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- Publisher: Deep Silver
- Release Date: Sep 6, 2011
- Also On: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
User Score
Mixed or average reviews- based on 1272 Ratings
User score distribution:
Positive: 846 out of 1272
Mixed: 198 out of 1272
Negative: 228 out of 1272
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Sep 6, 2011Loving this game so far! Its fun, different and what I hoped L4D would have been more of. I have had no problem with controls and any issues other trolls have problems with. If u like survival horror, rpg and fps melee you will like this game. If you like games being a movie, then go away.
Sep 6, 2011Dead Island is a Open world, first person view, zombie survival horror with item collection and character skill advancement trees. Its as If Borderlands and Dead Rising got together and had a baby, that baby would be dead Island. This game has rich four player co-op, simple yet effective story, a deep weapon crafting and character customization system. Do you love zombies? Exploration? character advancement? item collections? co-op? then dead Island is a no brain-er. The only reason this game doesn't get a ten is due to a slightly bugged user interface that should be fixed this week with a patch.
I would like to add that Dead Island on a high end pc is the ultimate zombie killing experience. This version has no texture loading issues, great control and much better graphics over all.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011To summarize in one sentence, this game is borderlands with zombies and like no guns. The midnight release play was absolutely terrible. The game stutters every 3 seconds for no reason. Everyone's mic is open and there's no way to mute them. I only got to play first three chapters before Techland decided to wipe my save without warning. Apparently they uploaded a console version to steam (DOH!) and considering how it still hasn't been fixed, the issue goes much deeper. The graphics looked absolutely terrible compared to what I was expecting from trailers. The character animations are hideous. Honestly, I've seen half life 2 mods with better animations. The inventory is a pain in the ass to use. Interface was made for consoles and it's absolutely baby-punch-frustrating as a PC gamer to slowly click through things because they were too lazy to change it. Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if weapons didn't break so quickly and I have to access item menu every 3 minutes. You shuffle through 10 diff containers and get 50 dollars which you'll have to spend to repair a knife that breaks after 5 swings. But seriously though, YOU SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME OPENING CONTAINERS AND PUNCHING BABIES THROUGH BAD INTERFACE MANAGING ITEMS RATHER THAN KILLING ZOMBIES AND SURVIVING.
The characters are also horrible. The models are hideous and it's really hard to take a liking to a character and level them when they're not likable at all. While they call this game an RPG the characters have no story behind them other than a tiny paragraph intro where they basically prove the developers are bunch of racist white men who never seen a non white person in their lives or something. The asian woman sometimes sounds super asian and sometimes just sounds white. The 'sure' and 'yes's that they say when accepting a quest are sometimes totally out of place and kills immersion. I will say that I liked the zombie animations and their ragdoll mechanics. It's pretty hilarious to stand on some stairs and watch zombies fall down the stairs when you kick them.
When I was buying this game, I was expecting more L4D element but I was very wrong. This game definitely has borderland written all over it. It even has aimless driving. Btw, Why does a truck have infinite health in a survival game? It needs to get damaged and stalled by zombies. It's pretty ridiculous you just go godmode-run-over-everything.
Am I mad bro? I think so bro. I just spent 50 dollars on this.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Dead Island has the potential to be a great game however, the game feels rushed and as such, there are a plethora of problems with this game that are beyond simple nagging problems. In it's current state, Dead Island is not playable.
First, you have the sound. The sound works intermittently, one moment you have working sound and the next moment you have piercing static or a repeating sound clip. Next you have the actual playability. Dead Island freezes and lags constantly, even on excellent hardware. It's beyond annoying to attempt playing a game under those conditions.
