Dead Island Review

[Ulquiorra4sama]

I've been following Toby Turner's Let's Play of the game and it doesn't really look all that interesting.

Granted with all his faffing around, doing bull shit i guess it makes for an unsatisfying viewing experience.

Either that or is the game a bit of a slow starter before you get to the good bits?

 

[Shjade]

Either that or is the game a bit of a slow starter before you get to the good bits?

Considering how much it seems to have in common with Borderlands mechanically, it wouldn't surprise me if the game didn't really pick up steam until a few hours into the game when you're getting into the teen levels and actually have some useful skills/weapons to put to work.

 

[artanis_neravar]

Whether Dead Island is a good game or not doesn't even matter to me anymore. I'm not going to buy it because it's another bloody zombie game starring people immune to infection for no discernible reason.

The reason is, people are just immune to certain diseases, and infections.


OT: I am still really excited for this game, hopefully it arrives in the mail soon

 

[ace_of_something]

so which version of the game isn't a big glitchy mishmash of bugs?

 

[Susan Arendt]

Its an OK game and all but i would wait till the price lowers and they fix a few bugs. However the biggest problem i found was that you couldn't say no to someone joining your game. if some one joined i would have to leave manually, then i found out i couldn't make my game private. now to some this may be a small problem however any weapons the person picks up or energy drinks the consume will not reappear when you disconnect.

You can adjust your online settings to prevent people you don't want from joining your game. You can play completely solo or just have "private" spots available for folks you want to invite.

 

[cerebus23]

It is a buggy mess but i have not been able to stop playing it.....really this game is fun, yea it has loads of problems, questionable gameplay decisions, Outright buggy inventory and save systems.

But having played thru the game on digital controls going back and doing analog with the kb and mouse mod, man its just so much fun to take out a bunch of zombies while having to control all your swings. Just great to go play and do stuff in.

 

[Lex Darko]

I've been playing the PC version of this game and it feels like the game has been trolling me the entire time.

I played Pruna. Now just about every other form of media dealing with zombies has gone with the convention of "one shot to the head makes a zombie stay dead."

Not so with Troll Island. They even have a "challenge" with the name Guns don't kill them, but they sure do help. You can't even use the first gun until level 10 and even then it takes two head shots to kill a normal zombie even at point blank range.

Then the zombies level with you so killing them never gets easier in fact it only get more difficult so its like by doing any sidequest all you do impede yourself even more.

Not to mention the fact that: the weapons have level requirements; in the town you will constantly be attack by 3+ zombies at once which will almost assure your death; you can't manually save your game, meaning you don't know when the game will just do a checkpoint save and when it will do a complete save.

I could go on but I don't really want to because I don't like dwelling on negative things. But yeah this game should be called Troll Island not Dead Island.

 

[Louzerman102]

I've been playing the PC version of this game and it feels like the game has been trolling me the entire time.

I played Pruna. Now just about every other form of media dealing with zombie has gone with the convention of "one shot to head makes a zombie stay dead."

Not so with Troll Island. They even have a "challenge" with the name Guns don't kill them, but they sure do help. You can't even use the first gun until level 10 and even then it takes two head shots to kill a normal zombie even at point blank range.

Then the zombies level with you so killing them never gets easier in fact it only get more difficult so its like by doing any sidequest all you do impede yourself even more.

Not to mention the fact that: the weapons have level requirements; in the town you will constantly be attack by 3+ zombies at once which will almost assure your death; you can't manually save your game, meaning you don't know when the game will just do a checkpoint save and when it will do a complete save.

I could go on but I don't really want to because I don't like dwelling on negative things. But yeah this game should be called Troll Island not Dead Island.

Pruna was built to be a modifier/support character if you're playing solo, (it sounds like you are) Sam B is the best character he's a Tank. Whenever I die the auto-save feature spawns me in the middle of a mob. The town in act 2 just sucks.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Some people are complaining that the game get more difficult as you move on? You must be kidding me.

