Dead Island



I have kept an eye on this game for a very long time, so I was highly relieved when it was finally released last week, with it, I know came a lot of exposure and hype, just like another big title coming out on Tuesday (20/09/2011). Unfortunately commercial reviews have been none to good as to what the game has to offer (Eurogamer = 3/10), however, I am here to say otherwise.



After many shops, I was finally able to find a copy of this game, which is a story in itself. Going into gamestation was highly entertaining finding out that they had got their hands on 4 copies that morning but had sold out with in 30 minutes. I then travelled to CEX (a copycat of Cash Converters) and found a special edition copy, stood up on the shelf. All. On. Its. Lonesome. My luck was in, because straight after, a couple walked in behind me, the young girl said to her partner:

 “Well Dead Island is gonna be in the D section so lets try there first”



Im going to be completely honest and say, I’ve never kept hold of a game that tight to the side of my body in my whole entire life, it paid dividends because I didn’t get robbed or shot for it.

Cinematic Trailer (one of the best trailers EVER!)

So, I got home and unwrapped the game and put it into the disk tray, at first you are introduced to a first person trailer in which they show that you are a drunken individual, when you clamber upon a stage with a rapper chanting:

“Voodoo your hoodoo, B****”

Believe me this is the most entertaining song I have come across in a game, you will find yourself bobbing along to it as it is very catchy (I’m singing it now as I write this) . Eventually you end up in your hotel room after seeing very and I mean very small glimpses of the virus already taking over that night, for instance you witness a woman dying on the floor In the toilet with what will be one of the main characters in the game and you also see a woman jump on a mans back and bite his neck, but obviously your character isn’t bothered because he/she are drunk.

From your hotel room, you are left to survive on your own with what ever is around, you can literally pick up anything that remotely looks like a weapon, for instance my first weapon was an oar from a kayak or canoe (your choice).

What Your Up Against!!

Now this is when some of the reviews started flooding my brain, I remember saying that the indoor graphics are awful, maybe I was playing a different game because the graphics I was seeing were pretty decent considering how large the map is with no loading times, better than Deus Ex in some parts, especially the lights when they flash on and off giving that horror effect.

So my first encounter with the undead was pretty much straight after getting out of a lift, all I saw was them feasting on some poor corpse on the floor, then unfortunately they heard my foot steps and all I here over my radio is, “RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN” (there is a guy watching you on the CCTV in an office helping you for the first five minutes).

What are the undead like? Well put it this way, if you don’t have a weapon with runners (Zombies that sprint) then say good bye, and I must admit they are a little scarier than the ones in “Left 4 Dead” partly because rather than having an LMG, I had a wooden stick which really isn’t going to do much, which in turn gives you a sense of urgency rather than the idea of just mowing everything down in your path. You have to survive. I would say that the zombies are much better than the ones in “Left 4 Dead” and are much scarier on this factor.

One of the ugly Horde!

So back to the graphics department, you walk outside and it literally is a paradise, the water is beautiful, the palm trees look wonderful and the hotel, well it looks like you have just walked out into Dubai. Quite simply it is a beautiful map, so where these reviewers got off with saying that the graphics aren’t good I do not know, maybe they had cataracts, or even a rubbish TV.

Eventually you find your way towards a small building until you are attacked by a female zombie in a bikini, yes there are zombies in bikinis, and there are a lot of them. You wake up with the people in the stronghold, patching you up and also ready to smash your face in with a baseball bat, luckily you are immune to infection. From here you have to missions, or just go around killing zombies on the island and survive against the hordes, it’s entirely up to you.

The free roaming aspect of the game Is my favourite part, I like the fact your not confined to a particular mission, you can just be free to kill zombies and explore the landscape, which is highly intractable, there are people that you can help save from cars or blocked door ways, down to finding someone’s teddy bear (that is one annoying mission, considering the girl is 25 or thereabouts). I have heard there are day-night cycles in the game but I have not witnessed this personally, however I am intrigued to find out. You can also have the option to drive round the island in a vehicle, but you have to find spart plugs for the car in which Hank the mechanic can fix.

Part of Paradise!

The way the missions are set out is extremely clever. After listening to the individual giving you the mission, your player holds up a bit of paper with the objectives, amount of XP you can earn and the difficulty of the mission (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard), you can say yes or no to these missions too, you can also see all of the missions available and completed by pressing the back/select button depending on which console.

In the back/select menu you can also see a full map of the island (darkened space = space you HAVEN’T explored, lightened space = space you HAVE explored), an inventory of all the things you can trade with online partners and particular NPC’s (Wayne and others), your weapons: how damaged they are, if they can be upgraded, what special attacks they can do etc. and finally abilities that you can upgrade by gaining XP from killing zombies in particular ways (i.e. Decapitation). The skills range from picking locks faster and breaking doors down to hitting things harder with more damage and accuracy, this is a large aspect of the game in which you need to use, because as you level up you fight against zombies of the same level and higher (i.e. You = Level 4, Zombie = Level 4) all of the info is located above the enemies head when attacking.



Barbed Wire 2 x4



Another great aspect about this game is that you can join another persons game at any time, so if another player is in the vicinity of your player or story mode then the game will let you know and you can opt to join there game (same way as they can opt to join you), I love this aspect as if you are finding a particular part of the game hard you can just find someone to help you out it’s a very interesting part of the game as it changes the dynamic completely, all of a sudden fighting zombies becomes fun as you find different ways to handle with them.

3 Favourite Moments (So Far):

1. Cutting someone’s head off with a meat cleaver and seeing there head flying off their neck and roll in the air with their body squirting blood.

2. Throwing a meat cleaver at a massive zombie it impaling him, then him looking at me and screaming and then him preceding to run at me while the cleaver is in his chest. Not Good!

3. Kicking a zombie to death or punching a zombie so hard you break its neck for the first time and the game tells you you’ve broken it.

As you can see from above, the game is full of fun moments and so far, I cant think of anything wrong with the game, even the soundtrack is spot on, I can completely understand as too why it is sold out everywhere, and I tell you now, find a copy as soon as you can because they is a lot of fun to be had. It’s finally good to see that word of mouth has completely crushed all the critic’s views, because for not the first time in history, they are completely wrong about this game. GET YOUR COPY NOOOW!

Graphics:  8/10

Storyline: 9/10

Sounds: 9/10

Replayability: 9/10

Overall: 9/10

Next game reviews: Gears of War 3 or FIFA 12