Dead Island Review

[INTRODUCTION]

As you all know, well if you didn't Dead Island is an upcoming Zombie Killing FPS/RPG (First-Person-Shooter/Role-Playing-Game), similar to all the other Zombie series such as Left 4 Dead series and the Dead Rising series. Dead Island has elements of both FPS and RPG and also some elements and features from Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead, weapon creation, zombie classes etc etc. This review will help players understand a bit more about Dead Island before purchasing, especially the zombie fans. If your interested in Dead Island then read on because this game carries many positive features.

[GENERAL INFORMATION]

Title: Dead Island 

Genre: RPG,ACTION,FPS

Developer: Techland

Publisher: Deep Silver

Release Date: 9th September 2011

Rating: R18

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum:                                                                                                

OS: Windows XP
Processor: Core2Duo 2.66 GHz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: ATI 2600XT 512MB VRAM (GeForce 8600GT)
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0C
Hard Drive: 2.0 GB available hard drive space
Other: keyboard, mouse

Recommended

OS: Windows 7
Processor: Core2Duo 2.66 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 9600 (1GB)
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0C
Hard Drive: 2.0 GB available hard drive space
Other: keyboard, mouse

[STORY] 7/10 

The story is rather interesting but to not spoil anything i'll just give you a summary.

There seems to be a story for each of the 4 characters.

Xian Mei

Sam B

Logan

Purna

Your on a holiday on a tropical island and you wake up after a long night of partying, only to find yourself fighting of infected humans and exposing your flesh to the undead. It was all fine the day before, but as you venture through the game you'll realize the whole island has been turned into a cannibalistic hell hole.

Unique story, but we yet need to find out what made them turn into flesh craving monsters.

[GRAPHICS] 7/10

Graphics in Dead Island are far most the best graphics yet compared to other zombie games. Tree textures and water effects are well made and the overall view of the island is just stunning.

The lighting and model details are reasonably well made, some of us expected less. The game has good looks and yet not to demanding on modern computers, if you have gaming computer, this will run smoothly. Although some textures could load slow if you have a weak graphics card. But that is not to worry. 

The game runs on Chrome Engine 5, and so far its not looking to bad.

An overall on graphics compared to other zombie series, I'd give this a good overall score.

[GAMEPLAY] 8/10

Compared to other zombie game franchises, Dead Island has a different vibe to its gameplay. Since Dead Island is mixed with both FPS and RPG elements, it gives the more freedom, such as customizing weapons, upgrading weapons, repairing weapons, etc etc. From my research in gameplay clips, it seems that Dead Island has a wide variety of different types of weapons, ranging from melee to range. Rifles, Pistols, Katanas and others. Weapons inside Dead Island also has a rarity level that shows the player how unique or hard to get that specific weapon is. But I won't tell you to much about that, you can find out by yourself :> You can upgrade your weapons into the most ridiculous tools, like deodorant bombs and static chainsaws and machetes, similar to Dead Rising, but I'd say a much more variety.

As far as weapons go, there is also vehicles that can be used to smash through hords of zombies or getting to your objective in a more suitable manner. I'm not sure if you can find vehicles easily but I'm just glad they are involved. 

It's more complex when coming into ranged weapons, unlike Left 4 Dead, you can't just find ammo anywhere, and continue to refill unlimited ammo, in Dead Island ammo is scarce so use it wisely.

The tremendous amount of blood and gore shown attracts immediate satisfaction from zombie fans as the blood and gore is everywhere, bloody swimming pools, dead and eaten up corpses, you name it. You can choose to severe individual limbs of a zombie and have fun teasing it as you slowly dismember it. But hey, its a zombie game. Gore is an important factor. 

As you may ask yourself, What really sets this different from all the other zombie games? One point caught me. IT'S AN OPEN WORLD FPS/RPG Zombie Killing Game. Roam wherever you want around the Island, searching through lost luggage, finding secret weapons, entering secret areas with secret weapons and other entertaining things. You can choose to do either Main Mission Objectives which move the story, or Sub Objectives which earn you items and benefits.

Each of the 4 characters will have different attributes and specialties. Like skills as such, they will have a skill tree that allows players to acquire even more skills. Skills can be used to your advantage when hunting down zombies or completing objectives and is something you wouldn't want to ignore. 

The Dead Island world is huge, and there is many other little details that make the game even better for you to discover. 

Dead Island Trailer

Dead Island 20Minutes Gameplay (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

[MULTI-PLAYER] 7/10

Now, we have come to the multiplayer, which is a bit of a problem but that depends on how you look at it. It seems that you cannot play with players that are to far away from you as in PING or LATENCY wise but only players close to you. You can be invited into a game with request through steam etc etc. There are also levels that your character can reach. 

The game is mainly CO-OP and not a game where you can have about 64+ players on at the same time, as there is no dedicated servers. The game will use a PEER to PEER connection and the person with the best connection will host. But the good thing is that even if someone leaves, for example the host, you can still continue in playing your game. It is a little disappointing that there are no dedicated servers :< but maybe in the future. Game would be great with 32 or 64+ players at once.

Here is a quote to make more sense of things 

"The entire campaign is playable in co-op mode, and you can drop in and drop out with different friends at different times, or play consistently with the same people to level up together. If you choose to play with someone who’s a higher level than you, the game will warn that there are spoilers ahead. At that point, you can choose to proceed or not at your own mental risk. If you hate people and want to play alone (or maybe you only sort of like people so you have a team of two), you will not be accompanied by AI teammates; instead, the enemies will scale depending on the number of players in your party."

Your characters experience will not change to much online, even though its said that its only CO-OP and you play through the campaign or special objectives. You can still upgrade your weapons and such, you can even trade weapons and items as there will be a in-game trading system.  

[POSITIVES]

* Unique Graphics and Setting.

* Wide Variety of Weapon Customization and Upgrading.

* Wide Variety of Weapons.

* Balanced Multi-player.

* Detailed Environment.

* Open World.

* Vehicles.

* Exciting and Satisfying Experience.

[NEGATIVES]

* Slow Texture Loading.

* Quest Repetition.

* Cheesy Voices.

* Unbalanced Difficulty (NOT OFFICIAL)

* Weapons Must Be Repaired.

* Unrecognized Series. 

 [RATING]

Story | 7/10  [★★★★★★★☆☆☆]

Graphics | 7/10 [★★★★★★★☆☆☆]

Gameplay | 8/10 [★★★★★★★★☆☆]

Multi-player | 7/10 [★★★★★★★☆☆☆]

Overall | 8/10 [★★★★★★★★☆☆]

[CONCLUSION]

Well, this is about it. If your a zombie fan and was interested with the above review or other reviews, then I'd recommend you buy this game as it is worth a go. Definitely kills time and bordem and will definitely entertain gamers.