From Techland, we get a brand new action adventure, zombie killing, gore filled game known as Dead Island for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Published by Deep Silver, Dead Island is the newest in open world zombie killing mayhem.
For those of you that do not know what an open world game is, it is a game within which there is no specific path that needs to be taken and the player can roam around to almost any location they can see. Obviously, there are limitations to this, and for this game, it is that you must stay on the island. But anywhere on the island is free game, no pun intended.
Dead Island mixes the standard hack and slash zombie killing game with an intriguing skill tree system. Allowing players to choose between 4 different “types” of characters, this game also let’s you choose between 3 skill trees, different to each character. Think of it like a mix between Diablo 2 and Dead Rising 2. And similar to Dead Rising 2, there is a weapon crafting system in place so that you can create new and interesting means of killing the hordes of undead that stand in your way. The story itself is also similar to some of the other zombie games that have come out before.
The story starts off initially showing you all four different types of characters. Once the game actually starts and you have chosen the character that you wish to play, you find yourself waking up in your hotel room from a daze, typical of most zombie apocalypse games. As you wake up and walk around, learning the controls and understanding certain mechanics of the game, you come in “contact” with another survivor of the crisis. This survivor however, is never directly seen in the beginning, you only hear him through the radio. The mystery man attempts to lead you to safety but you end up being attacked by an infected and knocked unconscious. Waking up, you find yourself surrounded by more survivors, who were all lead to finding you by the mysterious man on the radio. From them, you learn that your character is immune to the infection and unable to be turned. With you being unable to become infected, the other survivors turn to you to help save them. Becoming the “hero” of the game, you must help the other survivors and at the same time, you must learn what has happened on this once peaceful island paradise.
The peaceful paradise island still exists visually. The game engine, Chrome Engine 5, an engine created by Techland themselves, renders the visuals very well. Mixing the relaxing and calm surrounding of the island with the chaos and madness of the zombies scattered all across the island, just waiting for their next meal.
The combat system the game uses is also well done. Adding a durability system to all the weapons that you find or make forces you to think up new ways for you to fight the zombies. Of course, there also is a way to fix damaged weapons that you have, and at the same time, upgrade them so that they can deal more damage. Taking from Dead Rising 2, you are able to craft your own deadly zombie killing weapons.
Again, taking from other games, Dead Island has a rage mechanic where you generate rage when you take damage or deal damage. When you fill this rage bar, you are able to unleash this sort of “ultimate” which differs between the four characters, appropriate to each character. For example, Logan, the throwing expert in the game, has a rage mechanic that allows him to have unlimited throwing knives that deal large amounts of damage. This ability does not last forever, that would just make the game far too easy. No, the rage ability only lasts until your rage bar becomes empty, at which point you must fill it back up again to activate the ability once again and you do this by either taking damage or dealing damage. And to help with this, there are skills in one of the trees that increases the amount you gain each time.
Overall, this is not only a visually stunning game, but almost everything else is well made. No game is completely perfect and this game is no exception to that. The controls that you start off with, the default controls, for combat are a little bit “wonky”. You’ll see that with the default when you go to throw something at a zombie, you might be wanting to aim for the head, as per the standard rule of zombies only die when hit in the head, but you would find that the object would hit an arm or the chest or a leg, basically, somewhere other than the head. This can be frustrating later on when there are multiple zombies coming at you but if there are only a couple, this shouldn’t bother you too much.
In the game, there are cars that you can drive and they are true to where you are in that the driver’s side is the opposite of what you would expect, since Australia has drivers on the right side. This isn’t that big of a problem that it would seriously hinder your gameplay, but the thing about driving that you might find frustrating is that if you are driving on the beach, sandcastles will stop your car. Even though a lot of the environment is destructible, the sandcastles seem to be made of indestructible materials.
As with most games on release, there are glitches in the game that may or may not ruin the game for the player. One of these glitches occurs with the zombie dies. If they die near a wall, sometimes, the zombie may end up falling through the wall. Now this may not seem like a big deal, I mean why would a zombie going through the wall and never coming back again ruin the game for you. But sometimes, you may have to throw your weapon to kill the zombie because getting in melee range is dangerous or for some other reason. Now imagine this is late in the game and you have this awesome super powered weapon that you just had to throw to kill a zombie. Now imagine that the weapon and the zombie fall through the wall. You just lost that weapon, upgrades and all and if it was late in the game, the upgrades cost a lot and so not only did you lose a weapon, but you lost lot of money. Like I said, this would only affect certain people.
The PC version of the game already received a patch update even before the console versions were sold. This could be because the PC version had more problems, or it could be that the PC version was easier to fix. Either way, that version is currently the most up to date. There are probably more glitches in the game (that I luckily have not come across) but don’t let that detract you buying this game. It it very much worth the price tag. Final verdict on the game: 8.5 out of 10. Worth buying, worth playing, worth owning.
