Review: Dead Island

The release of the Dead Island cinematic trailer earlier this year elevated Dead Island from a game few horror fans had heard of to one of the most anticipated titles of the year.

When the trailer was first released, many gamers were hoping for a very story driven game, but Dead Island is not as much about the story as it is about surviving against countless waves of zombies and bashing their brains in. In the end, your enjoyment of Dead Island comes down to whether or not you love zombie movies.

Every zombie fan has a survival plan and Dead Island lets you practice your zombie killing and survival skills in semi-realistic fashion. You start off by choosing from one of four pre-made character classes. Each character has a unique backstory and specialty, such as blunt weapons or firearms. You wake up after a zombie infection has spread across the island and must not only fend off thousands of zombies ready to eat you, but find survivors and figure out how to leave the island.

Traditionally, I hate melee combat in first person RPG’s and shooters, but Techland really seems to have perfected it. Unlike most games, firearms are not your weapons of choice. In most cases you’ll be bashing zombie brains with bats, pipes, and whatever else you can find. Don’t expect to hold onto your favorite weapon for the entire game, because there is a durability system in place and you’ll often find yourself ditching weak or broken weapons in favor the one you find on the ground. For those that are looking for some additional fun and customization, there is a crafting system in place that will allow you to create custom weapons. You can add barbed wire to a bat or get a little crazier and add electricity or fire. I’ve played so many shooter games, that playing a melee-heavy game was really refreshing and fun.

Zombie movie fans will recognize a number of different zombie types in the game. You don’t just have your slow “Night of the Living Dead” zombies or your fast “Dawn of the Dead” zombies. You also have your frenzied and human-looking “28 Days Later” zombies, voodoo zombies, mutant zombies, and a number of boss zombies. Trying to figure out what type of zombie to kill first is a challenge at the start of the game. Eventually you get the hang of it, but you’ll always have to take extra care when killing those frenzied or boss zombies.

Graphically, Dead Island is quite impressive. It doesn’t necessarily take gaming graphics to the next level, but the island is beautiful, the various locations are interesting and unique, and the best part of it all is the zombie damage system. Hitting a zombie with an axe, for example, will remove huge chunks of flesh or remove a limb. Attacking a zombie with a blunt object will still kill a zombie, but is less likely to remove most of their flesh. All zombies have multiple layers, which include the flesh, muscles, and bone. You'll have plenty of fun experimenting with various ways to mutilate zombies.

Although this is a first person game and is heavy on FPS elements, this is just as much of an RPG. The level and skill progression is very similar to Borderlands. As you level up, you receive skill points that you can put into class-specific or generic skills. Some of the skills may help with health restoration or the selling of items, while others will improve the use of sharp weapons or firearms. This kind of skill system is designed for the casual gamer and the downside is that you are forced at times to take unwanted skills in order to unlock the skill you are looking for.

In terms of the design of the island and quests, the structure is closer to a game like Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas. There are big open areas to explore, but there are also specific story-related quests and side quests you can pick up by encountering survivors on the island. Although similar to the games I mentioned above, Dead Island’s biggest problem is with storytelling and the depth of quests. While there were more RPG elements in Dead Island than I was expecting, the story elements and method of storytelling prevents Dead Island from becoming a truly great game.

The game had been in development for 4+ years before we saw the much-hyped cinematic trailer, so I understand that they couldn’t completely shift the focus of the game in 6 months to be more story driven. With that being said, they have been developing this FPS/RPG hybrid all along and opted for an RPG-lite experience.

There are plenty of quests in the game, but you never really have a choice. You can turn down optional quests, but there are never those moral decisions that we are used to seeing in other games. You’ll run into different types of people along the way and you never have the ability to pick sides or develop your character the way you want. Techland definitely wanted to tell a specific story and you are along for the ride.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the story had been properly executed, but the story fails to really grab you and the parts that are supposed to be emotionally gripping are mainly told during cut scenes. If you are playing the single player portion of the game, you still see all 4 playable characters in every cut scene. Things like this take you out of the game and don’t match up with your individual playing experience. Because you aren’t able to experience consequences of your character’s action for yourself, it takes you out of the game. Many of the story elements are very close to what we’ve seen in other games and the story is taken to the point of ridiculous by the time you get to the final boss battle.

Big open world games tend to have plenty of bugs and glitches and I was honestly expecting a bug-filled mess, but I’m happy to say that I didn’t run into any game crashes or glitches during my entire play-through. It may not be the same for everyone, but as someone who experienced countless bugs and game freezes during Fallout: New Vegas, this was a welcomed surprise. I initially played the game on the Xbox 360 and had no issues, but understand that PC players appear to be running into more problems. I did experience some issues on the PC version, but none of them compared to the problems I've had with other games of this type. **Edit 9/28- It is my understanding that PS3 users are experiencing a number of bugs related to saved games and co-op. While some of these issues were fixed in a recent patch, it appears that some PS3 users are not having the same experience that Xbox 360 and PC users are.**

Co-op gamers will be happy because this game was really built for co-op. Anyone with decent FPS/RPG experience can make their way through the single player game, but Techland has made it easy to jump in and out of co-op with your friends and team up to take on zombies and complete game quests. If you are stuck in a particular quest, you can get your friends to help out and the two of you can also share items and experience. Anything you earn in co-op carries over to single player, and vice versa.

I definitely have problems with the story, but this is still a massive accomplishment from Techland. The melee combat really works and is interesting. The zombie damage system and multiple zombie types are impressive. The locations and level design are interesting. Despite problems with the story elements, this is a really good first showing from Techland and I’m interested in seeing what they can do with a sequel. This is one of the best zombie games to date and if they are able to learn from their developing experience and introduce better story elements into a sequel, they will be able to create an excellent game that will appeal to all types of gamers.

Until then, your enjoyment of Dead Island ultimately depends on your love of zombies. If you’re a hardcore gamer, with no allegiance to the living dead, this may be fun for a bit, but you’ll find yourself getting bored. If you love zombie films, you’re going to see this as a zombie survival simulator and have countless hours of fun with your friends.

Score: 4/5