On a small island off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the
dead walk. The story didn't set my hair on fire, but everything else makes up
for it. When you sit down to play, you'll choose one of four characters and for
the next 20 to 30-some hours roam massive maps, take on interesting side
quests, and chop the heads off hundreds of ghouls.
But Dead Island
doesn't succeed because of its gore (though I liked the dismemberment). Dead
Island's strength is in the world it creates. I crept into and through each
environment I came to, from beaches to sewers to jail cells. I listened for the
screams of the infected or the roar of a damage sponge known as a
"Thug." From that perspective, I was on the island; not my
character. In the beginning, I'd slaughter every zombie I saw, but by the time
I got to the city and found tight alleyways overrun with monsters, I began to
just run from objective to objective. No longer was I playing a game -- I was
focusing on survival as if I were the one running from Point A to Point B.
Objectively speaking -- like, right now from my keyboard and
not playing the actual game -- that's a stupid thing to say. Dead Island
doesn't really punish you for dying. If you croak, you wait five seconds and
respawn with less money. Any damage you inflicted before heading to the great
beyond remains. But I say that using hindsight. When I sprinted away from a
zombie and heard its growls directly behind me, my heart pounded in my chest. I
didn't think "Oh, I'll just let him get me and restart back there."
You rarely feel safe in Dead Island, and that's how a zombie
game should be. You have a limited stamina bar, so you can't run or swing your
weapon forever. Med kits were few and far between in my experience, so
scavenging for energy drinks and fruit -- which have to be used at that moment
and can't be stored -- became part of the experience. Weapons degrade as you
use them, so finding a "legendary" weapon was exciting, but not as
exciting as finding a workbench to keep weapons in tip-top shape.
Dead Island made me my character. I chose the weapons, the
enemies to attack, and the side quests to take. When I leveled up, I chose in
which skill tree to invest my new point in -- so even if you joined my game as
the same knives expert I play as, we wouldn't necessarily have the same
abilities.
Special
zombies make you switch up strategies.
Thankfully, joining games is easy. When you're playing, a
pop-up message will notify you if a player is close to you and joinable. If I
see you sign on, I can invite you in. Of course, experience levels play into
this. Players can only join the games of people who are equal or lesser levels.
I can't be level 31 and about to win the game and have a level 1 player join
me. It might sound depressing, but there are tons of character slots, so having
a character for different sessions shouldn't be too tough. Plus, you can always
switch your game to single-player if you just want to be left alone. Sadly,
there is no local co-op.
Is Dead Island perfect? No. Far from it. As much as I lauded
it, Dead Island is rough around the edges and that's sure to turn a lot of
people off. First-person melee combat doesn't feel natural right away.
Sometimes textures take their time loading in, I'd describe every cutscene as
"stiff," and the visual flaws like hands going through doors and
weird mini-game meters made me laugh. Still, presentation doesn't make a game,
experiences do. And they are packed into Dead Island.
The Verdict
Dead
Island probably won't win any game of the year awards. It's got visual bugs,
the controls take a bit to feel normal, and the presentation in general isn't
up to snuff. But the game gets a lot right. There is a huge world to explore,
thousands of zombies to kill, and tons of side quests to take. Here on the
other side of a 25-hour playthrough -- where I skipped a lot of side quests
after Act 1 -- I'm anxious to get back into Dead Island, and despite
the game's flaws, that's not something I say often.
Taken From : www.ign.com/articles/2011/09/04/dead-island-review