In the end, Dead Island does have the potential to be a fun game but the wise gamer will sit on this title and see if the developers can improve its functionality, else this game will fail hardcore. Right now, the game will leave you wanting to pull your hair out more times than it will offer an enjoyable gaming experience.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Dead Island is suffering from the typical "First Day/Week Hiccups" Nearly every game is packed with bugs within the first week or so, I am going to be doing an early review on things. Dead Island is an extremely fun game, that is worth the money . Logging in and playing with a friend for the first time is a blast, as you hack and slash every zombie that comes your way and you always scream "Ooooohhhh" whenever you slaughter a zombie. The co-op set up was very convenient, but lacked hints or a clue on when your co-op buddy can join you, after the Prologue your friend can join. Otherwise the co-op seems to really play smoothly and not suffer from any other issues that I came across.
Experience: I am a gamer who does not fully believe every "Professional" reviewer, I look through them and then try the game myself, and find that most of the time I enjoy it even if the review was abysmal. It all matters about the experience you have with the game. As I mentioned before I played with my buddy through the co-op system, and we had a blast. The game does not seem to get old, the hacking and slashing, the gore and the exploration is just a pure treat. Every swing and throw I have done was an experience I have never felt before in a game, the brutal contact you make with a melee weapon to a zombie is just satisfying and you can feel their head crunch and necks snap. Overall Dead Island is definitely an experience you'll remember for a long time, and especially with a friend, you'll be laughing a lot.
(re)Playability: Every gamer wants a game worth the money, and a game they can come home and enjoy hours on end, and this game is one of them. There are a TON of side-quests waiting for your acceptance and a vast amount of weaponry. There are weapon upgrade/repair tables around the world, which can be used for creating weapons, repairing weapons and upgrading weapons, and every single weapons has at least 3 upgrades giving you a chance to craft some crazy weapons and gather materials for blueprints and look for weapons. That's a lot of (re)playability there. Overall the (re)playability is very high, and I can tell that the game will offer another or...another play though, and I could tell there is too much to explore, and you won't be exploring it all on the first play through.
Graphics and Animation: When I first starting playing the game my first reaction was "Wow this look nice" Its a rare case to find an open-world game to look so beautiful. As a 3d Environment Artist for games myself, I study the game world (I know nerdy) and I just felt in love with the environment, it is very well done for a open-world game and they deserve two thumbs up, but one thing I noticed is that some zombies tend to look too "wrinkly" the normal maps on some enemies are a bit "over exaggerated"compared to others and seems that the normal infected look better than the bosses, which was kind of odd to me, but it is not too much of a deal. The lip-syncing is not very good, but its nothing to ditch the game for, and the cut scenes are "meh" The animations for the zombies are great though as they switch and run at you, there is one kind of zombie that I seriously acted real (if zombies were in existence of course) Overall the art in this game is well done.
Conclusion: As I mentioned this is my early review on things from what I experienced, and take what you want from this, but what I can say is Dead Island is getting some harsh reviews for things like: Glitches, story, lip-syncing, performance,etc" and this game JUST came out, I feel that it is quite unfair. The reason this is not a 10 is because of the rumors I heard on a Dev-build in which I figured because of the no-clipping, and some evidence of code that a steam user posted on the forums. This hopefully should be fixed, but I don't rely on that, as I mainly rely on my enjoyment and experience I had, and I already had an amazing experience with the game that is not even finished yet! Are you still debating whether to get this game or not? Well the comparison of "Fallout 3 with Zombies" is actually fairly true, it is really great. This game is the first game in a long time that I look forward everyday to play its the "I can't wait to get home from ____ to play this game" kind of feeling, and I haven't felt that in a long time. I don't blame anyone for waiting to get the game when things clear up a bit, but this is a must get no matter when you decide to play it. 9/10.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Deep Silver and Techland have royally messed up for a major release Dead Island, released a DEBUG version, to fix it caused files to become corrupt and user progression to be erased.
Sep 6, 2011Great when playing with friends and do the co-op together. The game has a good atmosphere with a good character advancement tree + crafting. If you enjoyed Dead rising or Borderlands, you will enjoy this game.
Sep 6, 2011Oh boy, where do I begin. I was rather excited to play this game as I'm sure most people who watched the trailers were. It's no secret that a publisher would push an unfinished product out to people in order to meet a deadline, but it seems like it's trending to the point where games are broken and unplayable for the first week or so of play. This to me is completely unacceptable.