 

[Macrobstar]

This game gets a big "meh" from me. I find it hard to care about any of the characters (the player character or any of the NPCs), the quests so far have all be fetch quests with the exception of two escort missions, and weapons so far have been relatively pointless when I can spend the entire time just kicking zombies. Ive only had to use weapons so far against thugs.

Im persevering though, trying to give this game a chance as I get a feeling it may be like Two Worlds was for me - I hated it at first but after forcing myself to play for a few hours I started to develop a taste for it.

If you can just kick you must not have gotten past lvl 5 or fought more than 1 zombie at a time

 

[Macrobstar]

so which version of the game isn't a big glitchy mishmash of bugs?

Well 30 hours in and no bugs on PS3, a friend has claimed no bugs in 360 either, not sure bout pc

 

[archvile93]

Some people are complaining that the game get more difficult as you move on? You must be kidding me.

I think they're complaining more about how the game gets more difficult rather than because it does. Having the enemies all get tougher when you level up kind of kills the point of leveling in the first place and is lazy design since the designers didn't want to scale the difficulty in a way that's more fun and fair. Better methods of increasing difficulty are, increasing the amount of enemies. adding entirely new enemies that only appear in certain areas that are tougher versions of older ones as well as enemies with new abilities, or increase the incidence of enemies in more effective combat groups. That last one is kind of hard to explain, so here's an example.

first level group: you are attacked by twenty swordsmen

Last level: you are attacked by ten swordsmen as well as nine archers that rain arrows at you from a distance while distracted by swordsmen and a mage who can cast slow to prevent you from running from swordsmen and closing the distance to the archers.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Whether Dead Island is a good game or not doesn't even matter to me anymore. I'm not going to buy it because it's another bloody zombie game starring people immune to infection for no discernible reason.

The reason is, people are just immune to certain diseases, and infections.


OT: I am still really excited for this game, hopefully it arrives in the mail soon

Fair enough, people still aren't generally immune to new diseases, especially ones that directly affect every system of the body in a dramatic fashion as zombieism seems to do. Four immune people on a single relatively small island is a statistical miracle.

However, my main problem isn't the unlikelihood of immunity but the fact that immunity is terribly cliche in videogames. What we need is a game that breaks the mold just a little to where the protagonist can be infected. Zombies that can't infect are no different from rabid cannibals. Sure that can work for a few games but nowadays it's so oversaturated that I simply can't stomach another fucking cookie-cutter zombie game just like I can't stomach another Madden or Modern Warfare game. So, fuck Dead Island for being a cliche piece of shit.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Some people are complaining that the game get more difficult as you move on? You must be kidding me.

I think they're complaining more about how the game gets more difficult rather than because it does. Having the enemies all get tougher when you level up kind of kills the point of leveling in the first place and is lazy design since the designers didn't want to scale the difficulty in a way that's more fun and fair. Better methods of increasing difficulty are, increasing the amount of enemies. adding entirely new enemies that only appear in certain areas that are tougher versions of older ones as well as enemies with new abilities, or increase the incidence of enemies in more effective combat groups. That last one is kind of hard to explain, so here's an example.

first level group: you are attacked by twenty swordsmen

Last level: you are attacked by ten swordsmen as well as nine archers that rain arrows at you from a distance while distracted by swordsmen and a mage who can cast slow to prevent you from running from swordsmen and closing the distance to the archers.

But the game raise the number of enemies as introduce new types.

 

[Lex Darko]

Spoiler

Some people are complaining that the game get more difficult as you move on? You must be kidding me.

I think they're complaining more about how the game gets more difficult rather than because it does. Having the enemies all get tougher when you level up kind of kills the point of leveling in the first place and is lazy design since the designers didn't want to scale the difficulty in a way that's more fun and fair. Better methods of increasing difficulty are, increasing the amount of enemies. adding entirely new enemies that only appear in certain areas that are tougher versions of older ones as well as enemies with new abilities, or increase the incidence of enemies in more effective combat groups. That last one is kind of hard to explain, so here's an example.

first level group: you are attacked by twenty swordsmen

Last level: you are attacked by ten swordsmen as well as nine archers that rain arrows at you from a distance while distracted by swordsmen and a mage who can cast slow to prevent you from running from swordsmen and closing the distance to the archers.

