Dead Island review – I want to go to there

“Dead Island,” the latest release from developer Techland, created a firestorm of buzz on the internet last spring when it released a haunting trailer full of tension and emotion. The trailer, which depicted a family being overwhelmed by the undead on the fictional island destination Banoi, seemed to promise a different kind of zombie game, one with a heavy emphasis on story and strong relationships with other characters – well, that’s what most people believed the trailer was suggesting anyway.

“Dead Island” succeeded in creating a second wave of internet buzz after it was discovered that it would not in fact play on people’s emotions so much as it would let people obliterate zombies in a massive, beautiful open world. For some reason, this discovery prompted many a net-nerd to accuse the original trailer of being intentionally misleading and other such nonsense. I myself didn’t immediately jump on the game’s bandwagon but instead decided to keep tabs from afar.

Of course “Dead Island” interested me immensely. Throw zombies into pretty much any game and you’ll have my attention. And the revelations that “Dead Island” was allegedly going to be one part “Left 4 Dead,” one part “Fallout” and one part “Borderlands” were more than enough to keep my attention. But still, I wasn’t entirely sure how the whole package would ultimately pan out. I mean, we all saw how hardcore I was campaigning for “Brink” before its release and how it ultimately flopped harder than “The Green Lantern” movie.

What concerned me most about “Dead Island” wasn’t the subject matter, setting or its first-person melee-based combat. No, what concerned me most about “Dead Island” was its developer, Techland. Though the studio has been around for some time, its biggest credit before “Dead Island” was “Call of Juarez”– not exactly a stellar series. Despite my concerns, I decided to pick up “Dead Island” on the day of its release and honestly, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made – this game is really, really fun.

Remember that equation from above? L4D+Fallout+Borderlands? Turns out that couldn’t be more accurate. “Dead Island” combines the open world/RPG elements of Fallout, the endless amount of loot of Borderlands and the zombie, melee combat of L4D (only so much better) so perfectly, I found myself feeling immediately familiar with the world and game mechanics.

For the most part, the story in “Dead Island” is forgettable. At the start of the game you’re give the choice of four characters (just like Borderlands) who all have a different weapon specialization and are all (somehow) immune to the zombie virus. After that you play through a short prologue chapter which really serves as nothing more than a short intro to the game’s mechanics. After that you find your first weapon, a handful of quests and told to get to smashing some zombie skulls. Make no mistake, “Dead Island” isn’t breaking any sort of mold. If anything it’s taking the molds established by other titles and mashes them together to create a product that is greater than the sum of its parts.

While it doesn’t really innovate the first-person genre, the action/RPG genre or the open-world genre, it more than competently blends those elements together to create a zombie game that I’m frankly surprised took this long to become a thing. A zombie apocalypse is nothing new in the realm of video games but no game to date has so closely captured the feeling of being completely isolated and only moments away from being zombie food. On the island of Banoi, you need to rely on melee weapons as firearms are few and far between. You don’t really know fear until a swarm of zombies starts bearing down on you and all you’re armed with is an old pipe and an oar.

Honestly, it’s gonna be hard for me to pick out “Dead Island’s” flaws. I’m a sucker for the grinding/loot-heavy gameplay that titles like “Diablo,” “Torchlight” and “Borderlands” employed – the idea that there could be another great weapon or item just around the corner will keep me saying, “Ok, just a few more minutes then I turn it off” for hours and hours. Combine that with zombies and you’ve just created a game that I’ll definitely return to over and over and over again. Despite how much I love “Dead Island” it’s anything but perfect and while these flaws aren’t enough to turn me off, they very well could be deal-breakers for others.

First of all, “Dead Island” has more than its fair share of glitches. There was allegedly a day-one patch for “Dead Island” (usually a sign of a game rushed out the door) and an older, non-functioning PC version of the game was released on Steam (which may or may not have been remedied by now. I don’t know. I don’t play PC games). On top of that, there are some serious issues with texture pop-in (even when installed, I hear) and I ran into an almost game-breaking glitch a mere hour or two into the game. On a mission called “Exodus” I was tasked with clearing out a lifeguard tower for a group of survivors. After killing them all, there is a radio at the top of the building you interact with to call the group to tell them it’s safe. Except when I came to the mission in my first play-through, I’d clear out the building but couldn’t interact with the radio and therefore couldn’t advance the story. I must’ve reloaded the mission four or five times before turning it off and resigning to have to start another character. Luckily, I decided to give it one more shot the next time I played and it worked no problem. I haven’t run into any other problems like that so far and hope that nothing similar happens deeper into the game.

