Reviewed by Brandy Shaul
When it comes to Dead Island, I’m immediately left with thoughts of Borderlands. However, where Borderlands’ cel-shaded graphics were pleasing to the eye, here, the bright (too bright) colors and lighting in Dead Island are enough to hurt the eyes, and that’s only the beginning of the game’s problems. Add to this a lackluster story, a glitch-prone combat system and a confusing map, and you’re left with Dead Island – one of my biggest disappointments of the year.
When starting, you’re allowed to pick from a variety of character types, based on skill sets. For the sake of argument, I chose a female character that was supposedly great at wielding a knife. You wake up, disoriented, in a resort on an isolated tropical island. That island, as you might have guessed, has been taken over by zombies of sorts, but you’re somehow immune to the sickness. You’re led to relative safety by a new friendly voice over the radio, and your journey into repetition begins.
The gameplay is quest based, with various hubs of activity being scattered throughout the map. In between them lie deserted, open roads or beachfront cabanas where the zombies now wait to make you their next victim. You’ll travel these open spaces back and forth completing fetch quests, taking messages to other survivors and so on. None of the quests are particularly interesting, and some are so glitched that you’ll need to “luck” into completing them, or check an online guide to figure out the steps to take to avoid running into said glitch. It doesn’t need to be said, but that definitely shouldn’t be the case.
While you do have an in-game map, your mini-map on the HUD shows you nothing more than a dotted line for the path you should take, and doesn’t outline any obstacles that might be standing in your way. To make matters worse, most every area within the game looks identical to the next, causing confusion when trying to pick apart one cabana or pool house from the dozens of others scattered around the map. If you run out of inventory room, which happens all-too-quickly (especially if you’re like me, and like picking up anything not bolted to the floor), and happen to leave an object behind, good luck trying to come back and find it again without placing some mental marker on the path you took to get there.
You can fast travel between certain locations, which is obviously helpful, and you can also drive when you find a working vehicle. Sections of drivable road are limited, but there is a certain primal satisfaction that comes from driving these invincible vehicles back and forth, making road kill out of every zombie on the road.
As for the combat itself, you’ll spend most of your time fighting off groups of zombies, rather than just one or two (after all, when they hear the ruckus of a one-on-one battle, they’ll all come running) and will use a variety of weapons (true or homemade) to fend them off. You’ll be able to switch your weapons out on the fly via quick-select buttons, which comes in handy when that machete or butcher’s knife you’re using becomes too damaged to continue to slice and dice. You’re told that you can aim for the head, limbs or other “sweet-spots” on these enemies to decapitate them, or otherwise slow them down, but this is a hectic process, as they’re lunging for your face and filling the entire screen, so you’re better off bashing the attack button until they eventually fall down.
When you reach safe zones, you can repair these weapons with the money and items you’ll find around the island, so at least you’re allowed to keep your favorite weapons once you’ve found something that works for you. Guns are also available once you reach a high enough level, but this is a costly path to take, as ammo isn’t readily available.
If you intend on playing the game solo, you’re in for a rather difficult, time-consuming process (even without the game’s many bugs), but playing co-op with friends can enhance the experience. Still, whether I was playing with a friend or not, I couldn’t help shake this feeling of boredom every time I sat down to play. It’s that feeling of predictability that comes from such repetitive mission design that instantly kills the spark that might remain otherwise. If you’re playing with a friend that can plow the road, at least you’ll be able to more quickly clear the experience and see what little the story has to offer, but then again, I should be able to enjoy the game by myself. And with Dead Island, I’m just sorry to say that I can’t.
Editor’s note:
After reading Brandy’s review, I couldn’t believe we had played the same game, so I had to leave this quick note. My experience with Dead Island was only troublesome due only to my own usual clumsiness and lack of timing, as well as overall game difficulty. Fortunately, bugs and glitches weren’t a part of my game experience at all, and I actually enjoyed booting those zombies away only to smash their heads in afterwards.