What did you folks think of Dead Island?

[Zhukov]

I'm really not sure about this game. It started out rather promising and fun, but by the time I was finished with it I was regretting the purchase.

For starters, the story and characters are pathetic. But I'm not going to dwell on that since it obviously wasn't the point. The gameplay starts out as psychotic, whacky fun, but quickly got repetitive once I realised that it amounts to little more than mashing left-click. It then takes a turn for the worse in Act 2 when you suddenly get an endless supply of bullets, rendering the melee obsolete. By Act 3 the game has turned completely into a shooter, with most of the fights being against gun-wielding humans.

I could have handled all that, but the final blow came when I noticed that everything respawns. That zombie you just killed? He'll be back, just give it a few minutes. Hell, he might even respawn in plain sight before you've finished looting the corpse. That gas cannister you just blew up? Also comes back. That loot? Yep, it'll be back too. The overall effect is that nothing you do has any effect on the world. It makes the game feel like an MMO.

Lastly, I'm still a it miffed that the developers went and made a big splash with that neat trailer of theirs, then just served up Borderlands Rising. But I guess that's my fault for letting them get my hopes up.

There's still some fun to be had. If you can get a few viable co-op partners together you'll probably have a blast. But I don't think it was worth the asking price.

So... thoughts? Did other people have a better experience with Dead Island?

 

[-Dragmire-]

I'm waiting for Zero Punctuation's critique of the game so I can call Yahtzee's opinion my own even though I didn't play the game.

...ok, in all seriousness I was planning on getting the game from Steam once a few more patches are put out. It looked like a Left 4 Dead game with an emphasis on characters which sounds like a lot of fun, but I may change my mind based on player reviews. I have a large to-play list as it stands now anyway.

I'm really not sure about this game. It started out rather promising and fun, but by the time I was finished with it I was regretting the purchase.

For starters, the story and characters are pathetic. But I'm not going to dwell on that since it obviously wasn't the point. The gameplay starts out as psychotic, whacky fun, but quickly got repetitive once I realised that it amounts to little more than mashing left-click. It then takes a turn for the worse in Act 2 when you suddenly get an endless supply of bullets, rendering the melee obsolete. By Act 3 the game has turned completely into a shooter, with most of the fights being against gun-wielding humans.

I could have handled all that, but the final blow came when I noticed that everything respawns. That zombie you just killed? He'll be back, just give it a few minutes. Hell, he might even respawn in plain sight before you've finished looting the corpse. That gas cannister you just blew up? Also comes back. That loot? Yep, it'll be back too. The overall effect is that nothing you do has any effect on the world. It makes the game feel like an MMO.

Lastly, I'm still a it miffed that the developers went and made a big splash with that neat trailer of theirs, then just served up Borderlands Rising. But I guess that's my fault for letting them get my hopes up.

There's still some fun to be had. If you can get a few viable co-op partners together you'll probably have a blast. But I don't think it was worth the asking price.

So... thoughts? Did other people have a better experience with Dead Island?

Yeah... things like that may change my mind. Maybe I'll get it from a Steam sale one day.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I have many MANY gripes with Dead Island. In the middle of the game in Act II, I was greatly regretting buying it. But I pushed through and the game got a great deal easier, and more fun. Discovered that if you just kick an Infected, it falls over so you can smash its head just like a Walker. Wish I'da known that earlier because it made things easier on me simply knocking them over so I can temporarily kick them out of the fight and deal with other zombies. It also greatly enhanced the life of my weapons not having to use them so often.

The story is complete crap. They really failed there. That, and the textures render really slow after a load screen. (360 version)

I agree on both points. Textures load SUPER slow on the PS3 version, as well. I guess it doesn't really bother me, though. Rather that than sit at the loading screen for another 20 seconds or so however long it takes to actually load them.

The lighting really, really bothers me. It's WAAAAAY too dark to see anything inside a house, for some ridiculous reason, so my brightness has to go way up to see anything, and as soon as I go outside, there's a major glare on EVERYTHING making me feel like I'm a freaking vampire, complaining about the light in my eyes. And don't get me started on bladed weapons. Has anyone SEEN the Cane Knife? Does that even LOOK like a weapon to anyone? Half the bladed weapons look like shit and another quarter of them aren't even recognizable. It wasn't until Act III until I finally got some good looking bladed weapons(Katana and Wakizashi_______>). Even though Infected can follow me...but that's beside the point. I wish there were several problems that didn't exist, but whatever. I plan to continue being the TrophyWhore that I am and get at least most of the trophies before I trade it back in.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I liked it, but then again I went into it expecting Borderlands with zombies and melee weapons, which is pretty much what I got. Honestly, I kind of wish they'd just gone full on silly with the setting (a la Dead Rising) instead of trying to be serious in some vain attempt of keeping some thematic connection to the trailer. One part Hangover, one part Zombieland. It could have been hilarious.

