Dead Island Review: A Bloody Banoi Cocktail

Leaving many people captivated by its award-winning trailer earlier this year, Dead Island immediately had a lot to live up to. The sullen piano theme and tragic tale of a family besieged by zombies in slow motion painted the picture of a melancholy survival game like no other. As previews began to emerge, however, the game didn’t seem quite what the trailer promised it to be. Does Dead Island measure up to the experience it conveys or is it destined to walk among the dead? Read on to find out.

Dead Island Review
Developer: Techland
Released: September 6, 2011
Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed)
Price: $59.99

Editor’s Note: This review was written before the Xbox 360 patch that was recently released.

Dead Island’s story is simple: as one of four survivors, you wake up in a desolate hotel on the fictional island of Banoi. Eventually, you encounter the undead horde and are rescued by a lifeguard named Sinamoi, and later come in contact with a mysterious voice on the radio who promises escape. Survival and escape become your key goals as you help other inhabitants on the island and try to discover what happened. All in all, the main plot will take you anywhere from 20 to 30 hours to complete, with sidequests adding dozens more.

The four playable survivors include the knife-wielding Xian Mei, the mercenary Purna, R&B artist and blunt weapon specialist Sam B. and the former football star and throwing expert Logan. Something I found particularly disappointing was that there was no sense of plot individuality among the characters. There are intricately woven backstories for each character on the character select screen that are ultimately never pursued. No matter who you choose, you wake up in the same hotel and the same situation. In game, characters don’t have much personality aside from the quips they make during combat and end up being bland. You’ll find it hard to care through many of the game’s dramatic moments.

Fortunately, the redeeming qualities of Dead Island lie in its customization and combat. Each of the four characters have three talent trees designed to improve their special abilities, combat prowess and survivability, giving you a point every time you level up. Each character also gets their own unique “RAGE” ability that is usable once a fillable meter reaches its peak. These abilities can range from beating down zombies with your fists to hailing down knives on the horde. Many of the talent bonuses are passive but occasionally you’ll unlock some new abilities such as a stomp to crush fallen zombies. While the characters feel initially the same, it’s the avenues for customization that add just enough flavour to make each individual to seem their own.

As you explore the world, you’ll find a plethora of weapons and mods that will help you upgrade them. Plans found across the island vary from the tried-and-true ‘nail mod’ that adds nails to a blunt weapon to the touted ‘shock mod’ that will make your machete crackle with electricity. You can add these mods via workbenches scattered around the island, which also allow for upgrades and repairs. Weapons degrade fast after use unless talented, so you’ll find yourself switching weapons regularly or looking for benches. Upgrades increase the base parameters for your weapons which increase their value and overall killing potential. Though there are the traditional color identifiers (green, blue, purple) to show the strength of weaponry it’s the upgrades and mods that will keep them valuable enough not to throw away when they need repairs. Funny enough, everything at the non-shopkeep-operated workbenches costs money. Even in times of a zombie apocalypse, the honor system stands strong.

The coup de grace of Dead Island doesn’t just lie in its extensive customization but also in its fast-paced combat system. Combat is mainly a melee-oriented affair and while there are firearms in the game, they don’t appear until much later and can’t carry much ammo. Melee swings feel like they have real weight behind them and there’s always a satisfying crunch as it makes contact with your enemies. In addition to swinging your weapons, which are governed by a stamina meter that increases as you level, you can also throw them at enemies from a distance. Each character also has a kick which can push and even knock down charging zombies. Used efficiently, your combination of abilities can get you out of many encounters without much of a scrape.

Make no mistake: when you’re on your own in Dead Island you will die. A lot. Zombies come in a variety of flavours from the slow-moving Walkers, to the Left 4 Dead-esque, speedy Infected as well as exploding Suiciders and more. These zombies are resilient, and you’ll find in the beginning that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. To top it all off, enemies level with you as you do, providing a consistent challenge no matter where you wander. Despite the difficulty, the punishment for death only sees you waiting a few seconds and losing some money. Dying becomes bearable this way but the game loses some of its ‘survival’ feel in the process.

Dead Island is clearly a game designed for coop and luckily the coop system holds together reasonably well. If you’re connected to the network and other people are near you in their own games, a quick press on the directional pad will allow you to join their game. It’s a convenient and painless system for jumping into coop and works well when there’s no one on to play with. Items and experience points are saved over from coop games and a fast travel system makes it easy to travel to other players when they’re beginning a quest. Standard stuff but it when it works, it works well.

Dead Island’s presentation is somewhat of a mixed bag; lighting is bright and areas are full of variety and colour. Water is beautiful in this game and is truly one of the best parts of this game’s artwork. I literally stood watching it glisten in the sun for a few minutes before I realized zombies were coming to feast on my flesh. Sadly though, the rest of the world doesn’t cope as well: many of the textures take a long time to pop in and a lot of jagged edges permeate the landscape. It’s a bit jarring as it feels like the extensive use of bloom was in an attempt to try and cover up all the unpolished artwork. Character animations are also quite stiff when you talk to other people, who barely move and show little emotion. It’s worth mentioning that in cutscenes the main characters look bug-eyed. It’s creepy enough to be off-putting.

Sounds are generally well-delivered and the background music sets the mood appropriately without interfering too much. Zombies have appropriately distinctive screams so that you can easily differentiate between them. Don’t expect much of the voice acting though, especially from the main characters—I’ll admit that it’s not terrible but many of the lines sounded forced or awkward.

Presentation issues aside, Dead Island is buggy. While the developers have now committed themselves to ironing out issues, especially on the PC version of the game, you’ll find that sometimes items disappear from your inventory or a quest will stop functioning, preventing you from progressing. I found on a particular quest, the quest giver’s voice was replaced for the entirety of his disposition, only to return to normal afterwards. On several occasions, I also got stuck in a corner in which the only way I could escape was leaving the game and re-entering. While not all of the issues are game-breaking, it certainly does take you out of the immersion and can be quite frustrating.

Too Long; Didn’t Read
When all is said and done, Dead Island is a coop game through and through. The wisp of a story takes too long to pick up and won’t capture your interest for long. While there are a lot of bugs that permeate the experience and at times the presentation struggles with stiff animations and tearing, there is a lot of fun to be had here. If nothing else, the game’s satisfying combat mechanics are the redeeming quality on this island full of corpses. Kicking down a zombie and smashing in its face never gets old. Enemies are relentless and the difficulty going solo means you’re going to die a lot. However, despite all of its flaws, Dead Island is full of fun moments, especially with friends. While it may not recapture the emotion of its dramatic trailer, if you’re looking for a zombie-killing simulator with lots of content, Dead Island’s your game.