What do you think of Dead Island?

Recommended Videos

mentalkitty789

New member
Dec 30, 2010
97
0
0
I've been playing Dead Island all day today. I wanted to know what other people thought about it, and share my own thoughts.
I really like the game, the game play is fun, and it is really good. Here are some complaints though.
EDIT: THESE ARE NOT GAME BREAKING COMPLAINTS. These are just things have happened often enough or stood out to me as something I didn't like. OVERALL these are NOT game breaking points about the game. Also get this is OPINION if you don't agree you're wasting your time in trying to explain why I am wrong, or any nonsense like that.

First, it feels too easy to die. I'm not talking about the special zombies, I mean the normal ones. There was the odd time later in the game when one zombie would freak out and charge at me getting THREE bloody hits before I could get one! It feels too easy for the average zombie to just destroy you in a matter of seconds.. Seriously, a person should be able to take more punches than that, and they are dead people! why is a dead person that strong?
Correction: They took 2 blocks of health off of my total of seven blocks each time. So I can take like four hits before I die, and when a zombie 'freaks out' and manages to get three in before I do one. That is a problem.

Two, the dead end quests. During some quests you'll run into people, save them, or do something else for them. Then there is no follow up quest or any mention of the characters getting to safety, they just up and disappear! It is really weird when I save a person from some zombies trying to break down the door and then make no attempt to get to safety after. Unless I'm supposed to assume they got to safety.

These are minor points that I feel should be fixed or changed, but did not really grind on my nerves or anything like that.
Side note: I feel like early on and weapons you aren't specialized in break a bit too easily. Also they barely do any damage if you are not specialized. That isn't a big deal, because you can specialize in one and brutally murder zombies that way.
Side note 2: There is a bit too much cursing, it isn't that I have a problem with it. I honestly don't really care, but it seemed like every sentence had a 'fuck' or 'shit' or some other curse in it. Then again, in defense of that, it is a stressful situation so people would be stressed.
Side note 3: Correction: I'm taking notice of the knock back now. I guess I didn't notice because I was playing late last night.
Side Note 4: Having all of the characters in a cut scene. I was playing solo so it kind of annoyed me to see the others. Plain and simple really.

Somethings I would like to see in the next one, if there is a next one.
One, RP in this game. It is an rpg after all, I wouldn't have minded some dialogue, like telling the survivors to shut up when they started praising God for ME saving their sorry asses! Still it would have added some flavor in defining what kind of survivor you were, and would have been very interesting. Add some 'social skills' and such.
Two, maybe some 'factions or survivor groups'. Make friends with some punk gang, or ally with the police force, help out survivors or a specific group of survivors, or just be on your own the whole time. It would be a good idea to have a story with no real 'vital characters' one where you can basically find your own escape even if you kill off everyone you meet.
Three, making your own character. This I love in any game, and really wouldn't change much. Take the four 'archetypes' or 'classes' and let us pick our gender and appearance. Personally it ticked me off to see three of the same character running around at once, or something along those lines. Really just reply to the character as 'he' or 'she' depending on their gender, not much else to do other than that.
Four, multiple endings. Basically a short wrap up of the infection. Did your actions do more harm causing it to spread to anther location, maybe? Maybe you helped the drug runners get a strong foot hold during the outbreak, allowing them to basically rule the city after order was restored. Maybe there were some scientists and your help lead to a cure or something. Maybe a quick run down of what happens to each survivor you met, in text or voice acted.

Edit: A new complaint. I really think it is too easy to kill the zombies and too easy to die. I mean so long as I'm using bladed weapons (because of the character I was playing as, this varies from character to character) I fuck shit up! I really feel that the game should have made killing zombies hard and surviving easier. That is what makes zombies scary, not them being able to fuck you up, but you having a hard time killing them off.
Again this is just my opinion, I think zombies should be more durable and less powerful than they are in this game.
 

King of the Sandbox

& His Royal +4 Bucket of Doom
Jan 22, 2010
3,268
0
0
I love the game, and apparently so do a lot of people, as it was sold out for a while after release in many places.

My only nitpick (and that's all it is, a nitpick) is the selling menu. I want to sell 5 deoderants at a go, not one at a time. Also, stop moving the curser around after I sell one thing. That alone would fix this.

Everything else is amazing. The exploration, the tension (especially if playing alone), the combat, the rpg elements, everything.

I've also not had any of these purported bugs in my game, other than a few instances of texture pop in and a sink in an abandoned house that was so anti aliased, it has to be a joke left in by the devs.
 

Telperion

Storyteller
Apr 17, 2008
432
0
0
I haven't had the opportunity to play the game a lot, but whenever I see that "Press J to Join" flashing on the screen I press it right away. Playing with even one other human player makes all the difference, because even when there's a zombie in your they can come and knock that sucker out.

