Topic: Dead Island Impressions

It's certaintly dividing opinion amongst the game critics. Now that it's out on Steam, what do you lot think of the game?

Personally, thus far I can only say that I want my £30 back. Plus compensation. I can't say it's the worst game I've ever played, but it could well be the worst one I've ever paid for. For one, the characters are all about as likable as a bag as anthrax, and I found myself before long preferring the company of the zombies than anywhere with a non-threatening NPC within the vicinity. The four playable characters are possibly the worst of the lot; I ended up spending a good fifteen minutes on the character select trying to fathom which of the incredibly unlikable, stereotyped, tourettes-suffering meatbags I could envision myself being able to cope with having to listen to for several hours. I ended up going for the Big Black Guy^TM because he was at least vaguely amusingly terrible.

As for the graphics... well, I had them on full and still suffered under some really bad glitching, not least the horizontal tearing (no v-sync option? Really?) and the foliage pop-up from six feet away. The lighting is similarly horrible - stand under a flickering bulb, and it'll take you a few moments to work out whether its supposed to flash in such a harsh manner or if its just not rendering properly. They could bring on an epileptic fit on a blind man. And the shadows, whilst at least dynamic (that's almost a suprise by this point), they're about as sharp as spongecake.

Combat is bland, with stiffly animated zombie models standing in place and repeating the same slashing motion over and over until one of you drops dead, and the gore effects are about as convincing as smearing raspberry jam on your shirt and telling people your heart has exploded. There isn't exactly much variety in the character models either; they're all pretty hideous and there only seems to be one or two female models... who both look like they've found work in the melon smuggling industry.

The script... don't get me started on the script. You could find a eight-year-old with ADHD who could write a better script, and the whole thing falls into that bizarre bracket of mature games where "mature" translates as "drop an f-bomb or two into every sentence so that the only people who could possibly find this 'mature' are 12 years old."

By which I mean "drop a f'ing f-bomb into every mofo-ing sentence so that the only mofos who could possibly find this s*** mature are f'ing 12 years old, mofos."

In short:
Its like Borderlands but with Zombies

It looks good... but definitely a bargain bin title.

I can safely say whoever gave the game a 30/100 was probably smoking crack but I found the game a bit meh. The script really didn't bother me because I wasn't expecting much of one going in, but the actual gameplay got stale a few hours in. Really glad I just rented it.

edit: holy crap this is long...sorry bout that. tl;dr at the bottom ofc.

Now we can begin to understand why their is such the huge range in reviews. I love it. It's probably one of my top 10 favorite games ever.

I only have experience with Sam B as a character. I'll play the others in multiplayer with friends, etc. I found his background story to be quite plausible. He's a one-hit-wonder rap star who was hired to perform his song. On the island, he hopes to catch the eye of a rich benefactor who can help him jump start his career. He's also the "blunt weapons" guy in the game, which is why I picked him. If I'm going to be scrounging for weapons throughout the game, I figured there would be no shortage of iron pipes, bats, sticks, boat paddles, coat racks, etc to be swinging around at the undead. Some of the NPC's are pretty well done. This is a zombie apocalypse and there are some people that are pretty freaked out and there are some who refuse to be victims. I've run into a woman that's completely flipped her lid and wants me to go rescue her teddy bear. "Go and save my Teddy. Tell him I sent you so he won't be scared and will come with you." I ran into the woman who was terrified that her husband had been killed. When I found him, he had barricaded himself up at the end of a pier with some chicks in bikini's and a drug addict hunkered over the toilet in the bathroom. He had his women, he had his drugs, and he said simply, "Tell my wife that I'm dead." Clearly partying like it was 1999. Other NPC's want to know about their loved ones, need food and water to continue to survive, need gas for generators, etc etc. All pretty believable.

The only crazy flickering I've seen is from my flashlight as it runs out of batteries and leaves me stranded in a freaking underground parking deck surrounded by ravenous undead. The graphics, while they won't win any awards, are pretty clear. The island as a whole looks good with all the lush green vegetation and beaches. The vehicles, buildings, etc, while somewhat generic are also more than acceptable. The two big things for me (and they still aren't a really big deal) is that sometimes when you kill something, it's body will fall "through" a wall and it will be half sticking out. The other issue is that when you're standing on the beach and looking over the water, it looks like there is a whirlpool off in the distance. I hate putting numbers/ratings on things but I'd give them a minimum of 7/10.

