This is my first Review so it's far from perfect, but I will try to give a good insight of the game and if it's worth the cash.
I can already give you the tldr answer: Yes it is.
Dead Island
1. Story
(Spoiler)The story is pretty straight forward, simple and generic, you are stuck on the island of Banoi. You enter the scenery as a guest of the Hotel Royal Palms Resort after an outbreak with zombies and you are, together with 3 other people, the only ones that seem to not get infected, so you are forced to help the other survivors in order to.. survive yourself! The main plot is to get off the island. Side-Plots are to help other people with their needs and find out why you are not getting infected. There is a little twist at the end but I could tell it beforehand so I am not giving the Story part the best score.
Score: 7,5/10
2. Presentation
The graphics are well done yet not the highest standard you can currently find out there, If you have a 3-4 years old PC you can probably run it on maximum settings without a problem. It does have very good lighting and shadow effects, the wind keeps palms in motion as a monsoon is approaching the island so you can expect various weather changes during your play.
Sound is a very important aspect for a Horror-Survival game, and this is where Dead Island shines the most. You will hear Zombies everywhere, growls, screams and scary noises are almost always present when you are out to fulfill the various quests. These sounds are not just scripted audio, each sound you hear is an actual zombie, so when you hear them you can be sure they are around somewhere. This ensures that you don't feel too safe, even when you are not fighting.
The world is huge, you can use cars to travel around. Don't need to tell you that you can also kill zombies with this method.
The zombies are very detailed, no clone warriors all the time and you will find a lot of variations of skins. Some even use weapons or even worse throw them at you!
The atmosphere due to this, is brilliant, you will feel yourself sucked into the world of survival.
Score: 9/10
3. Gameplay
As Dead Island is also published on the consoles PS3 and Xbox360 you can play it either with a joypad or with mouse+keyboard. I tested both and both works absolutely fine while mouse+keyboard is slightly ahead since you can aim more precise. But it's no game-breaker to play with a joypad. You will be able to slaughter the zombies just as fine.
Dead Island is a 1st Person Action RPG. You will find millions of items. From weapons, to Cash $ to things you can just sell and very importantly to modify your weapons. If you have ever played any Action RPG you will find yourself familiar with the various colors of quality. It starts with common white and green items and ends with legendary orange items. (cough WoW)
At the beginning you will of course pick a character, each 4 of them has a specialty and a slightly different skill tree and "special attacks". Sam B for example is the one that excels with blunt weapons thus you should focus your search on these. But since you start with no equipment, you will basically grab every weapon you find, be it a little knife or a wooden paddle, everything that can inflict damage is going to help you survive.
Each weapon has a durability which is very important in this game, if it goes down to zero it's broken. You can't use it, no way to repair it, it's just gone! Speaking of, you can always repair them before they break apart, so you should do that with your favorite ones. You can also upgrade them and modify them with blue prints-
The blueprints are awarded for successfully finishing quests or just by exploring the immense world. And there are tons of side-quests, if you just follow the main-quest you will not even get close to what you can find (weapons and modifications) in Dead Island. The Quests are straight forward but not stupid like kill 10 Zombies and come back. They fit well in the situations you are. There are so many hidden places that encourage you to look around. And I can tell you that with the bad boys of weapons you can REALLY make a hard time for the zombies. Swords, Maces, bombs and mines, Rifles or even the classic shotgun are all in the game, some being even unique. When you finally have a katana you will enter a new dimension of limb cutting. A huge axe that practically slaughters a zombie in 2 parts are also worth to mention.
The combat animations are very well done, you feel the momentum of your weapons. Huge weapons need more energy. Small weapons like a knife are accurate and fast and need less energy but you will need to get closer. This you can archive by kicking a zombie, it will basically stun the zombie or even let him fall down so you can kill him smoothly, if there are no other zombies already attacking you, which is almost always the case. So the game is very fast paced with a lot of action and you don't run around wondering what to do.
One of the bad aspects in the game is that it can get repetitive as it's an action RPG you will always just hunt for new and better weapons or the next level up. Beside the quests it's just pure grind or exploration. So if you are done with the quests and found every place you can just grind zombies. The Zombies are always around your level, so you can not level out of the range, or vice versa. After you have finished the game you can play the game again and keep all your weapons and level. As far as I know there is no maximum level so you can eventually skill everything and make an uber-Char.
Score: 8/10
4. Multiplayer
The Multiplayer is AWESOME!
Basically at every point you can simply join someone else game if he/she allowed it to be a public game. Your solo-progress then gets saved and you enter the quest-progress of the player you join. That means you can play on your own and when your friend comes online to play you just hop in and have fun. The zombie lvl gets adjusted. In Multiplayer (up to 4 player) the classes really serve a purpose. Sam B is basically the Tank so he pulls more Aggro/Threat to the zombies. Xian is the Damage Dealer if you want, lot's of damage and abilities to lower the threat, doing more damage to enemies if attacking from behind etc.
Killing hordes of zombies together is the real deal in this game, if you have a friend go grab him and then have lots of fun!
Score: 10/10
Overall Score: 8,5/10
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Topic: ** PC Game Reviews ** (Read 8305 times)