Side note 3: yeah, I totally agree with this. I use the rush & attack style of attacks to get extra damage (don't know if that's really the case), but even then there's no noticeable knock back. And there really should be.

Overall I'm enjoying the game very much. It's very atmospheric, even a bit scary from time to time. Mostly, though, it encourages some thinking, which is very nice since we are talking about a survival horror game.
 

Rednog

New member
Nov 3, 2008
3,567
0
0
Biggest problem in the game: Zombies cause the same % value of health no matter how much health you have. This is utter bullshit, why bother investing in the bonus health skills when it makes absolutely 0 difference? Hell, it actually is a negative because you end up having to use more healing items to get back to full health. I run around in multiplayer and people take like 3-4 energy drinks and are at full hp, I have to take like 10 and I end up seeming like a prick because of it.
Second problem is that the Blunt/Sharp experts are insanely stronger than the throwing/firearms experts.
No ability to reset skill points, why does this not exist? Considering there are alot of skills that sound good in the beginning but kind of suck later in the game you'd think they'd offer skill resets like other games.
 

chadachada123

New member
Jan 17, 2011
2,310
0
0
I love the hell out of this game. It's awesome.

Sure, the interface could use some work, because it's hard to sort stuff, sell stuff, look through stuff, etc, but as far as the gameplay goes, it's incredible.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
43
I really don't like the way everything respawns. It makes it feel like I'm just wasting my time, since nothing you do has any impact or permanence. That zombie you just killed? It'll be back next time you come through. So will the loot. And the healing items. And the vehicles. And the explosives.

It makes it all rather predictable too, since everything always respawns in the same place. "So, outside that doorway, there'll be two zombies on the left against the wall and an infected will charge from the right. Also, there'll be a thug out in the open and some looters in the next ally."

Lastly, it means you get endless ammo, which kind of breaks the game.
 

Xyphon

New member
Jun 17, 2009
1,613
0
0
mentalkitty789 said:
First, it feels too easy to die. I'm not talking about the special zombies, I mean the normal ones. There was the odd time later in the game when one zombie would freak out and charge at me getting THREE bloody hits before I could get one! It feels too easy for the average zombie to just destroy you in a matter of seconds.

The lack of knock back. Now I get this they are zombies and won't exactly get knocked back by a knife in the chest. When you go at someone with a machete or a sledgehammer to the chest there is bloody FORCE behind that! It really should knock back a zombie or at least interrupt and attack. (Kind of linked to point one.)
1: You aren't exactly meant to be a human tank. Even Sam B at max health is a squishy human being that can feel pain. The zombies are ravenous, instinct-fueled beings of hate, malice and hunger, as such they hurt like a ************. Also, did you even try to use the kick on that zombie? That's what it's there for.

2: I never had any problems with force. If I used a blunt weapon with a high force stat such as a crowbar, I would take them off of their feet almost every time.



I love this game to death (hurr), but the fucking saving system makes me not want to play it. My level 16 Logan was at the end of Act 1, I took a break and when I came back he was reset to level 3 at the start of the game. This also happened with my Xian and Sam B.

Zhukov said:
I really don't like the way everything respawns. It makes it feel like I'm just wasting my time, since nothing you do has any impact or permanence. That zombie you just killed? It'll be back next time you come through. So will the loot. And the healing items. And the vehicles. And the explosives.
To be fair, the game would be incredibly boring if there weren't any zombies in an area you've been through. A survial game isn't a survival game if you don't have anything to survive against.
 

mentalkitty789

New member
Dec 30, 2010
97
0
0
Xyphon said:
1: You aren't exactly meant to be a human tank. You're a squishy human being that can feel pain. They're ravenous, instinct-fueled beings of hate, malice and hunger. Also, did you even try to use the kick on that zombie? That's what it's there for.

2: I never had any problems with force. If I used a blunt weapon with a high force stat such as a crowbar, I would take them off of their feet almost every time.



I love this game to death (hurr), but the fucking saving system makes me not want to play it. My level 16 Logan was at the end of Act 1, I took a break and when I came back he was reset to level 3 at the start of the game. This also happened with my Xian and Sam B.
Yes I did use the kick, probably not as often as I should sometimes, but I do. The thing is zombies seem to constantly give me a knock back preventing me from using it when I need to. Still, the thing is they are dead. Dead people to not strong muscles have, either way, I feel, they should have either attacked slowly or done less damage or have a way to get some form of armor to weaken their blows. You know have three normal kinds of zombie the 'slow strong kind', the 'fast and weak kind' and the 'kind in the middle'. Maybe even a 'bite crazy zombie'.

Maybe I'm just not looking at the force stat, thanks. Also to solve that little problem, visit a safe house often. Saved me arse.
 

feeback06

New member
Sep 14, 2010
539
0
0
I am really enjoying it so far, but just like Borderlands this is a game you have to play with other people in order to get the full effect. That makes solo play with certain characters a real chore.
 

