that was better than most examples that I have seen in First Person games

I'll grant that point, but I only saw it in the form of my brother and roommate's games. It still looked like weapon degradation was too sharp for the amount of time it would have taken to make those weapons.

- Interesting and well balanced enemies

disagree again. It was zombie, zombie, brute zombie, zombie, You run up to and kick all of them, with the exception of the brute.

- Great graphics

no argument there, but what game doesn't have great graphics these days? Even so, the character animations looked quite shoddy. I loved the environments though

- Entertaining and interesting characters with unique skill trees and traits

I didn't see anything that sharply resembled a good character build beyond the basic "do more damage" passive skills. What wasn't passive didn't sound interesting.

And of course, the gore. And the introductory trailer goes without saying as being a fantastic and highly emotional piece of video.

which made me want to kill the not-zombie people even more. Every single one of them was an asshole.

You're perfectly welcome to like the game, but I hated every aspect of it. I found nothing redeeming about it.

 

[Khazoth]

Why? I love Dead Island but I can tell you why. It could have been so much more. It is a flawed game and how close it is from being something wonderful makes the awful parts shine that much more to the point some people can't see past.

 

[Raioken18]

It was good... despite the glitches and graphical errors.
The combat was hardly balanced and the variety of enemies small... so I dunno why those were listed as positives. The thing that got to us was... it felt too needlessly violent. Like when killing on CoD or Battlefield the kills are kind of personal, you are killing specific targets and there's a reason behind it, and it's a matter of clashing minds and tactics against each other.

With Dead Island, there was just so much mindless killing and blood and destroying corpses that it ended up making you feel physically ill. Like there were a few challenging enemies but the sheer amount of just wandering drones was pretty crazy. Originally I took to running past as many as I could, but because that resulted in like mobs forming... I had to slice my way through countless zombies... it's just not nice.

But like... I like some horror games, like Fatal Frame and Silent Hill, but the thing was those built up tension in places and then you were scared and responding to a threat... not mindlessly killing thousands of drones...

Also I didn't really like the player characters or survivors either...

 

[Danceofmasks]

This game is apparently (by my friends' accounts) not fun if you have trouble figuring out how to efficiently use the systems.

I had a blast 'cos my build consists of using interrupts and instant 180s to kill most things in under a second, due to damage multiplier stacking.
Being able to basically kill regular enemies with a single stab meant that my weapons required little repair, which in turn opened up other uses for my cash .. such as crafting silly amounts of explosives.

Having said that, the quests are crap, the characters are terrible, and most of all the voice acting is some of the most horrible in video game history.

Also, someone told me that apparently my character doesn't wear underwear.

 

[MaximillionMiles]

It's funny. Everybody says "People disliked Dead Island because they thought the trailer was going to be just like the real thing." And yet everyone also says "I didn't fall for the trailer and everybody who did is an idiot!"

Some may not like admitting it right now, but just go and check the posts about the trailer on the forum archives. It did hit strike a chord with many people, and lots of people got excited about the game, and about the possibility of a zombie game where you could care for the characters and not just another zombie-killing-bonanza. Of course, you'd have to break some arms before anyone admitted falling for that, even for the briefest of seconds.

Games are the only medium I know where the bloody advertisement can be more artistic than the final product that was advertised...

 

[Shocksplicer]

Well, it alienated the entire population of Australia by having Australian accents so bad it was practically a hate crime...