by OL » Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:05 am
Been playing Dead Island the last couple days (in co-op, mostly; more fun that way).
I'm not quite sure what I really think of it yet. The concept is great, and it has a ton of potential, but the engine it runs in is also glitchy as hell. Combat usually works well, except for when the game stutters as I'm trying to time a hit properly, and then doesn't register that I've pressed the button. The cutscenes stutter like crazy too, which is odd since they aren't rendering anything particularly impressive. You constantly see annoying graphical irregularities in them, like sky textures flashing in and out of existence, or the textures taking extra time to load, even right after a loading screen (crazy that this shit still happens all these years after I first saw it happen in Halo 2). Things like this just make it feel incredibly budget-y.
And for that matter, the story is utter tripe. Nothing interesting in it at all. In fact, I might even go so far as to say it's the least interesting/engaging story I've seen in a game in years. None of the characters are interesting in the slightest, and their situation (aside from being on a tropical island) is the exact same cliche shit we've seen in zombie stories for years. Everyone is way too serious, and the dialogue is totally amateur.
With all that said though, the game can still be really fun. The combat works really well for what's essentially a first-person beat-em-up. Leveling up feels good, too. Even with level-scaling on, it still feels like your character is getting much stronger as you go (and doesn't come off as quite as incremental as in most other RPGs; the changes feel immediate), which ends up being the main reason to keep going. And, surprisingly, the game can actually get kind of creepy during some parts, as you open doors and zombies immediately pop out at you, or when you're strolling along the beach, suddenly hear a scream, and turn around to see three or four zombies in the distance running full speed at you. It actually manages to give you that "aw, fuck" feeling that characters get so often in zombie movies and whatnot, as you try to choose whether to stay and duke it out, or make a run for safety.
So overall it's fine for a bit of random fun, but the game's problems just make it feel so much lower in quality than it really should. Given more development time, a little extra polish, and the game could have been excellent.