Once the cut scenes have finished and you're into the menu, the first thing you'll notice about the PC version is how it is nearly impossible to control your cursor. No big deal, after nearly suffering from tennis elbow trying to navigate yourself through the overly simplistic and console-like menu system, you'll find your standard sensitivity bar. Naturally you'll "crank that sh*t up to 11" and enjoy being able to actually move around somewhat normally in the menu. As mentioned your options are EXTREMELY limited, and for those of you who enjoy playing on 120hz displays, you'll notice that the game for some reason has a maximum of 100hz display refresh. No big deal I'm over that.. LETS FIGHT SOME ZOMBIES.
Once you finally stumble your way into an actual game, the first thing you notice is because you set your sensitivity to max that it completely uncontrollable in game. You turn that back down and just hope you never have to go back into the menu system for fear of pulling a muscle trying to change anything in the future. Now most people's first instincts is to try and invite your friends or have them try and join your game. What's that? You don't have any option and aren't sure why? It's because the game requires you to play through the first part of the "Act" giving you some back story before actually allowing you to play with friends. This is fine, but I would recommend they actually explain it to people so they don't spend 10 minutes trying to get people into the game.
Once you have completed the first Act, it's on to what I call "the cabin of despair". Why is that? Because you are going to be sitting in that cabin for a good 30+ minutes trying to get your friends actually into your game. Once they are finally in there, enjoy having the in-game Voice over IP system always running.
Ok, an hour after the games been installed we are now ready to fight zombies. One thing that I found extremely annoying about this game is the movement. After exiting the cabin and you start to move around the island, the overly done bloom effect mixed with the sluggish movement feels like I'm suffering from a terrible hangover. I decide to power through it.
After about 30 more minutes of wondering around the island picking up badly explained objective missions and fighting a very very small number of zombies around what I can only assume must be luxury resort due to the lack of people/zombies I find myself bored and playing with the "developer features" they forget to take out such as noclip.
Unfortunately I found flying around the island using noclip and driving my truck off of cliffs much more fun than any of the gameplay thus far. People who claim this is only just "First Day/Week Hiccups" are definitely underselling it, and I would not recommend anyone spend any money on this horrible, bug riddled game. Please, think of your wallet and your elbow before wasting away either on this monstrosity.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Just because people are upset about bug on a release. . which happens with most games anyways. Doesn't automatically make this a poor game. Also anyone who says it's a port should have their ratings taken away because they don't know that it's actually not a port the pc just got the wrong version upon release. But it's still has plenty of fun in it.
Sep 11, 2011After they made the first few patches and fixed the accidental release of the in-house dev version all in all its not too bad. The Player Characters themselves have Wonky and Strange Animations, but the Zombies are well animated. The graphics are good, The choice of weapons is decent. Little disappointed at the fact that there were so few guns. I love the idea of limited ammo and shots count but there's very few choices in guns. It has a few glitches mostly graphical, it is annoying though that all the dialogue in the game is centered around Co-op along with the Cinematics. If your playing solo it can be somewhat annoying and confusing seeing the other characters even though they arent with you.
I did enjoy the game though. Story was pretty lame and quests were down right appalling as if they were written by 9 year olds. One such quest, "Were starving here! We need more food, Go to the gas stations and pick us up two boxes of Juice!" .... Um.... Ok..... Relevancy 0 Strange 1. Anyways if you can overlook the strange quest flaws its a good game to play-thru and then maybe shelve or sell.… Expand
First off, I'm one of those 'poor' victims that have been left to play Dead Island on the PC with the 'developer' version or whatever the hell that was. After being linked to this metacritic thing and seeing how biased people's votes were, I just had to make an account myself to rate it for myself.
