It's a fun game, basically second rate to Dead Rising 2 in everything but size...turns out, size matters, though.

Oh Dead Island! Wherefore art thou?

It's a game that stands on the precipice of greatness humbled by a decision to sell it in a woefully underdeveloped state. Graphically it isn't bad, but it is extremely unpolished (compare that to the glorious visuals in Gears 3). The cut scenes look utterly vile, like you have the wrong kind of graphic card.
There are lots of little issues as well in terms of presentation and polish that really let it down.
The gameplay has potential. It does a lot of things well. But i gave up when I reached the city. At that point the stamina mechanism fell apart (lots of zombies = stamina drain = can't fight = death). It's also ugly as hell at this point. On top of that a massive bug, which is how i reached the city, made it impossible to play. I wound up in the city after failing a certain quest and was unable to get back out.
It is buggy, it is glitchy, but had it been fixed and polished - as it deserved - it would have been awesome. Though I remain unconvinced that melee fps style is the way to go.

I certainly concede it lacks a few jars of polish, but I'm on my second play through, still having some fun.

I was going to buy it, till 2 of my friends quit after some game destroying bugs. One lost his save game (twice) and the other's inventory reset about halfway through the game.

That game is a total woulda, coulda, shoulda. It seems to have sold well enough...so hopefully they'll do better in the sequel.

I would have been more forgiving of the game had I not experienced bugs of that kind. But even then, the city part (which is as far as I got) drained me. The pace of the first part, in the resort, is pretty much perfect. The city is just too many zombies for the way the game plays. But I really cannot understand the thinking behind the publisher's decision to sign this off as ready. NO matter how many issues it may have had during development, you surely cannot think that a game like this was ready.

It's funny to see IGN gave this a pretty favourable 8/10 and then a couple of weeks later came across a game breaking bug involving a zombie and an invisible wall that left them trapped in a building.

It's weird, I've yet to have a game breaking bug, or even a real bug.

I've had a few glitches (zombies clipping through walls, or dying halfway through a car), and the inventory system is obnoxious as heck, but I've never lost a save or anything like that. I tried to break the game a few times by doing goofy stuff, but the invisible walls never really trapped me. I did hear the first Steam downloads were crappy, but I got mine through Gamersgate and had no problems (still seemed like I was DLing through Steam, tho).

I don't see how you can get overwhelmed by zombies on anything like a regular basis. They've put so much ridiculous detail in the zombies that you generally only deal with one or two zombies at a time, with a fight with half a dozen or more at once being a rare exception. You can simply run away from darn near every encounter (outside of specific quests to kill zombie X).

Quote from: Doom;481490It's weird, I've yet to have a game breaking bug, or even a real bug.

I've had a few glitches (zombies clipping through walls, or dying halfway through a car), and the inventory system is obnoxious as heck, but I've never lost a save or anything like that. I tried to break the game a few times by doing goofy stuff, but the invisible walls never really trapped me. I did hear the first Steam downloads were crappy, but I got mine through Gamersgate and had no problems (still seemed like I was DLing through Steam, tho).

I don't see how you can get overwhelmed by zombies on anything like a regular basis. They've put so much ridiculous detail in the zombies that you generally only deal with one or two zombies at a time, with a fight with half a dozen or more at once being a rare exception. You can simply run away from darn near every encounter (outside of specific quests to kill zombie X).

In the city the zombies are often clumped in greater numbers and that can include multiple bosses. It just gets tedious whenyou want to turn in a quest.

Hmm, in the city I play in, I'm hard pressed to see more than 5, and even then it's pretty trivial to isolate them enough so you fight one at time over the course of a minute (once you get the weapon system down, 2 hits'll do for most zombies, and many will go down in one), assuming you're not in the mood to just run around them.

Something tells me you'd freak out at Dead Rising 2, where a score of zombies at a time is common.

That said, I just opened up the gun store, getting mauled by 4 infected (most I've ever seen at once) was pretty brutal. Ah well, 7 seconds later I respawned and got 'em.

That's the other thing that makes it tough to complain the game is too hard--you respawn nearby in a few seconds, and all you lose is a bit of money, which there's plenty of lying around.

How does it compare to Left4Dead/L4D2?

Quote from: Werekoala;481782How does it compare to Left4Dead/L4D2?

Yes, the million dollar question.

Quote from: Werekoala;481782How does it compare to Left4Dead/L4D2?

Really no comparison, the Dead Island compares well to a game called Dead Rising, but has only a little in common with L4D.

L4D is a shooter (Dead Island is not, although there is some gunplay), and has competitive play where you can be the zombies (Dead Island does not, only limited co-op play), so they're really not in the same category, beyond both being zombie games.

Dead Island is more of a survival RPG--your character gains skills and hit points as he levels. You craft weapons and go on quests, and there's nothing like that in L4D.

If you're familiar with Dead Rising (a somewhat obscure title), let me know and I'll compare the two games in terms where they actually relate.


In a more general sense, both games have lots of fun in them. Where L4D fails for me is in the ridiculously narrow balance of the multiplayer game, which in theory is lots of fun, but in practice most games are just stupid slaughters of the opposing team. Dead Island, as said before, lacks a great deal of polish, but the sheer quantity of game makes it fairly fun, even if qualility is suspect at times.

So its kinda like a zombie Fallout 3.

Ok, now that's a comparison that makes sense (although, really, the game is taking all its cues from Dead Rising).

Fallout easily has better stories and NPCs; Dead Island NPCs just stand there and tell you what they want from you (except for a few cases where you follow NPCs, other than that, they have no existence except to be there for you), and the basic story is "get off the island", with no variations on that.

Dead Island totally dominates in terms of combat, totally dominates in terms of crafting, and has, in my opinion, a much prettier game world (not much of a challenge considering the apoclyptic world of Fallout), with an eense more credible detail.

When it comes to character development, it's basically a toss-up. Both systems are fairly lean as to viable options, maybe a slight edge to Fallout.

Treasure and looting is also a toss-up. There are far more variations in weapons in Dead Island (it's no Borderlands, however), and while there's more stuff for your character in Fallout, it's boring stuff. Fallout has a flaming sword...Dead Island has half a dozen viable flaming swords (and quite a bit more not-so-good options). Fallout makes up the difference with more other types of equipment, but the other stuff is dull (a hat that adds +1 to Cha, for example).

Fallout has no multiplayer, while Dead Island has crummy multiplayer (YMMV, but it sure seems weak to me).

So, yeah, "Fallout with zombies" is actually a pretty good 3 word review.

I'm playing through right now and loving it; no crashes (except the nvidia driver once, which i don't think is related), no game-stopping bugs.  

Anyone on PC should be using the Dead Island Helper until the devs sort out things for the next patch.  The helper adds lots of nice options that will probably never be patched in, so it's useful regardless.  There are a few more fan-made mods but I'm not messing with them until my first play-though is over. (which by the way seems nice and long, but I'm only able to play for at most 2 hours a time, and I've been playing since release...doing ALL side quests, sightseeing, and exploring)

I've used "Fallout 3 with Zombies" and "L4D with a good single-player campaign" as (i think) apt descriptions of the game.


EDIT: don't expect the depth and breadth of FO3 wrt RPG elements or character development, etc.

Respected UK magzine EDGE, gave it an honest 3/10 as it fails on several levels, whilst at the same time being full of "Facebook social gaming" errors.
 
http://www.next-gen.biz/reviews/dead-island-review