Dead Island Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on September 20th, 2011

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Dead Island was a clever release. One of the first games of the fall it meant idiots like me went out a bought it when I should've bitten the bullet and bought Deus Ex 2 weeks prior. Gears is out now and I fear I may never find out what happens in the mega plot that is Dead Island, destined to sit on my shelf for the next six months.

Dead Island proves to be an incred­i­bly enter­tain­ing title full of gor­geous scenery and intense action. While it treats some zombie-outbreak tropes with a tongue-in-cheek men­tal­ity, like a lack of any rhyme or rea­son to why the dead have sud­denly begun to rean­i­mate for much of the game, it instead suc­cumbs to other equally com­mon com­plaints with the genre, like many sur­vivors want­ing to stay alone in their shel­ters instead of join­ing the larger group and some facepalm moments in mis­sion design. How­ever, it pro­vides a large open play­ground, and offers a world that I look for­ward to revis­it­ing again and again, much more than Bor­der­lands ever did (kick­ing a zom­bie to the bot­tom of a swim­ming pool and watch­ing it drown because it's too stu­pid to hold its breath under­wa­ter and too slow to get back up quickly never gets old!). Despite a rocky start on the PC with the wrong ver­sion being released, reports of some ques­tion­able devel­oper atti­tudes, and a mul­ti­player sys­tem that I've learned to avoid, the single-player cam­paign is well worth a visit to the island of Banoi.

However, the biggest sin simply comes from the game's tone. Where the aforementioned trailer promised a bleak, emotional tone, the game itself feels like your typical zombie game. True, there are hints at loss of life and humanity (early on you stumble across a man knee-deep in the blood of his family, as well as a knowing wink to the trailer's doomed clan), but the overall feel is woefully typical of the genre.

Which is the issue with Dead Island as a whole: it's not necessarily a bad game, and its addictive charms can certainly shine through (why else would I spend hours opening hundreds of pieces of luggage?), but it does literally nothing to set itself apart. It's woefully, unfortunately typical, and that's not enough to excite me anymore.

Until then, your enjoyment of Dead Island ultimately depends on your love of zombies. If you're a hardcore gamer, with no allegiance to the living dead, this may be fun for a bit, but you'll find yourself getting bored. If you love zombie films, you're going to see this as a zombie survival simulator and have countless hours of fun with your friends.

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