Scary!

This past week I completed Crysis 2 and Fall Out New Vegas.  So a few days ago I decided that it would be a treat for me to stroll down to the local Gamestop and pick up a new game.  I mean, I deserved a new game since, like a good little boy, I completed two games.  For a while in my gamer career I used to get games and never beat them due to lack of interest or skill required to actually beat the game.  But now that I’m better(ish) with my money, I only get games that I am super excited about and are (admittedly) not-so-hard.

I mean, I’m no noob or anything, honest!

Anyway, I must have spent a super long time staring at all the PS3 titles on the shelves.  Since I don’t really read gamer sites, I really don’t know what kind of games are out there.  I saw dozens of titles that I’ve never heard of so I decided to ask the cashiers and see if they have any helpful suggestions.

They were two girls working at the Gamestop (surprised?) and I told them my story of being a good boy and completing Fall Out and Crysis 2 and they, without much discussion, suggested Dead Island.  As they were telling me about it (and they even had a trailer to show me!) I became more and more interested.

See, there’s two things I like in this world.  One of them being cats.  I absolutely love cats.  However, the other thing that I love in this world happens to be zombies.  And so it seemed to me like this would be the perfect follow up to my fantastic video game summer.

I decided to use Xian Mei, a Hong Kong secret agent turned receptionist at the resort who has an expertise with sharp weapons like machetes and swords (mm).  The intro to the game is a first person perspective of a person getting crunk (crazy drunk, duh) at a party.  You get to see all the characters at this party but you are getting so drunk that security has to escort you back to your hotel room.  It’s only after that that you can pick your character.  And so when I woke up, I was the lovely Xian Mei.  Although, I can’t really imagine her downing a bottle of rum or tequila or whatever she was drinking.  I thought it was pretty shoddy to have one generic intro for the characters.  Plus, did she have man hands?

Anyway, you wake up to find the resort’s emergency announcement playing and everyone is gone.  The first time I noticed about the controls is that moving feels different from Fall Out or Crysis 2 in the sense that it feels as if you’re pushing a weight.  In other words, moving feels more sluggish than in the other two games I mentioned.  However, I quickly got over that fact and adapted and now I feel as if its natural again.

You start out with no weapons at all and so you have to run away from the hordes of undead in the resort, only guided by a voice.  This was very scary.  There’s nothing worse than being unarmed facing a whole army of the undead.

Once you’re safe with all the other survivors you discover that you are the only person on the island that is immune to whatever is making people into zombies (an alien weapon from space? rabies? some other disease?) and so you’re the one that’s going to be the hero, going out and fighting the zombies.  However, you might be immune, you are not invincible.

The one thing I dislike about this game is that you can’t really carry health items with you.  Sure, you can buy or find medkits and can quickly administer them.  But the most abundant form of health recovery in the game are from items of food.  I can’t believe that my character hasn’t turned into a diabetic since I’ve been mostly drinking energy drinks to replinish my health.  Perhaps there’s a better way?  Scattered throughout the island are bits of fruit, candy bars and tons of energy drinks.  However, these items are consumed immediately when picked up so the advantages of hoarding health aid items are missing in this game.  There have been many times when I’ve encountered Thugs (big zombies that swing their arms and can knock you down) and I’ve had to leave to find energy drinks only to return and find that they restored their own health as well (from eating flesh?).  Very frustrating.

The environment in this game is similar to Fall Out 3 and New Vegas and Oblivion (and soon Skyrim!) in that its open.  You can go just about everywhere.  And the island of Banoi is sufficiently big and full of side quests that one can get lost with side quests and spend little time on the main quest.  The textures do take some time to load which can take away from the realism.  But once they are loaded, the environment is very lively.  You can hear the seagulls in the distance as well as the water splashing, the trees sway in the wind and most importantly, when hacking at a zombie, blood flies everywhere.  Even the weapons get dirty and damaged and this is reflected in the game as well.

Dead Island focuses on melee combat with a few guns thrown in.  Three out of the four characters have an expertise in melee weapons (although one throws knives so its like part melee, right?).  It’s very satisfying to hack a zombie apart and see its arm fly.  Or sometimes if you’re lucky you can hack off someone’s head and instantly kill them.

There is a visceral sense of fear present in the game, which adds so much depth.  Zombies make a variety of sounds, from the heavy breathing to a loud yell.  There’s the kinds that walk up slowly and try to eat you while there’s others that are more aggressive and run up to you while yelling.  Many times I’ve been caught off guard and had a burning zombie run up to me from out of nowhere.  This is great but paired with the fact that you can’t carry healing items with you (unless you use medkits) makes combat a pain sometimes.

Currently I’m only about 15% into the game and I’m absolutely hooked.  Definitely worth the price because I find myself wanting to finish this post and get back to playing Dead Island despite the cons.  Many people have reported save glitches and there is a slight feeling that this is not the finished product.  Examples being slow to render textures and no save-on-demand option (the game saves automatically but it would be nice to be able to control that), and the fact that weapons get damaged too easily (so far at least).

I will update this once I get further into the game.  But for now, why don’t you check out the trailer?