Dead Island

Dead Island is a really big game and gamers who enjoy open world titles with a ton of missions should really have fun here.

A mix of highs and lows that shows flashes of brilliance but needs more variety, more polish and a genuinely open game world. [Issue#76, p.82]

Even with bugs and many things that should have been polished, Techland's latest effort is quite fun and not just another typical zombie game.

Think of Dead Island as a B-game and you'll be fine. It seems like a bit of an insult to reel off the old cliché of "if you can ignore the bad stuff and only look at the good," but for Dead Island that line actually rings true.

Dead Island is filled with good concepts and potential, but it can't stick the landing. As it stands today, sadly,

If you don't step off the boat expecting a taut horror experience, a masterful gun game, or compelling characters, you'll have a bloody good time.

The game's foundation is utterly unique, hypnotically compelling, and seriously scary in weird ways horror games don't normally pull off, and if it had been more polished I would have given it a higher score. It really is an unfinished game, though, and its problems are not minor annoyances. I really, really enjoyed playing the game for most of its humongous play time, but it also brought spectacular bouts of frustration.

As with Dead Rising before it, the complaints cannot come close to outweighing the sheer anarchic fun to be had, the instant gratification Dead Island offers, or the amount that Techland has managed to achieve here despite punching well above its weight.

There's a lot to do on this zombie-infested island from hell. With some more varied missions and better melee combat, the final score would have been shimmering.

There's loads wrong with Dead Island. It's as riddled with holes as the festering flesh of its primary antagonists. Every element of the game you can conceive of is infected with issues that would ordinarily be terminal. By all rights it should fall flat like a faceplanting undead shuffler. But just like those persistent, putrefied corpses, Dead Island keeps trundling on, somehow remaining shambolically entertaining throughout.

It's inspired, but turgid. Brilliant, but flawed. Fun, but infuriating. Like the living dead itself, Dead Island is a contradiction from beginning to end. However, I feel you need to play it, because despite copying so much from infinitely smoother games, there's nothing quite like it on the market. That, itself, is yet another contradiction in the confused, conflicted, often completely beautiful mess that is Dead Island.

Its multi-player options will appeal to the hardcore co-op zombie crowd and its disaggregated gameplay elements set it apart from its peers. If you're addicted to zombie titles, and you want something with a little more depth, then it might be worth a rental. But unfortunately it just doesn't live up to its own hype.

It's the kind of game where it becomes good if you don't stop and think about its lack of polish at every turn. But really, it's an enjoyable romp through zombie land, as long as you have friends to back you up.

Narratively, Dead Island is unambitious. There's no attempt at satire, commentary, or quirk. The plot, mostly communicated through quest-givers, is straight-faced as a straight-to-cable horror flick, but like the rest of the game, it's serviceable.

An open-world zombie game has far more potential than what Techland is putting on display. There's certainly a lot of fun to be had on Dead Island, but don't be surprised if tedium sets in once you've murdered a zombie in every way imaginable (estimated time: 20 hours).

There are plenty of flaws, such as the iffy aiming, average graphics and poor story, but Dead Island still claws back ground with the variety of weapons, the scope and the pleasant progression path. Zombie aficionados won't be wowed, but they could also do a lot worse.

Dead Island's teaser trailer made it look as if the game was going to be one to actually bring the emotional conflict to the forefront, something they almost achieve in once instance out of many. Instead, the game's released as but another vehicle for insipid violence.

Do you love zombies? Then you can live out your fantasy on this tropical island, bashing their faces in and cutting their bodies with baseball bats, knives and guns. But that's all there is to do in Dead Island. The different genres that are combined here don't gel together so well and the game has no story whatsoever. Dead Island doesn't deliver on its premise, but hey, it does have thousands of zombies, and that makes it somewhat fun.

Unfortunately their goal of creating an epic, apocalyptic first-person zombie survival gameends up cracking under the weight of their own ambition. A smaller scale and some more time in development and Dead Island could have been the zombie game we've always wanted.

Missions generally consist of bludgeoning your way from A to B; sometimes you'll have to retrieve an item, sometimes you'll have to flick a switch. Take away the specifics though and it boils down to walking across an island of hungry corpses and back again nine times out of ten.

Ambitious zombie outbreak that should have been in development a couple of more months.

Dead Island is a mixed bag. Everything it does right is done incredibly well, but the things it does wrong tend to negate the positives.

Even as an open-world RPG, Dead Island had a great deal more to offer on the drawing board than it delivered in the final game. The game masquerades as a unique marriage of several genres and gameplay types. Rather, it's a box of dusty old spare parts tacked together into an experience unsatisfying on every level.

It's all a bit laboured, a bit tedious, and it's the kind of co-op game that's more fun based on who you're playing with, than on what you're playing. It sits in this awkward middle ground between Borderlands and Left 4 Dead, never remotely matching either but never quite crossing into the territory where you should be avoiding it.

Basic crafting, unlockable abilities, exploration, and shootouts with looters all provide some structural complexities. But unfortunately, still hidden underneath that crust is an astonishingly boring apocalypse.

The game lacks the sophistication of other zombie games such as Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil, and has enough design gaffes to sink a battleship. But as long as you have a bit of patience and don't expect a true survival horror experience, you will have oodles of guilt-free fun mashing away at zombies on this twisted beach paradise.

An injection of human drama could have brought the game's reality into line with our expectations, which were so cruelly raised by that teaser trailer mere months ago.

Indeed less memorable than the CG trailer that skyrocketed the buzz around its name, Dead Island still differentiates itself from the rest of the action/horror games thanks to a singular atmosphere. It's a shame its story is forgettable, its close range combat is sometimes confusing and its production values lag behind today's average, because the Banoi Island does have its charms. The survival feeling is there, and the bright sun rays won't dissipate the fear lurking around. Its RPG side with skills and weapons upgrades, online cooperative gameplay and clear identity make Dead Island a nice summer steam-venting action title.

Probably the most realistic recreation of the inevitable and oncoming zombie apocalypse in video game history. It's typified by desperation, sacrifice, frustration, terror and the overbearing sense of hopelessness. But there's a catch. Though the zombie apocalypse may occasionally be grimly satisfying or fleetingly triumphant when you survive another night, there's one thing it almost certainly won't be...Fun.

Much like gnawing on human flesh, Dead Island's clumsy horror-action role-player is the definition of an acquired taste.

A wasted opportunity - frustrating to play and too ugly to love. [Dec 2011, p.98]

In short bursts or with a group of friends, there's certainly a lot of fun to be had, but it's the sort of mindless, arcade-style fun you'd find in Zombies Ate My Neighbours. Players looking for a complete package had best look elsewhere.

Playing Dead Island is similar to going on holiday – it's nice to try something a bit exotic and different, but after a while you begin to yearn for home.

It's not good enough, frankly. The fun zombie-bashing can't sustain itself, and the plot, characters and setting aren't good or memorable enough to justify wading through the 20 odd hours it'll take to finish.