There are multiple types of zombies in this game. The only one that I've seen so far that is "stiffly animated" that stands in place is the tough-guy zombie. It's slow and lumbering and it's blows knock you to the ground and disorient you. It swings from different angles with both of it's arms. It also attempts to bite you. When you break it's arms, it still attempts to flail at you and it's arms are limp and noodly. Quite the opposite of "stiff". Other zombie types will run at you screaming. Once they get into melee range, they'll get right in your face and hit you and then run around you and keep hitting. It's tough to move arond fast enough to keep them in front of you and keep them from mauling you. When you've got more than one...oh my. The blood does get a little over the top sometimes. But that's from all the spraying, not the whole "jelly on the shirt." When I stomp a zombie's skull in blood sprays out all over the place. When I run them over with a truck or blow them up with an improvised grenade the splatter gets a little crazy. I've seen zombies missing various, and huge, chunks of themselves. I've run into zombies that look very close to normal people. I've seen a wide variety of clothing. There are skinny women (and zombies) in bikini's. There are overweight women (and zombies) in bikinis. I'll admit, they're pretty "melony" though. Now that I have left the beach-front area, I've also discovered zombies in "office" clothing as well.

True, the language is pretty bad. I don't think I've ever heard this much cursing in a game but maybe my experience is pretty limited. I don't have any issues with the script. You've got various pockets of survivors scattered throughout the island and they're all trying to survive and get in touch with their loved ones. I'm helping clear "safe houses" for them. I'm searching for loved ones. I'm trying to track down a Wells Fargo truck that can be armored and used to transport additional survivors to safe areas on the island. I'm writing "H E L P" on the beach with boxes. I'm getting hotel security systems rebooted so the surveillance cameras work. It all seems pretty plausible to me.

The tl;dr version? It's like we're playing a completely different game. I'm playing the XBOX version. Maybe you have that crazy unfinished PC version that's been circulating? Your opinions are valid of course and you are completely entitled to your criticism but I'm just not running into the same issues you are.

I don't have the game but after watching a few gameplay and LP videos of the game I think it looks pretty good. Now if you have the PC version it may stink because of all the bugs although they did say they released patches or whatever to fix them. I think the console versions look good and seems like a better zombie game. Most have crazy plot lines. I am not totally at the end of watching the LP but right now it seems like a normal story with zombies. Yes they swear a lot but they are being attacked by zombies I think I might be swearing a lot as well. Plus it's a mature game about a zombie invasion scenario Most people would swear not try to find polite things to say. Maybe it wouldn't be as much but calm down they aren't using the swearing in a hurtful way just to describe the situation.

But it's not, imo. YMMV.

They've already signed Uwe Boll to do the movie adaption.
_{just kidding!}

Who has purchased this game for the 360? I'd like to try multiplayer soon.

Since it's something most have called me out on, clarification on the language use - I've no problem with swearing in video games (or any other media, for that matter), and in the situation I'd probably drop a few f-bombs too. But the sheer volume of them in parts of the script - and often not whilst being pursued by those attempting to fashion your testicles into earrings - surpasses a level I'd expect only in parody. Just listen to the second character introduce herself on the character select, she swears enough times in two sentences to make Team America look tame; and Team America was being purposefully foul-mouthed for the laughs. It's just bad script writing if they honestly think its necessary or even realistic.

Look at it this way - if you're being chased by zombies, you're well within your rights to drop enough f-bombs to wipe out an entire colony of the politically correct. But when the danger has passed and you're simply sat waiting in safety for dawn to come; would you still be firing off a truckload of blue murder in relatively calm conversation with other people? Probably not, you wouldn't want to agitate a room full of people when many of which are getting close to the edges of their sanity.

I haven't played it but the AVG/VGA guys played it and said about it it seems just decent. I don't pay 60 bucks for a game that's decent. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been so ticked off at Vanquish. The best part of the game I saw is that Steven Blum is now Australian! Awesome.