But the game raise the number of enemies as introduce new types.

That also get harder to kill for no reason other than the game says they are now harder to kill than they were a hour ago.

Oblivion did the same thing, Beth soft didn't get a pass for this so I don't see why Techland should. Every zombie is like a fraking cazador that levels with you. It's not challenging it's just annoying like a troll.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

That also get harder to kill for no reason other than the game says they are now harder to kill than they were a hour ago.

Oblivion did the same thing, Beth soft didn't get a pass for this so I don't see why Techland should. Every zombie is like a fraking cazador that levels with you. It's not challenging it's just annoying like a troll.

But this is called challenge scaling. It what the games did to keep things interesting until this interactive drama thing take place. Are you serious that you just see this now? I mean, in this game?

 

[Xan Krieger]

Oh god, numbers-based damage. I put like 45 hrs into Borderlands, gritting my teeth and putting up with the fact that bullets = numbers. Looks like Dead Island gets a pass.

snip

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will have this.

It's not really the same, but give it a look. If you've never heard of it; it's a survivor vs. zombie MMO in which you can die and become infected.

http://www.urbandead.com/

Now if only Kevan actually cared about that game. What group are you with? I've been with the Army Control Corps for almost 3 years.

OT: I noticed that guns don't wear down, they just run out of ammo. Game is one of the best of the year though, I'm actually gonna go play it again when I'm done typing here.

 

[Avatar Roku]

That also get harder to kill for no reason other than the game says they are now harder to kill than they were a hour ago.

Oblivion did the same thing, Beth soft didn't get a pass for this so I don't see why Techland should. Every zombie is like a fraking cazador that levels with you. It's not challenging it's just annoying like a troll.

But this is called challenge scaling. It what the games did to keep things interesting until this interactive drama thing take place. Are you serious that you just see this now? I mean, in this game?

Some games do that better than others, though. Think Fallout 3; as you advance in level, harder enemies like Deathclaws appear (they also appear if you go to certain areas, but that's not important now). However, low level enemies like Raiders and Mole Rats keep appearing too, and they don't level, so you can feel powerful by killing them, but still be challenged by Deathclaws.

What Dead Island does is make the Deathclaws spawn while the Raiders level with you.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I found the melee combat to be unbearably clumsy, which made the simple act of mass zombie genocide less fun than it should have been.

Agreed, it seems like it's trying to be too realistic for it's own good, like leaning forward into the swing. But the thing is your also not supposed to take this game too seriously like Susan said, so that whole realism thing doesn't make sense.

Meh, it's still well worth a look if you have a good buddy to play with. (Can't wait for the Steam Winter sale).

 

[Rednog]

That also get harder to kill for no reason other than the game says they are now harder to kill than they were a hour ago.

Oblivion did the same thing, Beth soft didn't get a pass for this so I don't see why Techland should. Every zombie is like a fraking cazador that levels with you. It's not challenging it's just annoying like a troll.

But this is called challenge scaling. It what the games did to keep things interesting until this interactive drama thing take place. Are you serious that you just see this now? I mean, in this game?

Some games do that better than others, though. Think Fallout 3; as you advance in level, harder enemies like Deathclaws appear (they also appear if you go to certain areas, but that's not important now). However, low level enemies like Raiders and Mole Rats keep appearing too, and they don't level, so you can feel powerful by killing them, but still be challenged by Deathclaws.

What Dead Island does is make the Deathclaws spawn while the Raiders level with you.

The only problem with that analogy is that the special zombies are somewhat locked to their areas, bloaters are mostly found in sewers, the rams in the city. Suiciders and Thugs are everywhere, but honestly stop being special if you have any decent weapons.
The thing is that the special zombies really end up being just a tedious chore while the normal zombies are the actual threat, at least to me I think I've died to maybe 2-3 times to a special but a slew to the normal zombies (especially the infected who run at stupid speeds and often clip through you to get in like 3 hits).