Maximum Letdown: Dead Island (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

Let me make this clear. I don’t hate this game. It’s not even all that bad. My disappointment in this game comes from two main sources. First of all, I hate zombies. How many more times do I have to see them in every single form of media? Now I like Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead as much as the next man, and I get a kick out of Plants vs Zombies. Lately however, every other game, movie, book, novel, and TV show has a tendency to ram the undead down our throats. If it ain’t about banding together to kill the undead hordes and escape, it’s about survival and scavenging supplies. If it ain’t about survival, it’s about how the living are even more dangerous than the undead. Many times it’s all three. Now I can appreciate when a medium of entertainment can do something different with the medium, i.e Zombies mode in Black Ops or Undead Nightmare in Red Dead Redemption. I kinda hoped Dead Island would do the same. Sadly, besides a few nifty ideas here and there, this game does little.

The second reason? See for yourself after the jump

You have this sad and emotionally gripping trailer depicting an unspeakable tragedy. This was the very first piece of promotional material that many people, including me, saw for the game. Yet, it has NOTHING to do with the game itself, beside the fact that it contains zombies. The trailer didn’t even contain any gameplay footage, and it wasn’t even made by the development team nor did it utilize the game’s engine. If you looked at that trailer and had to guess what kind of game it turned out to be, you would think it’s a Heavy Rain-like adventure game with zombies, similar to Telltale’s Walking Dead instead of a first person RPG.

As for the game itself, you play as one of four people trapped on a tropical island when it gets hit by an outbreak of, you guessed it, zombies. You’re literally unprepared, so of course you have to scavenge supplies, band with other survivors, and try to escape to safety. Now where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, one of millions of other works that contain zombies. By the way, SPOILER ALERT (but only if you’ve never been exposed to anything zombie related): somewhere out there there is probably an evil asshole who wants to take advantage of you and use the chaos for their own nefarious ends, and you’ll likely have to kill them off before making your dramatic escape.

Now, unlike most zombie games, there is a bigger focus on melee combat. You have to find objects you can beat zombies into submission. However, these items degrade, so you’ll have to repair them or find new ones. It actually makes sense. In real life, if you were to be caught in the zombie apocalypse, there wouldn’t be guns and ammo conveniently lying around waiting for you to pick up, especially if you were on a tropical island. In a pretty cool feature, you can actually find blueprints to combine items and make new weapons and gear. There are also RPG mechanics as well, making this a slimmed-down version of Diablo in a zombie-infested island paradise. There is even drop-in drop-out co-op, so a friend can join your game anytime.

While Dead Island tries its best to set itself apart from other zombie games, its technical issues limit to yet another me-too gorefest. However, if you are a diehard fan of the genre, you could do worse I suppose. I personally would stick to Left 4 Dead for my co-op zombie fix. A sequel is due out later this year, and we’ll see if it can set itself apart from the horde of zombie titles. It’s preliminary marketing campaign may be a bit off however, even if it’s a bit more accurate than last time.

This was planned as a collector’s edition bonus for the U.K and Australian markets. Public outcry caused the publisher to reconsider. By the way, the zombies that killed her were able to penetrate her shoulder and expose part of her rib-cage, yet her bikini top is left intact? What the fuck is it made out of? Titanium?

Well, I almost forgot, there is one redeeming feature about this game. One of the 4 playable characters, Sam B, is a rapper. He may very well be one of the best fictional rappers ever. Here is his single “Who Do You Voodoo Bitch?”.

Drake, eat your heart out.