Dead Island fails to live up to its name and is in fact alive

[toblix]

God damn it. I had just about convinced myself I should play this when I found out it auto-levels enemies.

[Nappi]

God damn it. I had just about convinced myself I should play this when I found out it auto-levels enemies.

You also have to repair your weapons:

gv4B7avZn5Q

Edit: What the fuck is wrong with the preview picture?

[Thrik]

LMAO!!!!! I've literally got streams of tears at the above post!

[stewmull]

That was vid pretty damn good! I never found repairing a problem... but he sure did! oh and i bought dead Island and havent stopped playing yet! its much better co-op so if anyone wants to play give me a steam message, my username is the same as my idlethumbs one

[twmac]

Wow, I made it to the point where he threw the item over the fence and then switched it off. That was practically unwatchable. Who wants to listen to some one do the equivalent of jam a remote control up their arse over repairing items?

I like the degradable weapon systems, and that just sounds like the worst nerd rage ever. Embarrassing.

[False Dmytro]

Wow, I made it to the point where he threw the item over the fence and then switched it off. That was practically unwatchable. Who wants to listen to some one do the equivalent of jam a remote control up their arse over repairing items?

I like the degradable weapon systems, and that just sounds like the worst nerd rage ever. Embarrassing.

To be fair, he had a pretty good angry-voice.

[twmac]

This all I see when I hear that commentary:

And it makes me sad for the gaming commentary, I mean we might as well be chavs or jocks

[Murdoc]

I wouldn't feel too bad Tmac; I consider it more an outcome of the internet than gaming. There are probably millions of these videos out there on just about any subject, not just gaming.

It's probably it's own genre of internet humor by now, a really lame kind, but seems like there's a new something like this every week.

[Thompson]

The dude is doing it for a joke, it's pretty much become a type of YouTube comedy video ever since the Angry German Kid.

Here are other videos of the dude doing the exact same thing:

[twmac]

Ah right. So I am, at least, allowed to continue to dislike it?

[a purple future]

Yeah, because it's obnoxious and terrible.

[twmac]

Well a friend and I planned to do a 14 hour marathon through the opening levels, but due to a lot of miscoordination it turned into a 9 hour one (he had the patch, I didn't so we had to go and find somewhere I could rig my X360 up to the internet so I could get it).

So much fun so far. The combat continues to be varied as you progress, the skill tree feels like there is just so much exploration for different variations of character builds. There are also some genuinely terrifying moments, even when you know you are just going to respawn.

Not sure how much has been said about the sound design but it deserves a lot of praise as the infected all sound unnerving.

Most importantly about 3 hours in I had my first 'and then the grenade rolled down the hill' moment.

We had stumbled in to a small cabana area where a large thug zombie had been lurking. It immediately went for me so my team mate sidled round him and threw knives in its head (he is playing as the throwing character). I rushed it and broke one its arms before it threw me to the ground. I don't know where he got it but my buddy found a canister and threw it at the Thug causing it stumble. I went to throw my club and locked onto the canister. There was a genuine moment of 'Oh shit, I just fuck- holy shit - Awesome' as the club flew past the thug and connected to the cannister and it blew up taking the zombie with it.

At later point I watched my friend throw 4 machetes at another thug, then run up to it, pull a machete out of its head and then decapitate it with the same weapon. Later we tried the cannister trick again but this time I accidentally got caught in the blast and got to watch 6 infected writhe in fiery death before being placed back on the map.

I haven't got to the second area yet but I feel I am close. I was going with Catherine as GOTY, I didn't expect this game to be so strong.

[Thompson]

Giant Bomb's latest TNT was of this game. It was insane.

[miffy495]

Fuck. I must play this game.

[Irishjohn]

Now I also want to play this game. Damn it. It was the mention of the word "Borderlands" that got me I think. Thing is, I quite liked playing Borderlands on my own and I don't see myself sitting down for a decent multiplayer session any time soon. I could be crazy.

[Brannigan]

Dead Island single player is really kind of a waste. It's a much harder game in co-op which really lends itself to the zombie theme. A lot of the fun in the game really is derived from playing with a couple buddies.

[twmac]

Yeah, MP is the way to go. However, I know two people who only played on their own and they said that Act 2 is an absolute pain but it is very much worth it.

It has been hilarious to watch three writers on AR (myself including) jockeying to be the first to write about this. I lost out so that is why I am here singing the game's praises.

I have another system link session tonight. Cannot, wait, any, longer.

Edited September 19, 2011 by twmac

[Murdoc]

Going to have to give this a second try with people, because it was pretty novel for the first twn minutes, but seems REALLLY repetitive on my own.

Clubbing zombies is fun, but not over and over with no real highs or lows so far.