The game was quite nice even when there was obvious bugs/issues that literally consumed 2 hours for me and my friends in trying to get a single lobby going where all of us were in the same game. Of course after we got that out of the way, we only suffered minor issues such as graphic cards overheating and crashing someone's computer and crashing our game due to random things like, crashing into a female zombie with a truck. But overall, I found that the game had a huge potential. Its intended features/concepts are present but just left in a lackluster manner due to the known bugs/issues that was released on the first day for the US. So I say give this game a chance, and ignore the 'rage' from these people that are bringing this game's score down to as low as 4.4. Chances are you'll like this game since it offers a lot of fun and exploration, as well as replay value. Oh and in before massive negative votes on this review post from those same raging nerds that can't just go have a life and maybe return late in the evening to find a better patch---Or something, rather than wasting their time trying to defame a game after only a single cluster of issues (admittedly a huge cluster). Because don't get me wrong, they should have avoided all of this via quality assurances or something.
Was actually going to give this game a 8/10 or 9/10 because it was quite satisfying for me, excluding all the annoying bugs and the inability in 'push to talk' or having an easier way to arrange lobbies. But since the game's score has been shot down by angry nerds, I must give it a 10. Enjoy the game when it's fully patched.… Collapse
Sep 6, 2011This is a very good game. For all the funny youtube videos showing off the debug mode, it's less buggy than other open world games such as New Vegas or Oblivion, and has co-op to boot: especially important to note that this is not a single player game. You have that option, but you really need to bring a friend or three.
The plot isn't as paper thin as a title like Borderlands, but is still on the shoddy side; you won't mistake this for an Avellone venture. With gameplay this solid, though, the narrative sinking into the background while you and your friends are on voice chat suits it just fine.
The controls are slick, your actions feel purposeful. The melee combat is really well done, I was definitely impressed. This is all rather insubstantive so let me take you through a cool moment:
My friend and I saw this swole zombie by the edge of a pool full of bodies. I threw my cleaver at it, my buddy threw both his knives (and was then out of weapons). I moved in start wailing on it with my baseball bat, but it punched me and I went flying into the pool. As my character stumbled to his feet, the bodies in the pool got up.
I went into Fury Mode and started boxing them and my friend had to walk up to the big guy and pull his knives out of him - while he was still up and dangerous - in order to continue packing in the damage.
The game is full of things like this. I pre-ordered it Monday and it's been worth every penny.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Beautiful! This hell truly does look like paradise and feels like the best zombie slayer this year. The graphics are great and the game is incredibly easy to run! If you don't fall in love with the game play than you'll truly enjoy the rpg elements! Great game Play IT!
Sep 6, 2011I've only been playing this for a few hours. But put simply? My game of the year! Yes, there are a few bugs but so far, nothing game breaking. Controls are fine, environment are amazing. The only thing is the voice acting but I can live past that.
Sep 6, 2011This is an unfinished game. I don't buy the crap that they accidentally released a dev build or whatever. As a software developer, in my experience (granted, not related to the gaming industry), dev builds only contain additional items, like convenience keystrokes, debug info, etc, it is not an excuse for utterly broken/missing features. Blaming bugs on the wrong release version is the same as giving a teacher an intentionally corrupt document to get an extension on your homework. This is a dishonest practice, and this company should be called out for it. I feel scammed that I pre-ordered an unfinished product. I hope they will correct the issues with the game, deal with the messed up FOV, lack of basic PC graphics options like vsync, etc, but I would recommend anyone considering buying this game to wait, I don't anticipate problems being fixed overnight. Deep Silver and Techland have definitely fallen of my "Potential companies to pre-order with" list due to this turd. Shame on you.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Alright let me just say first off that as of now this game is fantastic if you're one of the lucky ones it works well for but incredibly frustrating if you have the issues some other people have. Since there will be patches though, I'm only judging the core gameplay here because I'm sure it will improve as they fix it up. For me, this game has so much I've wanted in a zombie game where it takes place in a large open world and supplies are realistically limited so that you really have to scavenge for supplies which encourages exploration. The combat in this game is a lot of fun and the gore from beating down zombies with blunt objects is incredibly satisfying and with the limb breaking it's also realistic. There's also a TON of sidequests and a lot of weapon mods to craft which will be taking up even more of your time. As far as graphics go, the island looks gorgeous and even with the bright sunny atmosphere, it managed to scare me many times with the infected screams and other ambiance. Only real flaws I've found with this game is that the coop seems rather broken as of now and the story and character development is subpar to say the least. I'd say this is a must buy AFTER it's patched up a bit.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011It seems that I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get his game running first try, was able to adjust the options to work perfectly on my computer and actually play it within 10 minutes (getting everything to the right balance). If you somehow become lucky to play this game, it feels like a cross between Left 4 Dead and Borderlands.
