Dead Island

[Joose]

So its out, and ive played it a little. Its...er...yeah. Not great. Not terrible either, but it suffers from two main problems.

Problem one: It doesn't feel like they have finished making it yet. The console conversion is a little shonky, with things like it telling me to press down on the right thumbstick, and at least once ive opened a wardrobe with a bag unzipping noise. Also, the balancing of various things seems not very well thought through: there's money in damn near everything, including zombies in bikinis, so to make up for it everything that costs money costs a *lot* of money. Also, my character is apparently superman, as hitting three zombies in the head with an iron bar bends it to the point where it is no longer useful as a weapon. And its not like these zombs have particularly hard heads, as evidenced by my punching a skull in half. Finally, for what is making itself out to be open world, there's a fuckload of locked doors. Oh, and cut-scenes. Playing the opening level felt like...well, have you ever played a console game with someone sat next to you who is way better than you, and they keep taking the controller from you at the best bits because they think you would fuck it up in some way? Yeah. If cut-scenes are a thing that annoys you in general, there is a good chance this game will leave you flinging your poo at the devs, monkey style.

Problem two: I think ive already played this game. Its like Dead Rising and L4D had squishy zombie sex, and this is their mutant child. Which doesn't sound like it should be a problem, as Dead Rising and L4D are both great games. Trouble is, they are both great games. This is, at best, OK. Everything its stolen is a less good version than that in the game it stole it from.

There's a bunch of other, smaller problems too. 2 out of the 4 playable characters are flat out un-likable cunts, and one is dull. Its *almost* made up for by the New Orleans Rap Man, who is quite entertaining. Almost. But angry alcoholic sports failure man and "FUCK YOU ALL IM A MINORITY SO ITS OK FOR ME TO SHOUT AND BE ANGRY ALL THE TIME GRR!" lady leave me rooting for the Z's.

Conclusion: I'm going back to Deus Ex in the hope that at least some of these problems get patched out.

[Mr. Johnson]

I would've agreed pretty much completely with you if I didn't play beyond the first beach bit, but it does get a bit better.

-It does indeed suffer from a number of bugs, like picking up health items that don't replenish your health or more annoyingly, items that you pick up and randomly disappear from your inventory (you pick up a health kit at the very beginning of the game but never get to use it as it gone. just gone)
-the items in the beginning break very easily but they're supposed to be shit, later in the game you can find better versions, and you can upgrade your weapons to make them more durable/better.
-I don't understand what you mean by the cutscenes, I really didn't have that many cutscenes expect when I hand in a major quest. It might a console thing.
-It's certainly familiar territory, I also felt it had a hint of borderlands. So I agree with you there, so far it's not an awesome game, just an okay game. I like the local damage mechanic though, hard hitting zombies can be made less lethal by cutting off their arms, which is hilarious as they chase you around whilst trying to headbutt you.

I'm going to try out multiplayer when I can to see what that's like, I'll let you all know.

-I am going to add another complaint too; the vehicles. They handle pretty crap (granted, a keyboard isn't the easiest way to manoeuvre a car), but what annoys me more is that you can't really back out as you can't look behind you properly so you can't see what's behind you. A further annoyance is that your car stays where you park it. This is handy for quests as your car will be there waiting for you when you get back, but when you for example travel to another safe house by car, fast travel back to the previous safe house, it's no longer there, it's still at the other safe house so you have to back and drive it. They do seem to occasionally respawn, I don't really know when. To make things more annoying is that broken down cars can not be rammed out of the way, they are immovable objects made of solid stone .

[FatherJack]

Why the hell do you need money on a zombie-infested island?

I was debating whether to get this, and whether it might be better to get the console version, but bugs are more likely to be sorted quicker on the PC release. I've heard it billed as a cross between Fallout 3 and L4D by some, but most saying it just inexpertly nicks bits from Dead Rising 2 (repetitive item collection tasks) and Borderlands (a million of near-identical weapons), while forgetting to pilfer the good bits from those games, like a decent inventory, co-op planned from inception, an interesting crafting system, a perfect melee collision detection and a good driving physics model.

[deject]

Why the hell do you need money on a zombie-infested island?

I was debating whether to get this, and whether it might be better to get the console version, but bugs are more likely to be sorted quicker on the PC release. I've heard it billed as a cross between Fallout 3 and L4D by some, but most saying it just inexpertly nicks bits from Dead Rising 2 (repetitive item collection tasks) and Borderlands (a million of near-identical weapons), while forgetting to pilfer the good bits from those games, like a decent inventory, co-op planned from inception, an interesting crafting system, a perfect melee collision detection and a good driving physics model.

I've found it to be much, much less irritating than Dead Rising 2. The level of grind in that game is just dumb. Dead Island also does have a lot of grind, but it's different. Getting from A to B still means trudging through a lot of zeds, but for some reason the way you actually fight them is nicer. Dead Rising 2 lets you make plenty of awesome toys, but then has them break almost instantly when you try to use them. When your oar breaks after bashing a zed's head in, it feels more appropriate and there's always another one nearby.

[deject]

I want to play this version:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoLadZotBuE[/media]

[buzzmong]

[fabyak]

That's brilliant!

[Stoat]

Oh my, that looks fun.

[Dog Pants]

Haha, that guy's so hard zombies burst into flames when he punches them.

[Roman Totale]

You are already dead

[Mr. Johnson]

Someone pointed this out yesterday, it's a little program that makes Dead island considerably better by adding the PC options you're supposed to have in a PC game.