Post 29: Dead Island Revisited

A still from the gruesome trailer that NPR has labeled uncomfortable due to graphic violence.

Despite several setbacks, including an issue with profane and inappropriate comments included in the code of the game, Dead Island manages to be a well put together game. The issue can be found in the archives of my blog, but it has little to do with the game's overall playability so I won't dredge it up again.  I simply want to attack the meat of the game rather than it's construction problems; I'll leave that to the media.

Zombie hugs are some of the least gratifying.

The game's premise is that a zombie infestation has occurred on a resort island.  Players choose from four characters, each with their own specific set of skills.  There's a tank, a gun-expert, a throwing-expert, and a bladed weapons specialist.  No matter who you choose, the story remains consistent.  In fact it's so consistent that if you are logged onto Xbox Live and you are "near" someone in the story, they can join your game and insert themselves in to help you or for you to help them.  It works both ways, not much unlike a bisexual.  In any case, this is majorly annoying for those of us that just want to game by ourselves for an hour or two.  It's like some jerk-off knocking on your door and letting himself in whenever the fuck they want.  Luckily, you can change the options here and adjust it to your liking.  There are sometimes, however, that you will want someone to join you, like in a heavily infested area, and in those times it's acceptable.

Machete: 1 Zombie: 0

The idea is to try and survive on the island so that an escape plan can be put together.  Of course, the only obstacle between you and sweet, blissful escape is an entire resort of zombies and idiot survivors that need your help.  You progress in the story, and in areas on the island, by completing main and side quests.  For completing these quests you earn experience, level up, and gain skill points to spend on the skills unique to each character.  This type of gaming setup is very reminiscent of say the Diablo series or Borderlands.  In fact, Dead Island may as well be Borderlands on an island.  The main differences are that you're up against zombies, you're on Earth, and there's an emphasis on melee combat.  Let's talk about the combat while we're on the subject.

It's like a Zombie bug zapper.

As I stated, the combat is focused on melee.  To that end, there are two types of weapons, blunt and bladed.  Whichever you decide upon is usually based on which character you chose and how you want to develop your skills.  All of the weapons you find have a chance of being Common, Uncommon, Rare, Unique, or Exceptional with each category being more powerful than the last.  Add to that a weapon modification system a la Dead Rising 2 and you've got yourself one hell of a good weapons system.  So at this point it's a typical first-person hack and slash, but you've got some choices in combat.  You can take the time to focus on a particular limb and break it, or cut it off depending on the weapon type, or just go all out and waste your stamina on the whole thing.  Either way it makes for a good time as you hack limbs and bust heads.  Even when guns become involved, I have no problem saying that the combat system is excellent.

I don't know why this is here.

The quests are a bit broken and cause some confusion on my part.  There is a difficulty value for every quest, but it seems like it's arbitrary.  A quest may say hard, but you breeze through it like it's very easy.  I'm not sure what determines the difficulty, so this may just be a misunderstanding from my perspective, but it's a point of contention that I had to bring up.  Another issue is the pathing for the quest trails on the map.  If you go a way different from the path on your mini-map it corrects the trail.  This is great if you're an idiot, otherwise it just pisses you the hell off.  One time in particular I was traveling through a bazaar and the end comes out into a car.  There was plenty of room to move over or to the left of the car, but the pathing told me to go around to the right and out to the left again.  This happens constantly and I find myself backtracking or going off the path just to reach my destination.  You'd think it wouldn't be too hard, just get from A to B.

My final complaint about the game is based upon the realism.  I love the graphics, plot, and almost everything else about this game, but it comes across as too real at many times.  You run out of stamina a lot.  Stamina is tracked with a bar.  Once the bar runs out, you slow down and can't attack or jump until you regain it.  That's fine, but it happens way too fucking often.  The horror aspect of the story is wonderful and I actually get scared sometimes when playing alone, but some of the roars and moans are just disturbing and even annoying after awhile.  Despite all of the realism that makes me angry, like people who sell weapons and items jacking up the prices to a ridiculous plateau, the worst of all is the fact that the zombies can utilize weapons.  For instance, I was just running away from a few zombies to get some distance on them and shoot them down due to damage suffered from a close encounter.  With normal zombies that's no problem, they shamble over to you and you cut them down with bullets, game over, but of course here that's not the case.  I got away and took down two of the remaining three, but one of the fuckers threw, yes they can use and throw weapons, a wooden plank at me and killed me.  Talk about being pissed the hell off.  If you're going to have attention to detail and realism that's fine, but at least be fucking consistent.  Zombies cannot use goddamn weapons they're brainless, alright?  BRAINLESS.