As for the actual gameplay, it reminded me of Condemned, and not in a bad way. Movement is slow, but if you use your sprint correctly you can get around quicker than you think. I like the enemy variety, and the difficulty scaling made it so every encounter with more than just two or three zombies felt like a challenge, which was nice, unlike Borderlands where once you got a level/weapon advantage over the baddies you became an unstoppable god of death. The only enemy I didn't like were the Infected, only because of the one area in Act II that is absolutely crawling with the buggers. Having one of them blindside you in a fight is ok. Its tense. Having 6 of them camping a ladder so you can't get into or out of the area is ridiculous.

The setting was great, in particular the resort was beautiful. Enemy models look good, though I wish the "realistic" damage was a bit more noticeable. Its there, but its not nearly as prominent as the devs said it would be. Human models, on the other hand...bluh. They are pretty bad, especially the animations for the PCs in gameplay. Also, the game sounds great. Absolutely fantastic. All the zombie sounds are appropriately creepy, and weapons have very nicely satisfying thwacks and crunches with impact.

Just don't go into it expecting a serious story or a lot of super polish, because it has neither. Its Borderlands with zombies, colored loot and all. If that doesn't appeal to you, neither will the game.

 

[elcher]

This is the first game ever to make me want to puke.

EVER - i watch horror movies while bored and just casually shrug when the SAW movies disembowel yet another poor soul - and i felt sick to my stomach after playing for around 1 hour.
WOW such a fail buy...

What also annoyed me was that everything respawned; whyyy???

 

[Techsmart07]

The game can be fun, but it can also be extremely irritating at times.
My friend and I were playing, and our weapons wore out (beginning of act II, didn't have much ammo yet), and we were running to a repair station. some infected caught us and killed us. We respawned about 30 feet away, where we were then assaulted by the same infected that just killed us, before we had a chance to even do anything. We finally killed a few by constantly kicking em down, just to find out that they respawned almost as fast as we killed them (since we died again...). In the end, we were finally able to run around them, and get into a barricaded area and close the door. It never helped that if you try meleeing them (not kicking), the infected are almost guaranteed at least one hit each.
The game is said to be "open world," but there's still a lot of things that it doesn't allow players to do. Go to random bungalow X in silver district? Yeah, no go. You wanna go kill the nun? Isn't happening. Pretty much, you can only go where a quest allows you to go. It's not as open as oblivion/fallout, where if it exists, you can probably go there.
The biggest gripes I had though were with the levels and classes. The zombies level with you, almost at an even pace. This means that any amount of grinding and side quests really don't help you too much. You might get a knife that deals more damage, but it doesn't reduce their damage output. They will always be a threat to you, and, IMO, side-quests don't offer enough reward to balance out the other issues. The classes each focus on a different kind of combat. I played as xian, a blade expert. All I have to say (to those that know these guys), I HATE SUICIDERS! Different types of zombies negate different classes. This is all well and good if you have 1 of each type of class, since you can just beat on him with everyone else. The problem is, it is going to be rare that you are going to have a 4-person team with 1 of each character.

That said, the game can be incredibly fun once you get everything going. After we got past the swarms of infected that kept killing us, we were able to start moving through the game rather quickly. Stomping a zombie's head in the way xian does is just so much fun, especially when it is one that beat the crud out of you. I like the weapon system. It's kind of like borderlands, except instead of randomly picking up a smg with x4 fire, you choose what element you want on it.

Overall, I would say that it is far from my top 10 games. However, I don't think it's bad. Assuming no patches, I would say the right price would be $30-$40 for the experience you get. It doesn't live up to the hype that $50 deserves, but it's definitely something to try without feeling like you have to wait for it to hit the bargain bin at wal-mart.

 

[mikey7339]

It was fun until Act 2. One of the reasons I bought the game was because I was expecting a nice tropical setting akin to Far Cry. Act 1 delivered on that, but then for some reason decided to make a detour into Haiti for act 2. Seriously this run down, dystopian, gritty, ghetto, war torn, whatever it may be; all around shitty, gloomy and depressing settings all games take place in now needs to STOP.

It also didn't help that the multiplayer was broke for the initial week. And then suddenly the game decides, again in act 2, to say screw you and up the difficulty so that you get killed every 5 minutes.

 

[Silenthillreturnz]

2 words FUN GAME