deckai:

Random berk:

Hmm, this looks bad. I was planning on buying Dead Island as soon as I had my 360 back, but maybe now I'll just rent it or borrow from a friend, at least til I can figure out if it really is as terrible as Yahtzee says.

The thing is, this game makes more fun if you can play it with friends.

As far as his "review" goes... again I got the feeling that he didn't play it long enough. For example the kick only works for the first third of the game, later the zombies need more than one kick to fall down. At this point, the kick is a viable option for only one character(the Asian women, she gets a special attack against downed enemies) or to create a bit of breathing space. The targeting mechanism, is something you need to get used to, I thought it work good enough, as soon as I discovered what range my favorite weapons had.

And for the whole side-quest thing... they are side-quests .. no one is obligated to do them... beside, all quests are displayed on your map, so you can ignore the way-points on the mini-map, and move trough the resort or city as you think it's best.

I liked it, I may not be perfect, but I thought the mechanics worked good enough and the whole game was a nice mix of action and survival, where even the lower zombies could overwhelm you if you weren't careful.

I usually find that games with side quests require you to play at least a few of those side quests though, or you'll finish the game in a pitifully short time, and cheapen the main plot of the story as a result.

He also mentioned poor dialogue and voice acting. If its poor like Dead Rising poor, I could ignore it, but if its poor like Just Cause 2, then it'll be intolerable. Like I say, I'll need to really see the game in action before I can put together a decent opinion on it.

The-Epicly-Named-Man:

Damn you, I was going to make him feel stupid for that!

OT: The only good thing about Dead Island is the Yogscast playthrough.

Sorry, resisting a target like that would take a stronger/slower man than me.

gphjr14:

Macrobstar:

gphjr14:
I don't care for zombie games and even I could tell this one was going to blow. Also I've heard it had several glitches that made it unplayable and for some people you couldn't save your progress which kind of defeats the whole purpose of playing, since you can't progress.

Well there isn't a save function, so you where misinformed
OT: Dead island is such a great game, granted its not for everyone

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/09/13/dead-island-saved-game-glitch-faq/

I'd say I'm well informed if this is the same Dead Island game being discussed in the link.

Well you made it sound like his problem was that he couldnt manually save

GeeksUtopia:
I find the game to be alright in the right light, the light that is turned off as your blind folded thinking that you are playing a game that was actually well done, though i did enjoy the combat, the movement made me feel drunk, the beginning was so full of cut scenes that draws away from the zombie killing, second sitting in the game let me realized my data was erased (four hours down the drain). There were only a few characters that you would find that are really crazy from the outbreak as majority of the people are just comfortable with it as they sipped tea and sun bathed on the beach as they sent you out on multiple suicide missions. [B]Not only that, it's really annoying how you want to play solo, but don't have the choice as some 8 yr old kid comes in and slows your progression through the game.[B] And from what I seen in many of the ending scenes (youtube look ups) of the entire game, it looks like they want to make a DI2, which hopefully it would be well done, with A LOT more zombie encounters and smarter A.I. that would make it challenging.

You can switch it to single player only in the options menu and people can't join your game if you don't want them to, it flashes up that someone is nearby and you can press J to join them if you wish.

I have said it like 5 times already but I will say it AT LEAST one more time, how come whenever someone speak about Dead Island they never fucking mention the horrendous bugs and connection to other players?! My god, haven't played the game for a week since I'm waiting for patch: "Game out of alpha now!"...

As for anyone still planning on buying the game, don't! itīs not even fun playing 4 player co-op with close friends.

K4RN4GE911:
Ah, so the foreshadowing at the end of Extra Punctuation was correct. Shitstorm-tastic I see. Never really had much interest with the game myself. I'm just done with zombie games for awhile. Plus, doing the Can-Can on them for half the game doesn't sound all too appealing.

You don't have to, but it saves a bit of wear and tear on your weapons and if you're low on stamina it's handy to keep them at bay. It's all in how you use the mechanics, you don't have to spam the kick button, but you can.

This is honestly my biggest disappointment of the year, I thought Brink had an iron grip on that spot until Dead Island rolled up. The bugs and illconcieved mechanics are just so frustrating. I want to like the game, I've poured hours into it, yet I just hate it at the end of the day and rage quit when I get swarmed by unending waves of 5 infected that spawn like 3 seconds after I killed the last one.

kebab4you:
I have said it like 5 times already but I will say it AT LEAST one more time, how come whenever someone speak about Dead Island they never fucking mention the horrendous bugs and connection to other players?! My god, haven't played the game for a week since I'm waiting for patch: "Game out of alpha now!"...

