Zombies have become
cool again lately, flooding the entertainment space with high profile products
like World War Z, which is both a comic book and, soon, a movie, and the
Walking Dead, one of the most appreciated television series on AMC. Both of
these are nuanced looks at the possibility of a zombie apocalypse which manage
to focus on characters and moral dilemmas more than on simply fighting off the
hordes of undead.
Gaming has long been accustomed to them in various forms but
Dead Island might just be the game that manages to deliver well crafted zombie
bashing action while also making the player think about his choices, what he
considers important and what he chooses to do when faced with life or death
choices.
Everyone will think
about Dead Island as a cross between Dead Rising from Capcom, but maybe without
the humor, and Left 4 Dead from Valve, minus most of the firearms and the
Artificial Intelligence zombie leading Director. The developers at Techland
seem completely unoriginal at first glance but once a gamer gets deeper into
the game, which also means deeper into the island, this familiar feeling will
pass and Dead Island will be able to stand on its own as the best way for a
hardcore geek to prepare for the inevitable coming zombie apocalypse.
Story
Dead Island takes place on the tropical island of Banoi,
where the normal night includes a lot of drinking, some flirting, some high
stakes gambling and maybe a few misdemeanors. One particular evening does not
go as planned and the main character wakes up to find the area around him
filled with zombies.
They can kill him but he cannot become one of them, which
means that he or she is the designated hero of the moment and must explore the
island, helping out survivors and trying to find a way of getting off the
island or finding a cure for the zombie affliction.
There are four characters to choose from, each with a
different focus in combat and different skill trees. In terms of story the four
do not chance anything and the conclusion of the game, which includes a few
twists that will not surprise any aficionado of the zombie movie genre, will be
the same regardless of the choices players make.
Dead Island is not a game that needs to be played because of
it's story and I often found myself clicking through the dialogues and the
cutscenes so that I could get back to the real heart of the game, the zombie
fights.
Gameplay
Dead Island is an open world game. It is also a pretty
complex role playing game, with a lot of crafting and a significant number of
side quests. It is also a horror game that manages to deliver some good scares.
It is also an action title which has some of the best close up and personal
battles of the year.
Dead nature
Tunnel trouble
It was inevitable that in creating this mix the developers
at Techland would make some mistakes but, despite of some weird choices, the
game lives and dies on the strength of its combat and, fortunately, this part
of the game is realistic, complex and engaging enough to keep me coming back
long after I lost interest in the story and even in the island setting.
Seeing a zombie or a group of them in Dead Island leads to a
quick spot of risk benefit analysis. How many are them? What type? Can I move
around? Are there valuables in the surroundings? Based on these questions one
chooses whether to engage or to avoid.
Attacking zombies means using a weapon, which degrades with
use and uses stamina, a foot attack, which drains stamina, to stun as many as
enemies as possible or otherwise put them out of the fight and then deal with
the group one at a time.
The fights are genuinely nail biting, mainly because zombies
level up and stay a challenge throughout the game but also because the design
of the island means that they sometimes manage to surprise the player and knock
his health down a little before he can regain his footing.
There are a few fights, mostly those where the main
character is forced in close quarters situations, that feel unfair but mostly
Dead Island has impressed me with the quality of its up close and personal
zombie battles.
One weird decision is to give money so much importance in
Dead Island. Most zombies have cash on them, which is fine considering the
setting, and there's more to be found in various containers. What's weird is
that the survivors you work for tend to give you copious amounts of cash for
your trouble and that it costs exorbitant amounts to repair the best weapons
you find or craft. It's highly unlikely that during a zombie apocalypse the
value of the dollar would hold steady or rise and it would have made much more
sense to have energy drinks or food items the currency on the island and keep
the entire game closer to the original idea. Seeing dollar values everywhere
and seeing my cash pile drop significantly when I die tends to take me out of
the fiction and eliminates some of the value of Dead Island.
Graphics and audio
Dead Island is created using Techland's own Chrome Engine 5
and is, for the most part, a good looking game that could have used just a
little less blood and guts. There's a level of violence here that goes beyond
what is needed to show off the brutality of the combat and the power of the
zombies. Every dead body is a festival of red and more squeamish gamers might
find it hard to play.
Driving action
Other than that and the tendency to make the sun a bit too
shinny all the time the game delivers on the graphics front, from the models of
the zombies to the feeling of weight that is delivered with every blow of a
blunt weapon.
The sound design is also solid and I've often found myself
listening intently for zombies moving around, low on health and out of good
weapons. The voice acting could have been better but the story is not the focus
of Dead Island and the investment in a very good cast would probably not have
been justified.
Multiplayer
There's no competitive multiplayer in Dead Island but this
is one of those rare games who seem to have been designed from the ground up in
order to be played by four players working together. All the cars have four
seats, allowing everyone to move around, and characters have a tendency to talk
to the players who takes the game on solo as if he was being part of a bigger
group.
Bringing along four players, ideally one of each characters
class that can be selected at the start, makes the game easier and, at times,
more fun. Bigger groups of zombies, which when going solo need to be avoided or
tricked into attacking the player one at a time, now become a chance to test
skills, strategies and stock up on money. It's cool to have a little in group
competition about who kills the most zombies or deploys the most interesting
attack maneuvers.
Playing cooperatively also makes the story of the game even
less important and turns Dead Island into something closer to a MMO powered by
zombies, which is something that the genre has not yet seen.
One good idea is to make sure that you get together a group
of gamers that can play along nicely, which basically means making sure that
rewards are distributed evenly and no one becomes an egotistical hoarder.
Conclusion
Techland has been widely criticized for their previous
release, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, but Dead Island should go some way towards
rebuilding their reputation. They have managed to deliver a game that is
entertaining and filled with suspense while also implementing some of the best
melee combat I have experienced in a game since the first Batman game.
That much talked about first trailer for Dead Island
promised a lot more drama and emotion and that's largely missing but the
exploration of the island the ever escalating challenge of the combat
compensates the lack of emphasis on the story.
Dead Island can feel repetitive and too long at times but
everyone who has been enthralled by Walking Dead on AMC or is eagerly awaiting
World War Z should spent some money and get themselves a zombie experience that
can easily occupy 50 hours of their entertainment time.
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