[twmac]

There are new moves to learn and new infected to apply them to.

Some of the bigger zombies have to be ganged up on (use one guy to distract the Thug while the other uses the Fury attack to destroy him).

Depending on which character you are using and what wepaons you are carrying your moves change contextually (blunt weapons bounce off of enemies blades dig in for a simple example).

Also, just the simple joy of exploring the Island is there to let you find weird little nooks and crannies, the Far Cry 2 feel of really being there as you wander cautiously through abandoned beach locations and run down towns is perfect, it is pretty much what I wanted Left 4 Dead to be, albeit with less guns.

[Irishjohn]

Yup. You had me at "wander cautiously."

[twmac]

Well, I am 19 hours into a playthrough and I get the feeling that I will moving into the third act soon.

The City is very interesting from level design perpective as there is much more verticality to it. There is more avoiding zombie crowds as the City is densely populated and the closer quarters makes it harder to keep your distance. Guns are more prevalent but not over-powered nor abundant enough for you to not end up still using melee quite a bit. The zombie types have really mixed up and you have to listen out for their distinct growls to get an idea of what you will be coming up against (the suicider one makes me cringe).

Had another great random moment whereby my teammate and I lured a bunch of Walkers to us while we stood on a balcony, he took his time getting out a Deo-Bomb and we laughed a the stupid undead. I turned around only to see a Ram (a strait-jacketed Hannibal Lector Zombie) behind us. It knocked me off of the balcony just as my friend threw the bomb. I managed to scramble to my feet before it went off and circled around to get up the stairs to help my stricken compatriot. I fought through two of the faster infected and went into my Fury mode just as he had thrown his last blade at the Ram and saved his arse from a pounding. Awesome fun.

That said quite a few of the current missions are extremely linear 'instances' and those are a lot less fun the stuff that stays in the open world.

[twmac]

I played the game for 14 hours last night and finished it.

The game degrades near the end to a series of linear corridor fighting adn is a lot less grand for it but it never stops being fun.

Two co-writers on the blog I contribute wrote about it and most of it is pretty accurate to how I felt about it:

http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2011/09/dead-island-review-spann/

http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2011/09/dead-island-review-two/

Had loads more emergent game play moments, but am too tired to write them down right now. Neeed sleeeeeep

[Erkki]

This game is actually way more fun than I expected. I don't usually like the Zombie theme, but it is not badly done at all in this game.

They seem to have a lot of influences: Far Cry 2, Zeno Clash (this game is easier than Zeno though), Dead Rising, and I guess Borderlands from what others have said -- I haven't played borderlands myself.

I have a feeling that I'm missing a little bit by not playing with a controller, but I don't really want to spend money on an adapter or another controller because I'm usually fine with Mouse+Keyboard. Anyway, the Mouse + Keyboard controls work just fine in this game too. And while I haven't tried the analog combat hack, I feel like it's a detail I'm not missing very much.

The most annoying thing is Zombies leveling up, but I can see how it would be very difficult to balance if they didn't. Maybe they could have leveled them down where you've already been before.

Of course the game doesn't have a really good story and isn't at all emotional like the trailer suggested, but it's fine, because the rest of it is good stuff, even though logically stupid (repairing at a workbench by somehow using money as raw material?)

I've played for 11h and just got to the second act, I guess I'm 1/3 through the game or so.

[miffy495]

And while I haven't tried the analog combat hack, I feel like it's a detail I'm not missing very much.

I don't use these words often, or lightly, but you are doing it wrong. Quite honestly, after spending a bit of time playing it both ways (although not too much, as I promised my step-dad I'd co-op through it with him online) I find the mouse and keyboard controls to be adequate and nothing more. The analog controls are goddamned fantastic, add a much needed layer of strategy to the game (targeting specific body parts, direction of swing, etc), and increase immersion by a ridiculous amount. While the game is fine without, I'm fairly confident I would lose interest in it rather quickly and not get beyond the first few hours. If I had to point out the one thing that this game is "about", it would be the analog combat. It takes about 15 minutes of adjustment to wrap your head around it, and then you're in. I'm playing on a 360 pad, so I can't speak to the hacked mouse + keyboard hack controls, but you're doing both yourself and the game a disservice if you don't at least check them out. It's what keeps me thinking about it and what I look forward to in booting it up. It's why I've been texting to Victoria to get my step-dad to catch up a bit so we can co-op and I can play more of it already. It is, more than anything else, what has made this game worth it.

[Erkki]

I probably should give it a try at least, but I think I won't agree with that completely. Firstly, the combat is already so gory that it seems like a statement on how desensitised we've become to all that. I doubt I'll take any extra enjoyment out of smashing specific limbs. Although I already do target the arms of Thugs so that they would have less chance of hitting me.