Dead Island, Survial At Its Finest

The trailer for dead island that sprung up in early this year captivated gamers everywhere, including myself. So when I finally got my hands on this game, the lack of any emotional conflict was disappointing. This game was made by Techland and Deep Silver using the chrome engine. This game was promised to be one of the most realistic zombie/survival horror games out there. At least dead island can live up to that claim. The game starts with you getting drunk a party, pissing everyone off, and passing out in your room. Then you wake up to everyone dead, a zombie, or cowering in a shack. Next you get to pick your character. There is four to choose from each with a specialty and special move. For example, the ex-football star is good with throwing weapons and his special move is pulling out unlimited throwing knives and mowing everyone down. The ex-cop specializes in firearms and her specialty is pulling out a pistol and mowing everybody down. Once you leave your hotel room, you get attacked and pass out. You wake up in a shack full of survivors and from there on you are the official aron boy for everyone on that damn island. This isn't to say the game is bad.


Fun In The Sun
Even though dead island may have a weak story, the game is still tons of fun. This game is mainly melee oriented with some guns thrown into this mix of weapons. The list of weapons ranges from boat paddles and pipes, to electrified katanas and poisoned axes. You start out with things like planks and diving knives, but by the middle of the game, you will have so many awesome weapons, you will have a hard time deciding what to keep in your inventory. There is a weapon wheel which you will be using very much because weapons degrade very fast and the only way to repair the is to find a work bench, ala dead rising, and spend some money to repair it. The bounty of main and side quests make this game fun for hours on end; however, the quests can get repetitive, but not to the point where they all seem the same. The sound quality is also something to be impressed with. Whenever I was in a dark room and I heard a moan from behind me, my heart almost stopped. The desperate cry of a suicider zombie, one that is still in control of its mind, will also have you spin around in fear to spot out the danger. Dead Island also contains RPG elements with a skill tree unique to each character. The 3 main trees are Rage, combat, and survival. Each one helping in a different aspect of the game or combat. It is also very satisfying to open a chest to find an extremely rare weapon like a spiteful machete, or a deadly baseball bat. Exploring this beautiful island is just as fun as the quest and the seamless multiplayer makes this game all the more better.

Fun With Friends
The multiplayer is one of the best aspects of this game. You can drop in and drop out of friends and strangers games at anytime. You can join people of lower progress in the story and complete quests you may have missed. You can also join people of further progress, but you will still have to redo the quests when you get there in your own game. Trading is also a very fun aspect of multiplayer. Unlike single player you can revive and be revived, but only if you have a med pack handy. I played almost all of the game in multiplayer, but I am sure there will be a lot of people will prefer to conquer the dead on their own.

What Just Happened?!
This game is buggy. Reeeeeal buggy. One of the worst things is the crappy auto save system which just seams to save whenever the hell it feels like. The textures also take a while to pop in, and the re-spawns after death will occasionally spawn you far from where you died. Techland promised a day 1 patch, but that is yet to be seen on day 9; however, they have delayed DLC to direct their attention to fixing these bugs, which is fine by me.

Is It Worth It?
Yes, yes it is. Even though this game does have a lot of technical short comings and has almost no story, the game play and plethora of stuff to do gives this undead game life for hours of gaming to come. I think this game deserves a fair 85/100.