Dead Island: Review
Review by: Cheri Green
Dead Island
Earlier this year around May-ish, someone randomly showed me this video. I had no idea what this trailer was for, honestly I thought it was completely fake. I had never heard of Dead Island.
Flash forward to the past week with The Boys at work hounding me to get this game. Up until now, my love of zombies has always been reserved for the likes of Resident Evil. And although my style is more of a BioShock, Dead Space, Mass Effect type gaming, I decided to give DI a whirl. Unfortunately no demo existed on Xbox Live, so I bought it on a whim in hopes it lives up to the excitement The Boys expressed over it.
Normally when I’m anxious for a video game to drop, I spend hours oogling trailers and demos, obsess over G4, and stay glued to my monthly Game Informer magazine. I scour the interwebs trying to find anything remotely to do with the game I can’t wait to get. Right now, I am going into Dead Island almost completely blind. Things I liked right away: Four different characters to choose from (and one in heels the whole time, what in the WHAT!). They all have different attributes that can help you in ways that can make each time you play a unique experience.
So here I am, armed with the achievement list, and like every gamer, I’m surrounded with my own fuel that consists of plenty of beverages. Now, who to choose? Like I said, each character has its own specific strengths, so I pick the one I feel might get me further. Purna is able to slang guns, I choose her.
The beginning of the game play starts with you waking up in the Palms Resort amidst of chaos already unfolding on the fictional island of Banoi. The goal is to literally find an antidote, and then make a way to get the heck off the island. Somehow, you are still in your complete human form, and whatever turned the zombies into…Well, zombies, you were able to dodge.
Now, after a few hours of gameplay here’s how I feel about DI: Super like the Achievement Process tracker (and if you’re on PS3 or PC platforms, I’m sure it tracks Trophies in the same way). Basically every time you come close to hitting an achievement, a notification pops up saying how many more zombies you have to kill, how much further you have to run, etc. I also like that you get to be a scavenger. You can knock down doors to get into rooms, rustle through trash cans and suitcases left behind to grant you loot. Even zombies you kill can be searched for money and other weapons. I am down with the ability to keep changing your melee weapons. From pipes, to oars, to knives, you can instantly see on the point system how strong they are. There are side missions which grant you more money, and that always helps.
As for the dislikes: Do not really particularly care for open world games, but that’s just me. Open world I feel are designed for co-op/online multi players. By yourself, you end up wandering around killing miscellaneous zombies that come your way without a real purpose. This is fine, but I feel you can’t ever really get to the core of the game since you’re taking forever to do the simplistic tasks on your own. Although not hard, you do have to spend adequate time on side missions that you could most likely complete ten times faster had you not gone rogue. Also for such a straight forward story, I’m surprised at how tedious it is to upgrade your character. For most of the first three levels I played, I still don’t all the way grasp what the items I am randomly collecting (i.e. duct tape, rags, batteries, engines to cars, etc) are really for. I’m assuming they are to combine with the weapons you already have picked up along the way to create a super sort of weapon at workbenches.
While it can be great fun to explore, alone I find it boring. I’m still a little irritated at the fact that one of the side missions I was unable to complete and gave up in frustration (having to explore the island for alcohol to give to another character in exchange for $400-some odd dollars and then discovering after researching that for the most part, this particular task is extremely buggy and only a small amount of players were able to actually finish it). I may give this game another go, because I don’t like leaving things unfinished, no matter what it is. I’ll also have to enlist the boys at work in a co-op to give this game a second chance.
LINKS:
http://deadisland.deepsilver.com/deadisland.php
https://www.facebook.com/deadislandgame