Pros: - Fun concept - great combat - huge place to explore (good and bad to that) - Join others quickly
Cons: - Lame uploading on the dev's part - way to bright in some areas - iffy first few days - some classes unable to use full potential till later access to their weapons
Overall it seams like it's just a bit too early to judge the game. I have my faith in the devs to patch the issues that most people are having in less than a week.… Expand
Oct 5, 2011What happened to PC games? At some point along the line did the developers lose their way? Did they all get together and just make games for the console and then port them to the PC without bringing along any of the options that PC gamers have been used to for decades? Dead Island was released initially on PC extremely buggy, which shows how much time and effort these companies spend on the PC version of recent shooters. In particular itâ… Expand
Sep 6, 2011If you are one of the lucky folks who have no problems running it, the game is a blast. Its no GOTY but it is tons of fun. I didn't enjoy it for the first 15 mins but after going back in I am absolutely loving it. If you are one of the people worried about losing progress, don't. I see it as an opportunity to try one of the other builds. Please ignore the irrational trolls who rated a 0 because it didnt work for them at launch. Also please disregard the 10's as anyone who cant find a single flaw is a fanboy.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Iv played this game since it was unlocked on steam this morning and i cant stop. i dont know why people are trolling this game? i can run 1980x 1080x perfectly fine, maybe dont buy computers from bestbuy ? or for you Canadians Future shop. cause future shop is the red devil :) . The game is very fun thou the story is meh. bottom line you will have hours of fun with your friends just be sure to play coop… Expand
Sep 18, 2011In a nutshell: It's entertaining, gory, and addictive.
Aside from that, it's hit-and-miss. The story-line is (quite frankly) missing almost entirely. This isn't the first game to put you in a quarantined area with unexplained zombies, give you a weapon and say "go to town," but aside from gathering supplies, you're never really given a reason for having to move from survivor camp to camp. If the summary is true, and you're trying to find a missing wife, then I apparently wasn't paying attention at all during the introduction, because I have no idea what that's referencing. This game has many bugs, and they can be crippling. Running V1.2, some of the bugs I've encountered include:
1) I occasionally have to toggle between full screen and windowed and back to re-enable the sprint feature, which is crippling (It took me awhile to figure out something was definitely amiss)
2) I lost a very powerful weapon into thin air after I had just spent a couple thousand repairing and upgrading it, which isn't crippling, but just plain disappointing
3) A horrible, HORRIBLE UI port from what was PLAINLY a console menu to the PC. The mouse is incredibly slow on the menus, everything has to be clicked on because the arrows are very clunky, and some options are simply grayed out for no reason (usually because you have to have an Xbox 360 controller plugged in)
4) Weapons on your "quick select" menu tend to be replaced by whatever you pick up off the ground, with the most popular being alcohol. This tends to result in irritation if you notice it in time, or at the worst, you find yourself charging into a fight and then quickly downing a bottle of Jack instead of slashing a weapon. Definitely not a fun brawl.
This game is still fun, and definitely worth a rent for its sandbox environment, collectibles, upgrade and deterioration systems, weapon modifications, and the intense firefights (when you face human enemies). The zombie slaying doesn't really get stale, but it does lessen in excitement from the beginning of the game. As of where I am right now, I have seen about 5 different classes of zombies, and each definitely had their own unique attacks and corresponding player strategies I needed to use. A good rent (assuming you stick with the PC version, Xbox version might be better).… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Like most people Dead Island's trailer pulled me in. From there i was excited, and decided to pre-order on steam. The night game goes live i let it run the opening day patch and than try to play. That is where i encountered my first hiccup, the game was incredibly fragmented. I am not sure if its my computer or the files, i have never had this issue before. Once i get in the game there was some issues changing my graphic settings and such.. than i start playing. It was an amazing amount of fun, really engrossing, just a flat out great time. Yes there was the clipping issues i noticed a few times. Than all of a sudden when im driving around my game just crashes, and the night goes downhill from there.