I don't know about consoles or other people on PC, but theres no serious bug I've run into yet. One zombie got stuck in a wall and then flew out of the map, another got stuck at the top of a door when I opened it, and a couple of minor graphical glitches in barricaded alcoves in the city...that's been it.

No saving problems as of yet (touch wood), and I'm currently playing it solo as I don't want some idiot I don't know messing around while I'm trying to play so can't comment on those issues. My copy is the Steam version 1.2.

"Lathe spooner." Hee hee.

Rednog:
and rage quit when I get swarmed by unending waves of 5 infected that spawn like 3 seconds after I killed the last one.

God damn, that happens too/to often! What the hell is up with spawn rates in this game?
Most of my time in the city is used running away from infected.

Magefeanor:

Rednog:
and rage quit when I get swarmed by unending waves of 5 infected that spawn like 3 seconds after I killed the last one.

God damn, that happens too/to often! What the hell is up with spawn rates in this game?
Most of my time in the city is used running away from infected.

I read on the steam forum somewhere that it looks like a glitch where it sticks the spawn rate of the infected zombies at the multiplayer level, and that apparently the infected zombie in multiplayer has no cap and thus the infected are allow to spawn infinitely. You can notice this in the city, especially near the canal areas you can perch on a roof and just sit there and infected after infected will spawn (and in most cases it will be the exact same model of infected) and if you're in a good enough spot you can literally get a giant swarm of them.

I've used it to farm levels a couple of times, I'll perch myself on a ledge where the infected can't climb, leave for like an hour come back and toss down a molotov, often netting me a level or even more.

I liked the game a LOT more than Dead Rising 2. Although yeah, DI it has issues.

I've been saying it for weeks. Adding some rejected tune from the Lost soundtrack to your half-hilarious, half-tragic trailer does not guarantee the end product will be the "best, most emotional video game ever," or whatever all the fanbois were slobbering about.

I had thought to try it out, anyway, but it just sounds frustrating. I need less of that in my life.

Let's not forget that Dead Island on Steam is a heap of awful.

I shit you not when I say the developers released the dev version first, which was completely unplayable. And really, Dead Island is exactly like Dead Rising 2 but in first-person and a skill tree taken directly from Diablo 2. Then I decided to try Co-op, and when I joined a friend, my game audio went completely to 0 and my microphone got forced to always broadcast. Not 5 minutes in, I crashed to desktop.

Fucking waste of money.

Seems really raw to me to be honest. Plus first-person melee only worked well in "Mirror's Edge", due to the fact that you could do a flying kick (Screw "Condemned", it didn't work there despite what Yahtzee says). It's not bad however, if you've got nothing better to do.

Hey, Dangermouse is better than the Dead Island Trailer.

Proof.

This makes me sad. I actually enjoyed Dead island, loved it so much i bought it so i could play co-op with my buddies. The only thing that pissed me of was those god damn fast zombies. they're just so damn over powered. it has to choose if it wants to be slow and strong or fast and weak. IT CAN'T BE BOTH! besides that yes i know i has a number of bugs, but so did oblivion and it was prized GOTY. and i don't see the problem of there being a ''Gritty City'' in the game.

But i guess we just have to agree to disagree right?

A jump kick can solve most of your basic walker problems. Really. Jump, hit kick and boom, zombie sent sprawling. Granted, this takes a lot of endurance, but when combating smaller groups of 2-4, it'll save your bacon. :|

Love fighting thugs, personally. They end up being decent punching bags, and it's always nice to break their arms or slice 'em off... so satisfying. :3

I've yet to encounter any bugs whatsoever, meself; spawns have never been terribly overwhelming, and no graphical nor gameplay anomalies to speak of... I have to wonder if people complaining of such things aren't playing a pirated copy. >_>

As for the ZP review itself, haven't watched it, and don't really plan to. Based on previous comments, I don't expect Mr. Yahtzee had enough time to properly get into things, and as such his ranting is, more or less, invalid... funny, I have no doubt, but as a serious gamer, it's just embarrassing to see him flail his thesaurus about and denounce a decent game (not just DI, but any decent game) for the sake of justifying his job. :P

I think it was alright, though I agree with everything said here. The bloody hit detection is not something you can skimp on in a first person melee focused game guys.

Great review but personally really enjoyed the game.

Two props on this vid. First the danger mouse reference was awesome, second the imp drawing the poo mustache made me laugh out loud.

I find this game quite enjoyable. Playing on PS3, and I must give the team credit for making a huge game like this which runs without any basic technical problems (Fallout 3 anyone?). The only problem is that you ahve to play LAN, since online modes are glitched. This is a serious issue though.
Have to disagree with Yahtzee about Ram zombies. Their ramming attack is very easy to sidestep, even without using dodge move. What's bad about them is their kick attack, which they really love to use and which drops your health by 50% or so.

