![]() These mods, which turn ordinary weaponry into devastating electrified blades or spiked torture implements, are insanely satisfying to use. The focus on loot and acquiring power is most compelling, especially once you acquire modifications that can be added to weapons at upgrade tables. This all sounds rather negative, but I must stress that Dead Island is a fun game - it’s just fun in the most frustrating way possible. The lack of transitional animation also works in the undead’s favor - many is the time I’ve tried to sneak up on a zombie, only to have it instantly face me with no animation in between its two positions, allowing it to score a cheap hit first. The “kick” move, for example, is meant to push enemies back, but sometimes they’ll run through your leg to get their hits in. Other times, your attacks will harmlessly pass through zombies as they happily pummel you into paste. Player attacks frequently miss as well, sometimes due to the unwieldy attack animations, other times thanks to the inherent difficulty of melee combat in a first-person perspective. There’s a reason why death in this game is punished only with a percentage of cash loss - it would be impossible if you had to restart at checkpoints. If you’re playing solo, expect to die a lot, because Dead Island is fond of spawning fast-moving enemies in groups of five, which are impossible odds for all but a four-man group. ![]() Later levels also spawn endless amounts of fast “runner” zombies that can demolish a player within seconds. For instance, while your attacks are easily broken, most zombies shrug off blows and cannot be stopped once they start their assault animations. There’s a very real joy to be had in taking zombified opponents apart with increasingly powerful maces, swords, and molotov cocktails, but at the same time, this enjoyment is undermined by severe player weaknesses and unfair advantages given to the zombies. Those looking for a decent story will have to go elsewhere because Dead Island‘s writers make only the most token of efforts.Ĭombat in Dead Island is similarly two-faced, since it’s both fun and frustrating at once. Every now and then, Dead Island will try to tug at the heartstrings with an “emotional” moment, but the characters are so one-dimensional and the dialog so forced that these serious sequences are laughable at best. Although there’s a somewhat basic story, punctuated with occasional cutscenes, the vast majority of time revolves around a single motivation - you’re trapped on a resort island full of zombies, and you have to kill them all, while completing inane quests and looking for a way off the rock. In stark contrast to the game’s marketing, Dead Island isn’t much for exposition. Which character you pick depends more on your playstyle as opposed to whether or not you’re interested in the rather flat personalities. The cast represents a vague collection of “classes” with their own unique skills and upgrades. The game feels polished and good to play, but given how long the game has been in development, it’s just a bit too paint-by-numbers for my taste.Dead Island gives players control over one of four characters - Xian Mei, a Chinese ex-cop who specializes in bladed weapons, Purna, a bodyguard with a predilection for firearms, Sam B, a rapper who uses blunt objects, and Logan, a former football star who’s deadly with throwing weapons. If you’re just hoping for more Dead Island to play with friends, with a bit more wackiness on display than the dark and dreary Dying Light series, then you probably have a lot to look forward to with Dead Island 2. The combat feels good and it’s fun to play, but I was personally hoping for a lot more creativity to set Dead Island 2 apart more from just being set in a different location from the first game, especially when we just recently got Dying Light 2 as well. Things that you think should break often don’t, and the way you can move through the world is also quite restricted, which, again, compared to its contemporary Dying Light 2 feels outdated at this point. It took me out of the experience a bit to have such a static world, especially when that world is screaming at you to be interacted with and with how physics-heavy the combat feels.
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