I'll get Deus Ex instead probably, I've never got into that series and I've heard it's an excellent game.

I think the misstep with Dead Island was painting it as an emotionally visceral experience when it was in reality a Borderlands/FarCry-ish grindfest. The trailer suggested the game would have a cinematic quality, and I think everyone kind of assumed we'd see a deep script with dynamic characters who are struggling with an impossible reality. Instead we got a bunch of "down for whatever" and "born ready" one dimensional stereotypes.

Personally, I don't mind a weak story or an unbelievable character, as long as the gameplay is up to snuff. I'm one of the few who was actually pleasantly surprised by Dead Island's focus on open world grinding over the personal journeys of zombie apocalypse survivors.

All righty then. I'm 30 or so hours into the game and I think I'm approaching the end of Act 3. I've mentioned some things about this game a few posts above, but now that I've spent more time with it, I have a few criticisms.

1. I almost rage-quite the whole darned game yesterday. I'm in the middle of an "escort mission" where I'm taking an island-native witch doctor (Ope) to his tribe's burial ground. On the way there, we take a pit-stop in his abandoned village. Ope runs right into the center of town and stops. He's in just far enough to attract all the zombies to his position. On his left is a Thug and on his right are 5 Walkers and 1 Butcher. Ope is wearing a loincloth, a feathered headress, and wielding a stick. Needless to say, he doesn't last long. "Your companion has died. Reload from last save?". Of course! Guess where the last auto-save was? With Ope right in the freaking middle of his village! Ope and I must have died about 50 times (no exaggeration). The unfortunate thing: when reloading I did not get back any of the weapons I had expended during the fight. So if I used a molotov and 10 bullets before I died, they would still be gone when I restarted.

In the end, I went from being fully equipped/stocked to only two homemade grenades and the "nunhammer". In a fit of desparation, I lobbed two "hail marys": one at the thug and the other in the middle of the walkers. MIRACULOUSLY they almost all died and I was able to pound through the rest with my hammer. Then for the rest of the mission, because I was essentially weaponless, I probably died another 50 times.

2. When "warping in" to fast-travel zones the textures take about 5-6 seconds to fully load. Anyone familiar with the Fallout games will know exactly what I'm talking about.

3. Ammo is extremely limited in this game. Melee weapons are plentiful. Crafting parts are also plentiful. I can't figure out why the inventory system will allow me to pick up limitless amounts of engine parts, duct tape, rubber hoses, desk phones, scrap electronics, nails, bolts, steel reinforcments, etc but I can only carry 50 bullets at a time.

4. At the end of Act 1, you "rescue" a girl who becomes a chauffer/victim/storage container who does further the plot a bit in Act 2. Unfortunately, during the entirety of act 3 she's basically just a box where you stash your gear. Hopefully, she'll play a more pivotal role in Act 4.

This game is great. A game ive been waiting for since land of the dead was announced as a game and failed.

Anybody interested in some co-op? Strangely enough, I prefer co-op with Nintendo peeps to the average xbox live gamer. I think I'll create a thread in the Online Gaming forum in case anyone wants to post.

Finished the game last night with the Sam B character in single player. Clocked in at just under 40 hours of game play with a huge amount of side quests also being completed. I promptly restarted with Xian and will be focusing on multi-player and its associated achievements. Some of her skills may take some getting used too. I really came to love the "curb stomp" skill from Sam. I don't get the same warm fuzzy from Xian's "knife-in-the-head" skill. I'm also not too sure about the "kicking attack" that I've seen in her skill tree. Time will tell I guess.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/...

Everything here is so true. [Language warning]

people still watch zero punctuation?

I haven't even played the game yet and I got a kick out of that. xD

I positively LOVE the game (and anything zombie related really) and I thought that was freakin hilarious. Ughh...my sides still hurt.

Just "finished" Dead Island with 1000/1000 achievements. The level 50 achievement was the last one I needed. Now I'm looking for the remaining skulls to get the developer mods. I've only turned in 2 so far. I've also heard a rumor from a coworker that there is another quest in the Jungle where you turn in a series of red skulls to some lady that sits amidst a few altars. I'll probably work on that as well and then be finished until DLC arrives.