I know this is late shut up, I have a life you know. Complied of low expectations and video games, movies and comics.
So Dead Island. Yeah, remember that gripping, tragic slow motion, traveling backwards but also forwards trailer released earlier this year? Okay good, now forget all about it because ironically, it has nothing to do with Dead Island.
Oh it's all about being on an Island during a Zombie outbreak and there is weapon durability, but there is no emotional gripping sequences, no personal effect, no choice and no sense of hit detection. I'll get back to that one afterwards. What is in the game is a fun game with no staying power and more glitches than an MTV program.
You pick one of four super humans, who are not only immune to the zombie infection but also have disjointed bodies and know how to move around with half there skin missing. Seriously, the animations YOUR character have are horrible. When you see other characters animations, they're fine but just stare at your shadow and do some movements. Breathtaking ballerina actions shall follow. Speaking of physical glitches and wanky imflatible flailing tube man movements. Let's reel it back to that good old hit detection for a minute.
Why? I mean I know it's a Zombie apocolypse in a Hawaii knock off, lack of Elvis aside. So I know you have to have a feeling of bleakness but that's an emotion. AN EMOTION. When you physically stack the arms against you and a zombie can summon the force to hit, but your arm length plus a GOD DAMN MACHETE can't even scratch a Zombie unless you're close enough for a singing duet. I mean, c'mon that's just pathetic. It's almost like the developers saw that really good trailer, thought it would be nice and tried somewhere to put that atmosphere in the game. I stress the word tried, it's completely hit and miss. A hit would have been not saving a survivor in time and having no choice but to put down someone who up until a minute ago had your back. Or becoming a dick and stranding people just so you can get your can of dirty beans. There is no choice, meaning there is no atmosphere. It's like all the glitches are the developers attempt to create some form of continuity with the trailer. Making it seem like lousy hit detection is stacked against you is a lame excuse to cover your own ass. I'm lazy too you know, but if I'm going to type or do something I make sure I do the best damn job.
That brings me to my next point. If you want to make an RPG you need to have choice, MMO's are a lazy man's RPG. You only get to create or chose a character and then go a long for the ride. A true RPG gives you choice, whether it be a small tiny bit of it or a huge chunk. The impression the initial trailer gave was that you could shape the outcome of events. You either help as much as you can, damn people for those tasty beans or stay where you are and stock the place and turn into a lair so badass, Blofield would blush. No, you can't. You have to quest so hard that Gandalf would be impressed, you have to do fetch quests, escort missions and navigate through sewers. This isn;t a zombie apocolypse RPG, it's Borderlands.
And that right there is my biggest problem. I paid 60 bucks for a game I've played before. There's a good game under here but the developers never let it shine through. They even gave the characters amazing back stories that we never get fleshed out, nor does it seem to give the characters a personal arc to go through and grow; and if they dide, you just lose some money. That's it, it's not like Outbreak where you turn into a zombie and have to hunt down your friends. Nope, you just have to pay to get out of puragtory and pass go. There's no personal connection to the story, the characters all start off in them same room after having an existential interacting with whatever character you picked and that's it. That's the story, it's like DOA without the tits. There is nothing here other than quest, the only time the game was truly fun was with a friend, but that was because you could make fun of everything that you both came across.
60 bucks for an incomplete, glitchy co-op focused game is 50 dollors too much. The sad thing is, this game took 5 years to develop. I should know, I watched this game like a hawk as soon as I heard about it. Development started in 2006, with a 2008 release date. Then bam, we get this game. This makes me a sad panda. They pulled a DNF, they did nothing to help make the game polish and shine. Instead we gan a crappy fetch quest, with stat abilities. Oh it's a fun game, but it's nothing of what was promised and by the time you get to the second and third act, the glitches become so apparent that whatever fun you could have had with it drains away.
My verdict? wait for thise one. Techland are developing patches that are coming out as I type this, even if there is no personal, emotional and bleak story. The gameplay will be fixed and that should help give it some form of staying power.
Dead Island gets 2.5 swings and a miss out of 5
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