Game Receives a 7.. and i feel i am being incredibly generous there. It is an amazing amount of fun but they release a game that to say its buggy really understates the point. Friday they are suppose to release a patch, so wait till after Friday to pick up your copy.… Expand
Sep 8, 2011A review about a game is a criticism about the game itself, bug may come and go, usually at a game launch like this there's ALWAYS bugs. User that provide a score based on the technical issues should be banned from posting anything. Dead Island has a really creative approach to the whole zombie culture, the melee fighting system is well developed, the way the weapons are used, the gore when bashing and/or cutting a zombie are phenomenal, the storyline is a little weak, but the fighting compensates for the game's shortcomings, Co-op style is a big weakness, they should have learned more from L4D, I would stick it out alone. I usually don't write reviews until I'm done with the game, but I felt is had to counter act the fake scores given by all the "I can't launch the game" morons.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011not a 10; game is an 8.5 but i just wanted to counter-act all the tweens raging about release issues. honestly its sad seeing the troll rage on the steam forums for the most trivial reasons only 12 hours after release. this is just one strong example of how metacritic userscores fail
Sep 6, 2011Great potential, Horrible bugs kill this games. Check back after a patch is released to take the released development build to the actual retail release.
Oct 12, 2011I got this game looking for a button-mashing, mindless fun, weekend of zombie killing and that is what i got and i have barley touched it since. It suffers from several graphical glitches and a lack-luster story. Towards the end of the game it starts to feel tedious as you are required to run from point A to point B and then back again.
In summary if you spare cash and time to kill i would recommend it especially if you have friends who want to play the co-op with you, but don't expect this to win Game of the Year.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Dead Island...The cake is a lie! This game is a hot mess of unfinished business. The Epic fail of this year! I cannot believe a company would put out an unfinished game and then claim they didn't know about it. What they didn't have QA in their budget. What makes it bad is the fact that it is both the digital and disc format versions. I tried playing this game at midnight on release day but my game loaded up to a black screen. I didn't get to play at launch so I went to bed angry. The next day I read that there was a patch released, but the patch seemed to make things worse. I loaded the game again to a black screen. After about 2 minutes I got impatient and started hitting random keys and the game started. WTF? Then it was followed be a sharp piercing loud static that made me rip my headphones off my head. The first thing I tried to do was change the video settings that had the resolution defaulted to 1024x768. I set everything to Highest quality and it required the game to be restarted. I reloaded the game, same thing. Nothing changed. I did this about 10 times without any success. I even tried deleting and reinstalling the game, nothing helped. So I gave up and finally played, but I was stuck with 1024x768 resolution stretched across a 1920x1080 monitor 16:9 ratio. It looked terrible, but my eyes adjusted to it after a while. After playing for an hour the game started to Lag very badly. I'm talking 2 second latency every few feet. I am running a high powered gaming rig so i knew it wasn't my computer. I was playing online with my brother and the lag was really bad in certain areas. Then a random person popped into my game and started and completed MY missions before I could even get to them. Really??? So I gave up, went back to the start menu and disabled public multilayer and just played single player. The lag stopped but it was not as fun as playing with other people. The game feels very unfinished and rushed, like 2 to 4 months early. This was such a big disappointment.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011This game has been jerking my d*** ever since I installed it. It has so many bugs and various issues that its difficult to separate what works properly from what doesn't. Non the less, the original release was a DevPort of the Xbox 360 version, but on top of that after the fix which "ported" back to the PC version all my savedata was destroyed and my special edition content was removed and the codes became invalid. Ill give it one point just because they managed to release it. That alone amazes me.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Dead Island,.. A big WOOOW. The game is beautiful, awesome storyline, stunning voiceacting, hilarious killing mechanism.
