Dead Island: Riptide

The game's uninspired vibe and execution are not the only things that Techland and Deep Silver forgot to improve upon. The graphics are sub par to say the least. The game can have you staring in awe at a stranded battle cruiser, but the immersion quickly falls apart when you notice your gun sticking trough a solid brick wall. [May 2013, p.76]

Riptide is much like the zombies it portrays. It meanders about, bumping into everything, and occasionally it finds some meat to sink its teeth into. Then it slowly moves on to find the next scarce meal. Missing some parts, it shambles around, a mindless, and feral creation. Too bad.

Riptide collects all the hallmarks of the first Dead Island, correcting some bad things but keeping others. The new island is wilder and natural, but it has fewer new ideas than we expected. Long and fun again.

The same slightly wonky fun we had in the first one, and we mean the exact damn same. [Issue#231, p.66]

Dead Island: Riptide - more an expansion of than an actual sequel to Dead Island - doesn't succeed in changing up the formula much. The story's still weak, the controls still clumsy and the graphics are hit-and-miss. Some new additions like dead zones and some kick-ass new weapons keep things fresh, but after a while the action will get repetitive. And yet, despite all of this, the game manages to be extremely addicting.

It has moments of high tension, and overall it stays true to its rhythm, is more Dead Island, so if you liked the first, you will certainly enjoy this one too.

It's clunky, blockheaded, lurid beguilement, distributed by Deep Silver with lack of restraint and no ulterior motives. Check your brain at the door, lest it be devoured later.

Dead Island Riptide doesn't venture too far from its core strengths, and while that is definitely a boon from a story perspective, it's still panders to the typical rubbish zombie trope.

Riding boats, a new character, a couple of new skills and light tower defence mechanics is pushing that full retail tag, especially when you can pick up the original for less than half the price. [June 2013, p70]

Techland has changed almost nothing: Riptide has the same virtues and flaws of the first Dead Island.

This being the case, Dead Island: Riptide will please fans of the original and zombie enthusiasts in general, but first-person shooter connoisseurs won't exactly struggle to find fault with it and are best advised to find their gun-toting thrills elsewhere.

Content-wise this is more than worth it's full priced retail release however, but a lot of assets are reused – whether from the original or repeated themselves within the game – so you will revisit locations of uncanny similarity.

If you’ve got several friends who loved the first one and you don’t mind terribly repetitious missions, give it a try. There’s just very little improvement or advancement, many of the same issues from the first title still exist, the story is ridiculous and poorly written, the campaign is dull and drawn-out, and the combat is almost as tedious as the mission objectives.

At the end of the day, Dead Island: Riptide has a lot of good ideas, especially in its latter half. The combat, while repetitive and often frustrating with the annoying inventory management, still manages to provide exciting encounters. It just seems as if the developer didn't trust players enough to fully immerse them with the survival horror title suggested by the mechanics.

Dead Island: Riptide can't really justify its own existence. It has the potential of being a great zombie action game, but the slow pace, many technical problems and the meaningless missions make it a frustrating mess. These are the same problems the first game dealt with, and they haven't been resolved.

In buying a game like this we’re rewarding Techland for maintaining their own status quo and, worse, encouraging what might be a talented studio to just keep making the same mistakes.

If you liked Dead Island, then you are sure to love Riptide: it's the same! All the elements are back: the survivors of the first game (plus a new one), the tropical atmosphere, the gameplay (more melee-oriented)... but also this problem of redundancy that you'll feel very quickly after a few battles and missions. A good game for all the fans of the first one, but they will pay the full price of a new episode to play an add-on.