Dead Island Previews
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What surprised me most came after I'd finished playing a section of the game, in four-player co-op, when one of the developers mentioned to me that it's quite a different game when played on your own. It's the difference between an action-focused survive-em-up, scampering to your next goal while looking out for each other, smashing everything you encounter to undead bits, and caring about the world you're in. In co-op the game's story is largely in the background, a justification for the tasks you're completing. In single player, they say, the people matter, their lives matter, and your motivation is shared with theirs. It's perhaps playing alone and this is purely speculation that any glimmer of the horror of the original trailer could permeate through your experience.
Which is not to say anything bad about the co-op. Because what we played a section about six or seven hours into a 30 hour game was good fun. And surprisingly involved. I hadn't learned much about the game before I sat in front of it, so anything more than hitting zombies with planks was a pleasant surprise. Because here you can hit the zombies with really complicated planks.
Then we head to Guardian:
The idyllic island surroundings, messed up by the zombie infestation, were great to behold and very convincing and, perhaps more importantly than any other aspect, it felt fresh and original to play, rather than bearing any marked similarity to any of the myriad zombie games we have enjoyed in the past.
That is thanks to its adherence to the RPG system, which forces you to acquire skills (we had a look at the Skills upgrade tree, and it's clear that you can build your character up in whatever specific manner best suits); previous zombie games have more or less focused on ballistic weaponry.
Before making a stop at Gematsu...
We were given a quest to put up posters of a missing person all over town. Before our pursuit, we readied ourselves by purchasing weapons from a merchant, where we were shown the weapon customization system. Certain weapons allow the attachment of elemental perks. For example, a wooden bat can be turned into a wooden bat with a lit torch on the end. Whenever an enemy is hit with this weapon, they are damaged by the fire and are eventually set on fire, themselves. Weapons in Dead Island degenerate with each strike, meaning that they will break down, become less effective, and eventually become useless unless repaired. Finally, there's the upgrade system, which basically allows the player to upgrade their weapons for higher damage and sustainability.
From here we embarked on the aforementioned quest. To clear things up, the game is nothing like Left 4 Dead, with the exception of combating zombies. The enemies do not go down with one or two hits; they require five or six depending on the weapon that you're carrying. There aren't hordes of enemies coming at you; it's more of a literal interpretation of the apocalypse, as you'll never have more than a dozen enemies coming at you. This was evident throughout the dozens of encounters that we had on our way to put up the posters, before returning to the church.
...and GameWit:
Continuing along the beach to my objective unmolested proved a tough task, as the zombies were hunting in packs and relentlessly dogged in their pursuit. You can outrun them for a while, thanks to a sprint button, but it's pegged to a stamina bar that depletes, so eventually it turns into a tortoise-and-the-hare thing. Sprinting is really only advised once your objective is in sight. As a long term strategy, I'm not sure it's viable. I had little choice, though, as the only way I was going to make it to the lifeguard station in time was going to involve a generous amount of sprinting. Predictably, I eventually ran into zombies on a path in front of me, and had to stop to fight them. Meanwhile, the zombies who'd been bringing up the rear had a chance to catch up, and I was quickly overwhelmed, becoming a zombie hors d'oeuvre.
While (Dead Island) has four-player co-op play and a role-playing-game-style leveling system, those really weren't on display in my timed demo. Instead, I saw a lot of features that reminded me of other game's I like. (Dead Rising's) open-world setting and weapon deterioration, (Left 4 Dead's) crazed zombie horde and (Condemned's) visceral hand-to-hand fighting.
