Best Of

Finished Dead Island a few days ago. I bought this game at launch(September 2011), and put some time into it then, but only came back to it recently.

Dead Island is of like an open-world L4D. Even though it feels kind of similar, it does enough different to make it its own game.

The story isn't exactly deep or compelling, but I guess you don't really need that for this type of game. The game takes place on an island(go figure) where a zombie outbreak occurs. You play as one of four protagonists, trying to make your way across the island to an offshore prison where someone can help. On the way, you'll help other survivors by doing various quests, or by fighting off hordes that have them trapped. For quests, there are three types: storyline, sidequest, and continuous. Storyline is obvious, sidequests give you weapons, weapon mods, or cash, continuous quests give you cash, or an item. Continuous quests are fetch quests("Bring me 5 batteries"), and really aren't all that rewarding.

Every time you gain a level, you get one point to upgrade your character. I upgraded lockpicking as soon as I could because the best weapons are in locked metal chests, and lockpicking is the only way to open them.

The combat in the game is pretty decent. Each character has a different weapon specialty(blunt, sharp, firearms, projectiles), so you're probably going to play differently based on your character choice. I went with sharp weapons so I'd be able to cut off limbs.

Weapons have to be repaired with use, otherwise they become useless. You use workbenches to repair weapons as well as upgrading and modding them. Modding weapons requires you to first get the mod blueprint. After that, you need certain items, and (I think) some cash. Having an electrified knife, or flaming bat is neat, and has a chance of inflicting status effects on enemies.
With every kill you build your rage meter. When it's full, you get a short special attack. I found it pretty useless, so I didn't put many skill points into it. Enemies have levels, and they increase as the player's level increases. I was surprised when I went back to the starting area and found level 1 enemies were now level 30, and special enemies started showing up.

When you die, you respawn in the area a few seconds later, but lose some money. It's usually not too hard to avoid death, since health items are scattered around like crazy.

The enemies in the game are standard zombies(walkers), fast zombies(infected), humans(bandits, police), and a few special enemies. The special enemies aren't too difficult, but add some nice variety. The one that shows up the most is probably the Thug. It's slow, but will do a lot of damage and knock you down if you're too close while it's attacking. The most annoying is the Suicider. It explodes if you get too close. They're slow, but they're placed in such a way that you have a good chance of running right into them.

I can't really complain about the sound. Music seemed fine, and character voices weren't bad. It does the Elder Scrolls thing though, where getting near a character triggers dialogue. It gets kind of annoying when NPCs keep asking if you've finished the quest they gave you, or ask for an item after you just gave them 10.

The multiplayer works pretty well, but the group I played with kept skipping dialogue and cutscenes, so I went back to soloing the game. The game never felt difficult enough that I needed help, but multiplayer might increase difficulty.

I ran into quite a few bugs in this game, like having my equipped weapon switch to alcohol when I picked up a bottle. I'd try to fight off swarm of infected, but end up getting drunk instead. I had a few crashes(game minimizes, won't restore), but the game autosaves, so I never lost too much progress. There were plenty of graphics and physics bugs, they weren't too bad though. I had several enemies phase through doors or walls, and one just fell out of world. I thought about recording some gameplay, but never did.

Items glow when you can pick them up.

Nice blood texture.

Have you ever facepalmed this hard?

Crafted molotovs, and found them floating when I left the workbench menu.

Overall, the game wasn't bad. I'm not a fan of zombies, but still got some enjoyment out of this game. While the story is weak, and the most of the quests are tedious, it might be worth a look if you want a casual, first-person, zombie game. 7/10