As if there aren't enough zombie horror games on the market, Dead Island offers the experience of living through a zomie-pocalypse with full attention to how you'd survive, how you'd scavenge for supplies, how you'd find (sometimes inventive) ways to fight them, and eventually how to escape. One key novelty to this game will be it setting; sure, you've seen zombies take over shopping malls and cities and everything, but why not a lavish island resort?
Dead Island is basically an RPG first and foremost, much like Fallout 3 or the recent Elder Scrolls games, but not quite as in-depth. You get the option to pick one of four possible characters, and build up their skills as you go. It's pretty impressive how the game makes the experience harrowing and unnerving at first, but as you level up and face new enemies, you eventually become an efficient, hard-edged zombie-killing machine. It's especially rewarding to comb through the game's expansive maps, finding great loot and finding cool things that you can eventually piece together into lethal improvisational weapons (not quite as inventive as Dead Rising 2, where you can invent crazy things like a rowboat oar with chainsaws on either end, but in Dead Island I was always pleased to watch zombies get zapped by my awesome electric katana!). Overall, the game offers loads of pleasing, easy-going exploration and questing, but also has enough peril everywhere to keep you on your toes. Enemies level up with you, so you're never short on finding zombies that will earn you experience and quality loot. Above all, the control scheme is very fluid, intuitive, and easy. The combination of all these aspects make the game extremely addicting.
The story for this is pretty much hobbled together to get you from the resort to the city to the jungle to the laboratory and then to the prison, all in that order. It touches upon more of the same of what you'd see in any zombie story: survivors band together, struggle against insurmountable odds to find supplies and escape, blah blah blah. This game is filled up with heroes who aren't particularly likable, but they all offer their own brand of personality, and therefore their own brand of fighting styles and strengths. There are moments in the game where they tried to pull at some heartstrings, but it's never really all that convincing.
As for the game itself, it's not without problems. You can expect occasional glitches with the graphics; they tend to be rendered slowly when you fast-travel, you can expect to see rocks and trees disappearing or floating sometimes, and you do run across the occasional levitating object. There are plenty of areas you can walk across where you really aren't supposed to. Sound may cut in and out, depending on the situation (it's usually the case where a zombie's cry gets cut off after you killed it, or after running out of earshot). There are even one or two glitches affecting trophies. Heck, I even did have a freeze-up or two. Oh yeah... the final boss is a joke too.
But you know what, the game still works well enough (and it definitely doesn't freeze up as often as Fallout: New Vegas or anything). The graphics are generally pleasing, when they are rendered in full. Sound quality is phenomenal, and succeeds very well at creating an unnerving atmosphere. Level and map designs are great, and features loads of great-looking settings, props, costumes, weapons, and everything else. Voice-acting is pretty cheap and cheesy. Music for this game is decent.
If you're like me and you just craved a great open-world zombie-pocalypse sim, then this game should be right up your alley. Recommended!
4/5 (Entertainment: Perfect | Story: Pretty Good | Game: Pretty Good)
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