Dead Island Previews
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GamingTarget calls it "Left 4 Dead meets Fallout 3":
Some people hate first-person melee. Who can blame them? It hasn't always been done well, but Dead Island has it figured out. The bat swinging and machete wielding was visceral and challenging, without any D&D style point-blank misses. It's well-executed with plenty of gruesome animation, and a stamina bar means there's no room for spamming. You'll have to time your swings, even with faster weapons like knives. In addition, weapons degrade with use. Like a true survivor of the apocalypse, you'll need to consider your equipment before taking on that next pack of slavering ghouls. Maybe you should run home and gear up first. There's also an effective system of quick steps for dodging, and the kick. Kicking is essential, the developers called it "the proactive block." It pushes zombies out of biting range and into convenient skull crushing range.
Digital Trends:
When you kill a zombie, you often get cash and other items. These are used to buy better weapons and repair the items you already have. I'm not a big fan of this, but every time you use an item, it breaks a little, eventually becoming useless without repair. It's bad enough that its sometimes difficult to beat a zombie to death with a tire iron, but when it breaks, you sometimes don't realize it, as the weapon doesn't crumble in your hands, it just fails to do any discernible damage to your foes.
Still, the game does have a decent enough leveling system. Every kill will give you experience points. Levels equate to better killing power, more inventory, and the ability to combine weapons together to form crazy new contraptions, like a baseball bat covered in spikes or maybe a wrench that explodes when you throw it. The folks at Deep Silver have come up with some very creative items, and I had fun experimenting.
Experimenting is also necessary, as there are several distinct types of zombies to fight. There are running zombies, fire zombies, toxic zombies, and even huge Bane-like zombies that are too tall and strong for their own good.
Platform Nation has a brief piece:
My extremely brief time with the game was quite a let-down in comparison to the attention the story and promotional videos was receiving. It felt like a slightly more realistic take on Left 4 Dead. Again, my time with it was super brief. The game allowed for a 5 minute play-through, and I began mine near the end of someone else's slot. In my time with the game I was surrounded by a group of 3-4 zombies slowly cornering me as I tried to take them out melee style with a wrench (I think). I swung until my eventual death. To be honest, I don't feel good passing any judgement on how the game will turn out based on my short time with it, but I can confidently say the feel of Dead Island did strike me too similarly to the way Left 4 Dead did the first time I played it. But I do have faith that there's more to it than what I saw, and that the main story could hopefully be compelling enough to give it a fresh edge.
The Sixth Axis:
There was a nice variety of enemies always in our way. Some zombies were on fire, some were covered in poison mist, while others served as mini-bosses. One in particular, appropriately named The Ram, was wearing a straight jacket and would charge at us with full force. He has quite a bit of health, but he's relatively easy to deal with. You just need to side step at the right moment to avoid getting hit. Even the common zombies were no joke. Unlike Resident Evil 5, they don't just stand there waiting for you to attack them. They will run and you and eat your face at every chance they get. You're not always alone either. Sometimes you'll see random survivors out in the streets fighting for their lives.
As all of this is going on, you need to keep track of your various meters. In addition to your health bar, you have to pay attention to your stamina. If you swing your weapon too frequently, your stamina will decrease and your attacks will become less effective. There's also a meter attached to the weapons themselves. If it depletes, the weapon becomes less effective. You either need to repair it or toss it away. I opted to throw many of my knives at unsuspecting zombies. What's neat is that you can actually recover them from their dead bodies.
