Dead Island Review

The concept was an open world role playing shooter with melee combat and zombies. This game could easily be the greatest game in history. But did it deliver on all fronts?

GAMEPLAY

The first thing I noticed when playing Dead Island was that the controls felt sluggish and unresponsive, fortunately this feeling didn't last long but did put me off a bit, the controls become natural shortly after but a lot of people struggle with the vehicle controls later on. By far the most annoying part of the game is the random encounters: you're in an intense battle, there's too many zombies to take on at once so you begin to back off, when suddenly, you're smacked repeatedly in the back and killed, I would like to point out this is a rare occurrence but it is still incredibly aggravating. Coop completely redeems the game of all of these downfalls, as long as you're playing with friends. I'm sorry but random stranger who join you out of nowhere online just doesn't work!

CAMPAIGN

I'm afraid its not exactly deep, not emotional either. But what do you expect from an open world game? Fallout is the only series I've played where I've enjoyed the story, and some of that wasn't great. but ignoring the motives behind the missions, they are epic fun with a few friends.

GRAPHICS & SOUND

The sound effects are just perfect, gunfire, zombie screams, slicing cleavers, the list goes on! It's the same story with graphics too, broken limbs, burnt flesh, all exactly how you want them. This drastically changes between battles, cinematics and character models are lifeless and crude. Its the same with sound, weapons no longer seem the same in these scripted events, and the voice acting is the worst I've ever heard!

MULTIPLAYER

This is the only upside to the gameplay, as long as its with friends. Drop in coop with strangers is great in theory, but in practice, no. Not at all. I was playing and someone who was a much higher level dropped into my game, waited for me to finish a massive fight on my own and then took all the loot and health kits, then left! On the other hand, with friends it is one of the most fun, and hilarious games you will ever play.

OVERALL

All of its faults are forgiven in coop with friends, if this is what you want to do then this game is a must buy, and if based on this quality alone this game would get a 9/10. But unfortunately all the other things do drag it down a bit and it loses some appeal.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
CAMPAIGN: 5/10
G&S: 8/10
MULTIPLAYER: 8/10
OVERALL: 7/10