Dead Island Review: Terrifying, or Terrible?

I can hear them behind me, their screams echoing through the abandoned, trash covered streets; closing fast. Thunder booms above, as the sky opens up and rain from the coming monsoon soaks the streets, the wind whipping up discarded newspapers. I round the corner of a dilapidated stucco building, its doorways and windows boarded up, to see a pack of the Infected feasting on...something. One of them sees me and screams, sprinting past a wrecked car at me. The others are not so fast, but they follow.

I quickly turn down a dark alleyway, hoping the turned over garbage cans and tight corridors will slow my pursuers. I glance back breifly, and see that there are at least 7 of those monsters behind me, and they are gaining! I turn back, and flick my flashlight on to see my hopeful path of escape. My heart sinks as I see a massive wall with barbed wire blocking my way. It is designed to quarantine the street beyond, but the only purpose it serves now is to trap me in with these bloody things. I turn, and quickly toss a molotov. It ignites a few of them, who continue running at me a bit before crumpling. The rest of the horde carries on, trampling the charred corpses in front of them in their eagerness to reach me. I count 8, with a huge Thug behind them. Back to the wall, I pull out a sturdy baseball bat, which I modified early with some heavy nails to create a wicked mace,  and steel myself. This is going to get a little messy.

This is a typical scenario when playing Dead Island,  developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver. The game is a first person action-RPG set in an open-world, zombie infested tropical paradise. Gameplay heavily leans toward melee combat, although some ranged weapons do show up later. There are loot elements (with random weapons, modifiers, crafting recipies and components to find, etc), and a level up system, with emphasis on exploration and visceral combat. Stealth really isn't an option in this game, although many zombies you can simply outrun (but why would you want to? Killing them is fun, grants loot and XP!). There is a main storyline that focuses around 4 survivors trying to find a way off the island, and helping the various inhabitants who are besieged by the undead; although side-quests abound that offer good rewards in the form of Cash, XP, Loot, and weapon schematics.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous, with weather effects, amazing shadows and lighting, and fluid motion. I didn't notice many graphical issues, except for a few minor clipping issues when an NPC would come up against a wall or barricade. You won't find a lot of life in the environments however. While the vegetation looks really nice and lush, there isn't anything to be found as far as animals, birds, or insects. Facial animations on NPCs are a little wooden as well. If you have the computer to be able to crank up the settings, you will find many breathtaking views and environments here.

The sound is good, but not great. Combat noises and the screams and grunts of the undead are done well, and the music is appropriately atmospheric. However, it does get fairly repetitive, and the voice acting is mediocre, and at times, very cheesy. Overall it does a servicable job, and fits the tone of the game.

Gamplay is fun, and combat is fluid. There are new moves, and supermoves you can unlock as you level, which keeps things fresh. There are a TON of weapons to use, and more you can craft yourself, provided you have the right diagram and components. One thing that irked me was constantly having to repair weapons, even after only a few fights my weapons would be broken and useless. I got used to it, and it becomes less of an issue with proper skill point investment and finding better/rarer weapons with more durability, but initially expect to be tossing away a lot of broken crap.

The AI of the enemies is good. Zombies shamble slowly, and trip up on small obstacles, while faster enemies can pathfind much better, as well as climb and leap. The enemie variety is good, however at times combat can be repetitive. Most enemy types have weaknesses, and once you learn the combat strategies, and have better weapons and skills, the game can become a bit easy at times.

Multiplayer is fine, with a drop in and drop out feature that makes it easy to find players at the same stage of the game as you. There are some issues with the auto save checkpoint system, but overall the fun increases as you add players in.

After sinking about 50 hours into my first playthrough, I have to say that this one is a winner. It is like a combination of Dead Rising, Fallout, and Borderlands. I would recommend picking this one up. Final scores below:

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Multiplayer: 8/10
Overall: 8/10.