Dead Island Review

Dead Island has drawn many comparisons from Left 4 Dead in its inclusion of fully fleshed out 4 player co-op, Dead Rising in its weapon crafting mechanic, and even Borderlands with its enormous open world filled with millions of weapons -- though Dead Island prefers melee weapons to guns--. All of these comparisons are justified but don't let its easily definable characteristics throw you off, don't even let the overabundant number of bugs, glitches and a general sense of jank put you off, because at its core Dead Island is an extremely satisfying zombie game.

Dead Island is a truly massive game. It's unfortunate that so many games get this description almost undeservedly because when a game comes around that is unquestionably massive it gets shrugged off. But let me be 100% clear, Dead Island is a massive undertaking with a single player that is no shorter than 30 hours in length, with enough side quests and hidden missions to push that into the 50 hour mark no problem. Dead Island does have a story but I honestly have no idea what the hell the game was going on about, there are zombies, you conveniently cant get infected and so to take up your time you kill zombies as you try to find a way off the island of Banoi. The story progresses through four major acts with several chapters in each, there are mainline story missions that will move the actual story forward as you make your way to each of the major locations on the island on your ultimate quest to GTFO (too internet-y?).

The areas in Dead Island add to the scope with 3 major locations. The major spots are the Resort area consisting of a luxury hotel with pools and bongalos lining the beach with a lighthouse at the far end. The second is the urban inner city of the island, reminiscent of a third world country. Lastly the Jungle even deeper into the heart of the island consists of handmade straw huts with small villages of the indigenous tribal people. These areas are huge, traversing them on foot takes a long time and you really get the sense that you are a single very vulnerable human in all this chaos. The game does a great job of making you fear walking to far out of an area you are familiar with, with a simple fear of the unknown. The game is refreshingly hard, and single group of 3 zombies can kill you if you are unprepared, its fun and frightening.

The combat in Dead Island focuses on first-person melee, swinging whatever you can scavenge off the island to beat back the infected hoard. Anything from broom-handles to fire axes and if your lucky a gun with just a handful of bullets. There are greater dangers than zombies on this island, as some of the local survivors have taken advantage of a completely up-heaved society for their own ends. Fighting them takes patience until you can scavenge some of their guns and fight them on a more even keel. There are a countless number of weapons with variations on the even the simplest and useless of weapons. In your travels you will discover weapons with better stats which you can modify at any of the crafting tables to make even better. There is tiered loot, which is a plus in any game, forcing you to obsessively tear apart every house for looking for even a green tiered weapon.

Dead Island even has some pretty simple RPG mechanics thrown in for good measure, you gain experience for killing zombies but the more brutal and creative you get the more experience points you get, which allows you to level up. For instance start by breaking your enemies arms then since he/ she no longer has a use for them go ahead and chop those off and keep them for somebody more appreciative now go ahead and take the head right off the shoulders. (that's at least 700xp)
Once you reach a new level you are given a single skill point to augment your character as you see fit, more stamina, better accuracy, and even unique things like an ability to tackle enemies. Dead Island scales to your level, meaning that the game will always maintain the same basic level of difficulty, with exceptions for big set-piece encounters.

Dead Island is not without fault. Bugs litter this game including but not limited to, horrible physics interactions, clipping through environments, an inconsistent respawn system, some pretty terrible AI, mission objectives that finish themselves or are just stuck and can never be completed. Yet for all that, Dead Island is still fun; loot, customization options that turn a Bolo Sharp Machete into an Electrified Head Splitter with a few parts, massive dense and detailed environments filled with random quests popping up after just a little exploration. Dead Island is a ... good game, its not compelling in any way but there is an inherent addiction in a game that provides so much freedom even when its filled with bugs.

(3 out of 5)