Dead Island

- Sean Chapman

_ Dead Island is created by Techland and published by Deep Silver for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. It is an open-world game centered on surviving on a zombie-infested island. This is in a first-person perspective; however, the developers are claiming that the game should not be labeled a first person shooter because it has a bigger emphasis on melee combat and  saving ammunition ( as it hard to get at first in the game). The games runs Techland’s in house Chrome Engine 5.

This game starts you off, as one of four characters that you can choose to play, waking up in their hotel room after a drunken night of partying. You awake to find that the resort, and the rest of the island of Banoi has played host to some tragic outbreak. The Island of Banoi, is a wild and untamed paradise, virtually untouched by modern civilizations. With lush rain forests to the mountain highlands to the white sandy beaches. Perfect setting for a zombieish outbreak?

One day Simba, this will all be yours.

_ You find your character is unable to be infected by the outbreak and is immune to being attacked/bitten by those that are infected. Without giving away much of the plot, the game centers around you trying to get to this guy on a prison on another island that’s part of Banoi, as he is the only one that can actually get you off the island and to safety, and the crazy hijinks that follow.  

A quest!

_ The story is driven by mainly quests. You have the option of doing extra quests to earn experience in the game, and as you do you character will level up and earn new abilities and skills. The game does sport a 4 player co-op, but unlike Left 4 Dead, if you aren’t playing with other players you don’t have the other 4 as A.I. played by the computer. You’re on your own.  I played through the game for a while by myself just to soak up the overall experience, and then hopped into Co-op with a friend, and co-oping for me really made this game more fun. At one point, we kicked a beach ball that we found on the island into each other and found it could hurt us.  

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A ram and an Infected

_ As you level up, so do the zombies. So as you’re playing and reach the max level of 50, you won’t be god handing the things to death. You go about doing various quests in the game, some which can be annoying, and others are fun. You don’t have to do them; you can just cruise through the main storyline quests. Doing the side quests is helpful for good strong weapons.

_The types of Infected you run into:

•Walkers: The first class of zombie you'll come across. They will remain motionless, giving the appearance of being truly dead until you get up close to them. On fire - Usually move faster, Wide Shouldered - Have more health than regular Walkers, Tall - Can attack you when you're higher or out of reach height-wise, Long Arms - Attack range is extended, Armored/Masked - Have more Health/Resistance to certain hit areas based on armored/covered body parts, Feigners - Play dead, Toxic fume - Can poison the player if he/she gets too close, and Armed - Attack or throw their weapon, dealing massive damage

•Floaters: are bloated, partially decomposed zombies that produce a corrosive slime that is capable of hurting, blinding or disorienting enemies from a distance. They basically vomit on you and it hurts you. The cool thing is that vomit is flammable, so when they do you can throw Molotov’s on them and they go up in flames! BURN BABY BURN!

•Infected: Infected are significantly faster than Walkers and Thugs, but have far less health. They sprint at you, and can attack you really fast.

•Thugs: Thugs are physically larger and much tougher than most of the other zombie types. Thugs are capable of knocking a player to the ground with a punch. They do a lot of damage, and have a lot of health.

•Rams: charges the player like a ram, and also kicks and head-butts the player when in close quarters, causing the player to lose health, get knocked back and lose stamina. They are a pain in the ass to kill as they run at you making it hard to hit with explosives.

•Butchers: Butchers use their exposed and sharpened forearm bones to rip their victims into pieces. While rushing towards the player. Their attacks are fast and can kill you in seconds if he continues his barrage. Butchers also have the ability to regenerate health, and alert other infect to you

• Suicider: Its main ability is to get close to the character and after a short period of inflating, violently explode. The attack knocks the player down, causing damage, and blinding the player. If the player is too close in proximity to the Suicider when it explodes, they will die instantly

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_ Weapons have different stats throughout the game and change as you level up. You can find them everywhere, but to get the best ones you have to buy them. Weapons also need to be repaired, and can be upgraded at workbenches throughout the game.  As you kill zombies and other infect, or just search around rummaging through luggage, you find items and cash. You can sell those items to vendors, or use them in weapon modding.you can also find and buy health pretty much everywhere. 

The Butcher

_  Pros:
Custom weapons: This game features the ability to find mods for weapons. When you mod a weapon, you can give it the ability to set a zombie on fire, electrocute them, and poison them, which causes them to vomit and stop attacking.
·         4 player Co-op

·         Dying: Normally not a good thing, but in this game you just lose money. You don’t get stuck having to start all over, you just kind of get back up at the last autosave, which is really often.

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Even zombies need bling

_Cons:

·         Quests: The con of the quests is some are insanely repeated, make no sense, and are a pain in the ass to complete.

·         The map waypoint system: Sometimes you’re wondering just where the hell map trail is telling you to go. I oftin would pull up my map, and look for a better route.

·         Glitches: Zombies walking through closed doors, wasn’t that annoying till a Ram glitched through a cell gate and killed me.

·         Driving the vehicles: I loved having cars to drive, I hated how bad driving them is. Also, trying to drive in the jungle location of the map was so hard to do in places.Even

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_ Overall I found this game to be really fun. It felt like a mix of Fallout with Left 4 Dead. It had a more mature feeling to it, and was overall a really fun shooter to play. I think the plot could have some better work on it as if felt lackluster, and was somewhat predictable. The visuals in this game are breath taking and make exploring the island interesting. The people you can interact with sometimes seem real, and at others not so much. Aside from the occasional glitching, the game is one my top favorites to come out this year.The game is left open for a squeal, and I hope one gets made!


- Sean Chapman