TankTop

New member
May 31, 2010
57
0
0
Solo is going quite well at the moment, but there are a few minor niggles.

For starters, I get terrible static whenever I'm using my surround headphones, rendering it useless, the menu sensitivity is terrible, and menu navigation is quite clunky.

That being said, I'm loving (nearly) every second of it.
 

Xyphon

New member
Jun 17, 2009
1,613
0
0
mentalkitty789 said:
Xyphon said:
1: You aren't exactly meant to be a human tank. You're a squishy human being that can feel pain. They're ravenous, instinct-fueled beings of hate, malice and hunger. Also, did you even try to use the kick on that zombie? That's what it's there for.

2: I never had any problems with force. If I used a blunt weapon with a high force stat such as a crowbar, I would take them off of their feet almost every time.



I love this game to death (hurr), but the fucking saving system makes me not want to play it. My level 16 Logan was at the end of Act 1, I took a break and when I came back he was reset to level 3 at the start of the game. This also happened with my Xian and Sam B.
Yes I did use the kick, probably not as often as I should sometimes, but I do. The thing is zombies seem to constantly give me a knock back preventing me from using it when I need to. Still, the thing is they are dead. Dead people to not strong muscles have, either way, I feel, they should have either attacked slowly or done less damage or have a way to get some form of armor to weaken their blows. You know have three normal kinds of zombie the 'slow strong kind', the 'fast and weak kind' and the 'kind in the middle'. Maybe even a 'bite crazy zombie'.

Maybe I'm just not looking at the force stat, thanks. Also to solve that little problem, visit a safe house often. Saved me arse.
Well, it's not like they've been dead long enough for decomposition to start affecting the muscles. They pretty much have the same strength as when they were alive, but amplified by their primal instincts and rage. When you think about it, it actually makes sense that the damage can be so high.

According to some people, the recent 31mb patch pretty much fucked any saves made before it. I've wiped all of my saves and have started fresh. So far, the save system is working perfectly.
 

Smooth Operator

New member
Oct 5, 2010
8,162
0
0
While my buddy is squirting all sorts of joyjuice over it, I don't like it as it is a combination of many things I dislike:
- zombies
- weapon damage
- level scaling
- infinite respawns
- meager story

While you make lots of progress on paper / numbers the game never feels like it, which would still be ok if I get a good story out of it but that isn't there either... just doesn't have anything for me.
 

kebab4you

New member
Jan 3, 2010
1,451
0
0
The whole game reeks of a console port gone bad, if I didn't get it as a gift from a friend I would be pissed off, wouldn't even consider paying 10 euro for this...

Not to mention changing some of the .ini files to make it playable on the PC usually results in the game crashing, constantly... Hell the FOV isn't even ported for any monitor above 720P.
Not to mention the Mexican´s fury attack is unbalanced, upgrade so you get more %fury per kill and that it drain less and you can never die, again.
 

Hisshiss

New member
Aug 10, 2010
689
0
0
I was loving it until some little ponce hacker broke into my live account somehow and stole 150 bucks worth of microsoft points. Now I get to wait "up to 25 days" before I can even play a game offline, since my profile seems to not work even if I dont try to get on live.

That being said, Microsoft are still my best friends for fixing all the hacker bullcrap and refunding my money within a 10 minute window, even if it does take 25 days for them to "establish security".
 

y04coopa

New member
Apr 25, 2011
54
0
0
Mypetmonkey said:
Worst bloody Australian accents ever maaate...
True.

I am enjoying the game great, i got it a few days ago. (been playing mostly in co-op) and i am up to the jungle so far, i have done most side quest i have found, although i still have some jungle stuff to do as i am currently helping a friend who we're up to the same story point, but he's missing loads of side quest in the city area as his previous co-op partners sucked ass.
Anyway he's back from afk now so i'm off good luck and enjoy.
 

No_Remainders

New member
Sep 11, 2009
1,872
0
0
mentalkitty789 said:
Side note 3: The lack of knock back. Now I get this they are zombies and won't exactly get knocked back by a knife in the chest. When you go at someone with a machete or a sledgehammer to the chest there is bloody FORCE behind that! It really should knock back a zombie or at least interrupt and attack. (Kind of linked to point one.)
I don't really understand this complaint. Using blunt weapons the zombies get knocked down almost every time for me, even if it's just a stick. Also, kicking them knocks them back quite a bit.

OT: I love the game. It's fun, it's immersive, and despite its small fault of the selling system being more fucked than a porn-star, I think it's more entertaining than Deus Ex was.
 

Brightzide

New member
Nov 22, 2009
383
0
0
Not bad all in all. A tad buggy, but im sure some fixes will come. but yeah, thoroughly enjoying it...The paper thin plot does irk me a bit mind.