Dead Island: Riptide Reviews

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Written by Eric Schwarz on May 7th, 2013

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It's a practical, perfunctory slog of a game, but at least there's plenty of it, and it is capable of entertaining in fits and starts. But you know what, that's just, like, our opinion, man. There were plenty of people out there who were able and willing to overcome the first game's flaws, such is the brilliance of the core concept. And we can't ignore that.

If you're reading this and are mentally repelling our criticisms with a barbed wire baseball bat, then you may find that enough of Techland's vision shines through to keep you entertained. It is, to use the heinous cliche ever devised, a real Marmite game.

But to everyone else, our advice on Dead Island: Riptide is very clear. Despite its beautiful skies and deep blue lagoons and bewitching skill trees, you can't overlook the fact that Palanai stinks.

I seriously love Dead Island Riptide for its satisfying zombie dismemberment and co-op, but technically, it's done nothing to build itself into a great game. Rather than fix the graphics and the performance problems that plagued the original two years ago, Techland slightly modified the setting and delivered a new character and more content. It's a fun time, but there are no surprises or killer new features to make it an impressive package.

Making every kick, counter and cut is crucial in Riptide, especially against the (disappointingly meagre) brainless cast of fresh recruits. Drowners and Grenadiers are really the only notable newbies. The first type appear to have been dredged up from Davie Jones' watery cabinet, as their barnacle-covered hides lurk up and ambush you in the more drenched areas of the world map. Grenadiers are even more unpleasant. Covered in bulging tumours, the hazmat-wearing former scientists will happily fling their explosive growths in your direction. Naturally, both are bloody irritating to fight and add little to the overall variety of battles.

Dead Island: Riptide overall is a good game that has a unique experience to offer as opposed to other first-person shooters. However, the technical bugs, choppy frame-rate and sound clipping issues can hurt the experience, and that makes the game, not as enjoyable as it should be. The co-op mode in the Dead Island franchise is the real meat of the game, and this is where the players will have the most fun for their buck.

Although, starting a co-op game can be a bit of a pain due to bugs. Hopefully Techland releases a patch sometime soon and fix these issues. In a nutshell, if you enjoyed the original Dead Island and want more of it, then Dead Island: Riptide will give you just that.

The biggest issue with Dead Island Riptide is that it's a glorified expansion pack sold at nearly full price ($40 US on PC, $50 on consoles); there's nothing wrong with a developer doing this if they're adding lots of features and are building on top of a near-universally beloved game, but the simple fact is that neither of those conditions really apply here. It's still fun to slice zombies up and on PC the game looks decent, runs online with four-player coop just fine, and is at least somewhat unique, but these tepid words I'm using should give you the impression that Dead Island Riptide just doesn't add enough on top of the original to really excel. It works and it's generally fun, but don't expect a revolution.

The first Dead Island had quite a fan following and those fans will be happy to learn that their characters can be imported seamlessly into Riptide. This will make the early parts of the game easier, since imported characters can take advantage of their unlocked skills. It's a nice incentive to lure in veterans looking for an early boost, but won't help newcomers at all.

I went into Dead Island Riptide hoping to see some marked improvement from the original. Instead, I feel like I got more of the same game, for better or worse. Beyond its iffy design choices, Riptide still feels like a buggy mess, whether it's because of zombies getting stuck in pieces of the environment, clunky animations, framerate drops, or the game's sound outright dying on me -- twice! Riptide is a zombie nightmare, but not the one I was hoping to see.

Riptide's flaws are many, but they couldn't hold me back from having a blast. Few games nail the visceral feel of melee combat and co-op fun like Dead Island. At its worst, an annoying hiccup breaks the immersion of the grizzly trek through a zombie-infested paradise. At its best, Riptide hits the same high notes as the original.

In Short: It's clearly been made in a hurry and with no more care than the deeply flawed original, which means only the truly zombie-obsessed should apply.

Pros: The premise still has obvious appeal and the dynamic weather and improved melee combat is a step forward. Online co-op is fun with friends, especially with the new mission type.

Cons: The controls, gunplay, script, and voice-acting still feel like a no-budget fan mod. Role-playing elements remain simplistic. Very expensive for such a minor expansion.

The first Dead Island was long on good ideas but short on skillful execution, and while there's still a truly great game lurking in there somewhere, Riptide is not it. It's a shame Techland didn't take this opportunity to take a step back and figure out how to properly evolve this formula before iterating on the franchise again. Maybe that truly improved Dead Island will still come along someday, but in the meantime, Riptide feels like a game that didn't really need to be made.

If you visit Palanoi with a friend or two, you'll find "Riptide" to be about the same sunny zombie romp as its 2011 predecessor, if maybe a little more buggy and unrefined. But I suppose things never go smoothly when the dead rise.

(Dead Island: Riptide) manages to blend open-world, action role-playing game elements with a gripping first-person survival-horror experience. It's a must-have for anyone looking to blow off steam with the 21st century equivalent of a drive-in horror movie: a zombie-massacring, adrenaline-pumping game you can and should play with friends.

Even ignoring all those failings something at which Dead Island fans will have had plenty of practice Riptide's biggest flaw is that it never justifies its existence in terms of plot or new ideas. It's not simply yesterday's game, but a time capsule from 2011, a time when zombies weren't as overplayed and games such as Far Cry 3 and Borderlands 2 weren't around to cast their long shadows over the action. As with its predecessor, Riptide does offer fun with friends, though it's the kind for which the mechanics can only take partial credit. Alone, it's pure monotony, and as either sequel or mere continuation it represents a thoroughly wasted chance to push Dead Island forward.

No matter how you look it at, Dead Island Riptide is one of the best co-op zombie survival horror games ever made. There's just no other game out there like it and most can't provide the amount of fun you'll have while playing this game. In some ways, I feel like this should have been the original Dead Island. On the other hand, Techland has done a much better job of polishing their game and creating one of the best zombie experiences in recent years. It's very clear Techland listened to their fans and improved on what was needed most. If this is anything to go by for Dead Island 2, they're certainly on the right path. Let's just hope we get some more expansive DLC this time around, or at least the option to have horde attacks happen at random. Do yourself a favor, go pick up Dead Island Riptide. You're only hurting yourself if you don't. Not to mention it retails $10 cheaper and provides twice the amount of fun as the original on a much more polished grounds.

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