It's more fun with friends
If you think that’s bad, be very careful when throwing your weapons. Throwing your bladed weapons to slow down the advancing enemies as you desperately wait for your stamina to recover, before tearing them out of the zombie and lopping off its head is literally some of the best action and entertainment offered by a game of this type. However, if you happen to lodge a hard-won upgraded machete in a scripted enemy you run the risk of them being reset on your death, or in some cases, just plain vanishing – your weapons gone along with it.Enemy designs are overly reminiscent of the Left 4 Dead franchise, each filling the standard cliché zombie roles. Shambling walker zombies and faster infected humans are plentiful, with the occasional stronger spitting, exploding or beefier zombie. The latter few can prove to be surprisingly difficult by yourself, which is when the addition of some co-op comrades seems to be a very good idea.
The cooperative system in Dead Island is actually very well realised. Players can drop in and out of each other’s games with relative ease, matchmaking decided both by level and main story progression. Enemy level (and in turn that of the loot) scales with the strongest player on the team though, so it’s important to keep turning in those repeatable quests to keep yourself strong enough to play your part. It’s in the 4 player co-op that the game really shines, too, with the driving sequences seeming less of an exercise in explaining to you the value of your peripheral vision, and how hard it is to navigate anywhere without lodging yourself in a tree without it, when you’re carrying some teammates and cargo back for a quest, the hordes chasing you.
On the subject of co-op, too, Techland have announced plans for an arena-type DLC adventure named the “Bloodbath Arena”, in which players can fight through 4 arenas, either alone or with up to three others, keeping their experience and loot for the main game. The DLC will also feature a leaderboard system, allowing you to compete with and against your friends. Those of you who pre-ordered the game too will also receive it for free. However, “Bloodbath Arena” has recently been delayed to the middle of November, the developer instead focussing on ironing out some of the aforementioned issues which have been affecting the main game. An admirable choice, yet one sorely needed to help Dead Island meet the potential it has, filling the void between true RPGs and the more comical, hack-and-slash action of Dead Rising 2.
Dead Island is perhaps the epitome of a 3/5 title. Maybe because of the long development period, or the success of similar titles over the last few years, the vision got somewhat lost along the way. Dead Island tries to do too much. It aims for the claustrophobic zombie hordes of some of its peers, the deep, involving quest trees of modern RPGs and it falls short through design mistakes and the limitations of the engine – the gunfights and driving sequences seem tacked on, the overall experience compromised in favour of adding as much variety in as possible. However, if you’re lucky enough to not be plagued by the numerous technical issues, or patient enough to not let them totally cloud your enjoyment of the game, Dead Island has considerable bite to it. It’s evidently flawed and lacks the budget and production values of an A grade title, but good, gory fun at the same time.
The Good
Satisfying melee combat Entertaining co-op mode
Slaughtering zombies with modded weapons
The Bad
Average production values never live up to the quality of the first cinematic Dead Island trailer
Tacked-on gunfights and driving sequences add little to the experience
Repetitive and flawed side objectives
HEXUS Rating
Dead Island
HEXUS Where2Buy
Dead Island is available to buy from Play.com.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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