Dead Island was boring. :(

I've been telling my friends that Dead Island seems like Borderlands meets Dead Rising to me. Nice to see the experts agree with me too.

That said I personally don't think the game is so bad it's unplayable. It's just pretty much like Frankenstein; you can clearly see how the parts of other games have been stitched together to make it. Frankly I think the combat mechanics do work with the right strategy. The problem I see is that if you don't adopt the one strategy that seems to work, you're going to be in serious trouble. Because of this, there's really no point for the survivors to have different expertise. You've got four types of combat: blunt weapons, blades, thrown weapons and firearms.

Now I'm only into Chap. 3 or 4 so far, so I can't speak too much to what you'll start seeing in later levels, but so far the winning strategy I've found is to throw every weapon I have at the zombies I can keep them at bay and not take a lot of damage, so long as I give them the occasional mighty boot to the pelvis. If they start getting too close, a fast kick will knock them down long enough for me to grab one of my tossed weapons and plant it in their forehead.

To me, this seems like the only sensible strategy because guns and bullets aren't readily available to the point of barely being an option and because strangely enough, swinging a weapon makes it take damage and wear out quickly, but throwing a weapon doesn't seem to hurt it at all. After using a sickle to hack down about a half-dozen undead by tossing it into their chest cavities, it graphically looked a bit bent and blood-splattered, but according to the durability gauge it was still top-notch. I don't know if this is a design flaw in the game or a deliberate mechanic, but whatever it is, it works.

My other criticism is some of the missions. Now, in this case, I have to say this is one scenario where having stationary NPC's give you instructions makes sense. There's a reason most of them won't venture out and take care of things themselves; there's fucking flesh-eating zombies out there! THEY aren't immune to whatever virus has caused this but YOU are, so guess who it would make more sense to send out exploring?

So while keeping the NPC's in one spot makes sense since the scenario is supposed to be people hiding from slathering undead, some of the missions they send you on seem really stupid. Collecting supplies? Makes sense. Repair power sources to signal for help? Good idea. Go fetch some personal nick-nack left behind in a hotel room or collect money for you? Are you insane or do you just have really fucked-up priorities?

Simply put, I'd say Dead Island isn't anything revolutionary in gaming, and simply puts together a bunch of tried-and-true game mechanics together in a zombie apocalypse setting. It works in some areas and doesn't in others, so I'd say playing through this to the end is worth doing, but I don't see this game having any sort of replay value.

Oi, Yahtzee, Y U NO REVIEW WARHAMMER 40K: SPACE MARINE?

Too bad you didn't 'cause that means you probably won't, ever. And that makes me a sad panda.
Personally, I'm not sick of zombie games as of yet, I'm just sick of the kinds of zombie games we do get.
I'd REALLY like to see a zombie game such as the one the trailer for Dead Island sort of promised. No, I'm not surprised it's nothing like the trailer, I just wish someone would make one, one that truly inspires dread and fear and the feeling of being alone in a world full of the hungry murderous undead... something like the TV series The Walking Dead, in fact, though with fewer characters, or if as many characters then that they'd meet eachother at various times, et cetera but aren't in constant contact with 'em... but I guess that's too much to hope for from an industry that caters to the braindead masses ('scuse the pun).

DragonManRen:
I just "love" it how Tourette's Syndrome is referenced for comedy. As if anybody who does that actually knows what it is. Who else has their neurological disorders laughed at?

Other than that minor irritation, a good review. I think I'll pass on Dead Island.

Kekekeke. Everyone I reckon. Jokes aren't really meant to be sympathetic to anyone in particular and sometimes they relay on exaggeration and hyperbole which blurs the knowledge of the subject in question. Ah well Hakuna matata.

But yeah I'd be more than happy to see this zombie phase pass right on through. I prefer the ninja and kung fu phase a lot more. Not so much the alien phase though.

Re: the last sentence - Werewolf Apocalypse would be pretty damn awesome. A VTM:B style affair would be better though, shame the one they tried making around 1999-2000 got canned.

Not to steal YZ thunder, but I knew that this game was a piece of crap when I saw this:

I second that motion of having a Werewolf and or Mummy apocalypse.

Glad I'm not the only one who disliked Dead Island.

Giest4life:
I never really got into Zombie games. I found L4D2 very unimpressive and I never tried another zombie game after that.

Agreed. I bought L4D2 on sale for $6.50 and I still think it was an utter waste of money. Repetitive, boring tripe.