Dead Island Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on September 5th, 2011

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Dead Island is a solid first-person action RPG with a lot to offer, especially to fans of the undead. Addicting combat, solid RPG elements, and wonderful atmospheric environments easily outweigh the blemishes brought on by graphical glitches and the less-than-original story and characters. Regardless of the current number of zombie games in your collection, this is one experience you should find the time to enjoy amongst the abundant amount of great titles coming out as the year draws to a close.

Few co-op games have a single player experience that can match the team play, but this is close. Fighting back the hordes with strategy and Rage is nearly as fun as buddying up and gang-kicking every zombie like a pack of mad soccer players. Just the fun of killing zombies in a beautifully rendered world would have made this game good, but Dead Island goes beyond that. It adds skill trees, a strong story and more quests to complete than there are palm trees on Banoi. Dead Island has something for everyone. If you just like free-roaming and murdering to your heart's desire, you can. If you just want to collect everything this pretty world has to offer, you can. If a massive full-bodied story-packed action-laden co-op experience is what you seek, Dead Island has got it, and then some.

Yes, there were faults that I discovered throughout my experience with the game. However, every game has faults, and I viewed this through the lens of a gamer. Did I enjoy this game? Absolutely. Did it scare the crap out of me at times? 100%. Was there a real feeling of survival horror (as opposed to just jumping-scares) that has been sadly lacking from other contemporary zombie games? You bet. So looking at the total package that was brought to the table here, this game is too fun to play and too unique an experience to be really nit-picky on the things that didn't go exactly as I'd rather them go. As I write these final thoughts, there is only one review out there on the web, and if the rest of the press agrees with that reviewer's thoughts, my review will likely be one of the higher-scoring ones out there. That's fine though; I truly stand behind this score. Hopefully you will pick this game up and experience one of the most engaging experiences I've had with my 360 in quite some time. This is a game that needs to be in a gamer's collection, so try to make it happen if you can, guys.

Is Dead Island good? Yes it is ... but it isn't at the same time. 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.

In summary, Dead Island isn't as good as the first trailer the story is pretty damn bad and hard to get attached to in any way due to seemingly random events occurring, but the gameplay itself is fantastically presented, pretty much constant fun that will have you smashing zombies' heads in for many an hour. Dead Island isn't a bad game by any stretch of the word; I just feel that perhaps it could have been so much better with a more interesting narrative tale rather than the shallow and under-developer storyline and characters we become saddled with as it progresses.

Dead Island is a title that includes a huge amount of satisfying zombie hunting in a unique location that offers plenty of variety. While it could use a little polish at times, most of the blemishes are more annoying than real show stoppers. With plenty of quests to partake, a huge island to get lost in, and a main campaign that will last you about 15-20 hours to complete, your money will be well invested. Even after you're done playing the game all the way through, you can always go back as a different character or hop into a game with a few friends. This is one zombie experience worth playing all the way through. Just be sure to sharpen those blades and aim for the head.

Techland is a studio with more ambition than money. It can be felt in the few unsuccessful attempts at creating a strong narrative. It can also be felt in some of the more emotional cutscenes, or the early steps of social tensions that could have made the game close to the Walking Dead (a comic book you should definitely check out if you haven't) had they been exploited properly. That being said, even with the abandonment of its role playing dimension, Dead Island manages to brilliantly become a first person hack & slash. Exploration, combat, looting, skills/weapons upgrades, everything in the game is well done and makes it fun to play. Because Dead Island also succeeds in keeping the player in the midst of danger (the game's difficulty is designed to make sure of that), the sense of survival is permanent, which should please the fans of the genre. Definitely a vintage wine.

Dead Island surprised us by being a tightly crafted experience, full of interesting locales and intriguing missions. It can lose its way at times, but you will find yourself coming back for one more go time and time again, as crippling zombies and saving bikini clad females never gets dull. Losing yourself on Banoi will feel like the vacation from hell, but you'll love it.

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