Most other problems are relatively minor, though, but could still be too annoying for some to deal with. The inventory system is rather bulky and forces you to scroll through a huge list to find anything. The voice-overs are also pretty weak and border on very annoying. I hope you like Australian accents because practically everyone you meet has one. On top of the voice-overs being lame, the NPC characters that sport these voices are stiff and robotic looking – not to mention their dead eyes that just stare off into space while you talk to them are a little off-putting.

This next set of flaws mainly pertains to the combat system. The melee combat, for the most part, works really, really well. Finding your range is easier than expected and you’ll have no problem fending off zombies from the get-go. However, there are plenty of times where you’ll be overwhelmed and despite your wild swings, nothing seems to connect and you’re dead before you know it. There’s also no way to block attacks – a rather odd omission for a game with melee-based combat. On top of that, zombies have grab maneuver that forces you into a button-pressing sequence to break their grasp. More often than not, you’ll find yourself in the grasp of zombie without even realizing any were nearby.

Remember a minute ago when I talked about being overwhelmed and dead before you know it? Well, if you’re the kind of gamer who hates dying you may want to look elsewhere because you will die in “Dead Island.” And if you play solo, you will die fairly often. The penalty for death is pretty small, though – just a nice chunk of your money and you’ll be respawned close to where you fell. While it doesn’t seem like much, money is incredibly important in “Dead Island.” You need money to repair and upgrade your weapons and you’ll be repairing them quite often as pretty much every weapon degrades very quickly. I don’t really know why you need money to repair stuff, either. You don’t take your weapons to a person to get them fixed, you stand at a workbench and fix them yourself. I don’t understand it but I usually seem to have more than enough money so it hasn’t been an issue for me (it’s all about switching weapons frequently to keep from ruining a one, or many, completely).

What I’ve noticed about “Dead Island” is that the difficulty drops significantly when playing with even just one other person. By that I don’t mean the game drops the difficulty itself, just that tackling quests and groups of zombies is much easier when there is more than one person for enemies to target. Overall I found myself dying with much less frequency when playing with others opposed to playing alone. Co-op works great overall, though. Minimal lag, everything loads up as quickly as it does when playing solo and exploring the island of Banoi is just more fun with more people. Definitely more of a creepy, atmospheric feeling of dread and isolation while playing solo and more of a having fun, hanging out and bashing a few zombie brains experience when playing with friends.

But while on the subject of co-op I feel compelled to mention that the default co-op setting in “Dead Island” is “open to anyone” who happens to be at about the same spot in the game as you. Meaning that unless you set your co-op option to private, random people will be able to jump into your game at any time. I guess some people might not have a problem with that but, for me, unless I’m playing with people I know, I’d rather be playing solo.

So there you have it. While not without its flaws and definitely not perfect, “Dead Island” succeeds in more ways than it fails. Its huge, open, colorful environment is packed full of secrets and the story alone (not counting sidequests) is said to be 20-30 hours long. Taking on quests and zombies is incredibly easy and fun for gamers unfamiliar with the open-world/action/RPG genre and those who decide to stay in Banoi will enjoy countless hours of zombie bashing and comparing the stats of your upgraded Naild Baseball Bat to the Debilitating Homemade Machete that you just found. Obviously, wading through stats, keeping track of money and running back to workbenches to spend said money repairing hammers and crowbars in a zombie game won’t appeal to some gamers. I, on the other hand, will gladly enjoy the zombified tropical vacation of “Dead Island” for some time to come. At least until “Batman: Arkham City” comes out. Or “Rage.” Or “Battlefield 3.” Or “Skyrim.”

Man. This is going to be one tough fall.