If you are one of those who likes zombies, and want to kill them like in Dead Rising, then this game is definitely for you. Deep Silver did an awesome job giving us a great opportunity to live the game environment like if we were the character and it allows to play with friend in co-op which is the key of the game success!!
This is one of the most expected games of this year (2011) and i'm enjoying every moment of it.
This game is worth every penny spend buying the game. Buy it and play with your friends!!
I'm promising you something, it will be one of your best experience when playing with your friend in co-op.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011In record time, Techland has taken most of the major bugs out of Dead Island, and it's finally playable, and I can assure you that you will love this game. The "paradise lost" environment you find yourself in is somewhat low-rez, but definitely does a good job of conveying the general feeling of Banoi, as the island is called. What really brings the whole island together, however, are the NPCs you come across. They react exactly like you would expect during a catastrophe, and no two are alike. Weapon wise, there are all kinds of pipes, paddles, divers knives, kitchen knives, sports equipment, and even some firearms end-game to keep you happy, and like Dead Rising 2, you can combine them in suprising ways to further increase your killing potential. Each character specializes in a certain type of weapon, and each of their skill trees vary widely. All in all, now that the glitches are less of a problem, I can now confidently say that this might be worth the buy.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011The PC version as of the time I write this review is just completely broken an unplayable. They have laid out a nice story about it being the wrong version an so forth. However I don't believe them since they already put a patch out that fixed nothing. The game is another bad console port cash grab that is all. Maybe in a few months it will be worth purchasing if your lucky.
But as of now I can only recommend that you do NOT buy this game. It is broken an not worth supporting. I only give it a 1 instead of 0 because at least I could get to the main menu. From there it just a screen torn stuttering mess that eventually starts to crash.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011The game is very fun when it works, and you can play with friends. Unfortunately, this is never. A patch and two re-downloads later, and the Steam version still fails to launch. More value can be found in a nugget of crack.
Sep 7, 2011I was very excited about the release of this game - I am very disappointed. As of right now, you cannot play this game. Every time I have tried, I have run into numerous bugs, and I quit, angry, one again.
On top of all that, the developer's press release about how they would fix the buggy release was entirely disingenuous - all they did was strip the debug information out of the game and comment out the keybindings for the debug keys - every single bug remains, and multiplayer is still broken.
Unacceptable. If I had paid $50 for anything else, I would get a refund but Steam does not issue those.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Okay i think everybody here was excited after the Trailer for this game. A Zombie game on an huge island with skilltrees, great atmosphere and a good story. But what we got is a broken pice of software released on Pc and consoles. First thing you realize : Bad graphics 5! years development for this? Just a bad joke Then the really awefull controls taking every fun out of this game when you try to move.
The next thing on the list is the fact you cant make your own character?Its 2011 guys, i dont wanna be a woman in a game about killing zombies on a island when i pick up a person who is skilled with firearms.
And the 2 worst points at all: The savingsystem AND the bugs.
You cant save your game whenever you want, if you die ( and its annoying i died several times because of bugs) you must start the level all over again.
Dont buy this game, just dont.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011First off, I have to say, do not even pay attention to the low user scores, They are simply pissed off impatiant people, and their reviews have nothing to do with the game. yes an extremely buggy wrong version was released on steam, But it was patched within a single day, The game runs great now as far as i can tell. Now about the game, it is a free roam zombie rpg game that takes place on a tropical island, basically everything i like about video games in one. However, the thing i like the most about dead island, is definitely the combat, The gorey zombie killing in this game feels more realistic than any other game i have played, Just the ability to chop off different limbs and kill zombies with numerous different weapons makes it that much more fun. Do not get this game confused with L4D, you do not kill 40 zombies with 1 shotgun blast like that game, At the beggining of the game you may even be overwhelmed by 4 or 5 zombies. But it feels like you are actually killing things and not just playing some arcade game. 10/10… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Not very good, the whole entire game seems to be a huge mess on the PC; Tons of glitches, crashes, and overall it just seems like a console port of a beta version. The story is pretty mediocre with sub-par writing, the voice acting is so bad (it's funny). Overall it just seems like there was so much lack of attention to detail. Hopefully the many problems that it has will be addressed with future patches, and then maybe I'd bump up the score to a 6 because the combat is pretty fun, but all the other problems just overshadow what this game did well.
