Dead Island Review

Dead Island
is Fallout 3 with zombies. Plenty of people are going to compare it to
Dead Rising (as you can create weapons) and Left 4 Dead (as the action
is first-person and good for four players online), but when I finally
got past the game's obtuse opening and less than stellar cutscenes, I
found a world rife with quests, interesting environments, and a
character progression system that had me begging for more hours in the
day. In short, Dead Island's a rough around the edges role-playing game,
and I dug it.



On a small island off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the dead walk. The
story didn't set my hair on fire, but everything else makes up for it.
When you sit down to play, you'll choose one of four characters and for
the next 20 to 30-some hours roam massive maps, take on interesting side
quests, and chop the heads off hundreds of ghouls.


But Dead Island doesn't succeed because of its gore (though I liked the
dismemberment). Dead Island's strength is in the world it creates. I
crept into and through each environment I came to, from beaches to
sewers to jail cells. I listened for the screams of the infected or the
roar of a damage sponge known as a "Thug." From that perspective, I
was on the island; not my character. In the beginning, I'd slaughter
every zombie I saw, but by the time I got to the city and found tight
alleyways overrun with monsters, I began to just run from objective to
objective. No longer was I playing a game -- I was focusing on survival
as if I were the one running from Point A to Point B.


Objectively speaking -- like, right now from my keyboard and not playing
the actual game -- that's a stupid thing to say. Dead Island doesn't
really punish you for dying. If you croak, you wait five seconds and
respawn with less money. Any damage you inflicted before heading to the
great beyond remains. But I say that using hindsight. When I sprinted
away from a zombie and heard its growls directly behind me, my heart
pounded in my chest. I didn't think "Oh, I'll just let him get me and
restart back there."


You rarely feel safe in Dead Island, and that's how a zombie game should
be. You have a limited stamina bar, so you can't run or swing your
weapon forever. Med kits were few and far between in my experience, so
scavenging for energy drinks and fruit -- which have to be used at that
moment and can't be stored -- became part of the experience. Weapons
degrade as you use them, so finding a "legendary" weapon was exciting,
but not as exciting as finding a workbench to keep weapons in tip-top
shape.


Dead Island made me my character. I chose the weapons, the enemies to
attack, and the side quests to take. When I leveled up, I chose in which
skill tree to invest my new point in -- so even if you joined my game
as the same knives expert I play as, we wouldn't necessarily have the
same abilities.



Thankfully, joining games is easy. When
you're playing, a pop-up message will notify you if a player is close to
you and joinable. If I see you sign on, I can invite you in. Of course,
experience levels play into this. Players can only join the games of
people who are equal or lesser levels. I can't be level 31 and about to
win the game and have a level 1 player join me. It might sound
depressing, but there are tons of character slots, so having a character
for different sessions shouldn't be too tough. Plus, you can always
switch your game to single-player if you just want to be left alone.
Sadly, there is no local co-op.


Is Dead Island perfect? No. Far from it. As much as I lauded it, Dead
Island is rough around the edges and that's sure to turn a lot of people
off. First-person melee combat doesn't feel natural right away.
Sometimes textures take their time loading in, I'd describe every
cutscene as "stiff," and the visual flaws like hands going through doors
and weird mini-game meters made me laugh. Still, presentation doesn't
make a game, experiences do. And they are packed into Dead Island.


Pretend that We're Dead
IGN's bursting with Dead Island news!

Where is the Trailer Family?

Zombie Slayin' Montage

The First 45 Minutes

Closing Comments
Dead
Island probably won't win any game of the year awards. It's got visual
bugs, the controls take a bit to feel normal, and the presentation in
general isn't up to snuff. But the game gets a lot right. There is a
huge world to explore, thousands of zombies to kill, and tons of side
quests to take. Here on the other side of a 25-hour playthrough -- where
I skipped a lot of side quests after Act 1 -- I'm anxious to get back
into Dead Island, and despite the game's flaws, that's not something I
say often.
IGN Ratings for Dead Island (X360)


Rating Description

out of 10	Click here for ratings guide
7.0	Presentation The story is a bit flat. It's easy enough to upgrade your weapons and such, but there's no flair to the menus.
7.0	Graphics Environments and zombies look good, but clipping and texture loading are issues. Cutscenes are stiff.
8.5	Sound Every time I came to a new area, I'd listen for zombie action. I don't think I'll forget the cries of a zombie chasing me anytime soon.
8.0	Gameplay There are tons of quests to take, you build out your version of the character, and weapon mods keep combat interesting. The melee fighting is fun but takes getting used to.
8.5	Lasting Appeal If you can get over the game's stumbles and appreciate what it does right, you have a long campaign with online options to try out.
8.0 OVERALL	Great (out of 10)