Too bad, I was looking forward to this game.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Having been expecting a turkey having seen "Call of Juarez 3 : The Cartel" (using the same Chrome5 engine), I was pleasantly happy to see this is pretty good. About 2 hours into the game and I find the crafting decent (nice to see pockets are not limited for crafting parts, only main weapons), Co-Op seems to be similar to idea in Borderlands (Harder and more zombies and loot for every player that joins in) in that even solo mode is advertised as a LAN or Online game through Steam so folk can join if you want them to without need for solo and multi characters. Slighty disappointed with lack of customising on the graphics settings, maxed out in 1080p FRAPS was reporting 145fps which is impressive, but I'd rather have it limited to 60fps and better quality textures and tessalation for Dx11 owners etc. Overall the game does add a new zombie game to the collection and it's a worthy choice, unlike rubbish like dead rising 2 or resident evil 5 which suck.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011Great potential, but releasing a game with such a massive number of bugs kills any hype that was created for it. In this day and age the developers have to be aware to hold off release dates when the product is incomplete, as is certainly the case with this game.
Sep 7, 2011If your computer can run this game without any problems, then buy this game!
This is the best zombie game I have ever played, It has 4 player coop, amazing graphics, and fun, zombie-killing action!
I played this game ALL NIGHT the day it came out (Monday at 9pm on steam).
My friend and I just played and played, killing hundreds of zombies.
This is a very fun game, if your comp can handle it (luckily mine can).
BUY IT NOW… Expand
Sep 8, 2011Immersed on a zombie island in a more realistic approach. While having to repair my weapons on a regular basis may get monotonous it pushes me to be more selective and focus my skills in an intelligent way. Those who are sipping "hate-orade" on this game need to lighten up. It's got a great setting, good looking gameplay, and very fun. It's worth the purchase.
Sep 8, 2011It's a real shame. Been waiting on this for a long time. I was assured over and over that it would NOT be a console port. The game is released and it's most definitely a console port.
- clunky controls using a keyboard, would probably feel right with a controller.
- just like easy mode in Half Life 2, the game insists on helping you aim. There is no way to turn this off because it is a staple of console games.
- The FOV is setup for a television and cannot be changed, for some reason it thinks your pc is a console.
- The menus don't support a mouse, they do however support a controller or the movement keys. - Changing weapons is a breeze... if you have a controller. They use a circle menu like you'd find on any console game.
- There are 4 different attacks... if you are using a controller set to digital. If you're using a keyboard there's 1.
- The first version released had tons of references to xbox controls and xbox live stuff. The first patch released removed all the references that the game is a port.
There are bugs but big whoop, bugs can be ironed out. The console port problems this game suffers from will probably never be able to be remedied.
I have nothing against consoles, but I do have a problem with console ports that have little thought as to how someone with a mouse/keyboard will be playing the game.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011Latest patches have made this game functional and I'm actually enjoying it. The combat dynamics are fun and Multiplayer is working fairly consistently now. Still crashes occasionally. All in all I'm bumping my review and rating of it up but for the price this game cost, it could have and should have been better. More use of ragdoll physics (try running over a zombie... they shouldn't keep their footing like that). Also, the world feels very static. Static spawn points that are easy to memorize for all the best XP earning spots. The simplest objects can stop a vehicle cold when they should be breaking. Gameplay and story line are too linear for an 'open world'. I'd rather have an open ended solution to my final victory or final defeat.… Expand
Sep 8, 2011Alright, this is gonna be a long one. All in all, this is a fun game. I'm gonna give a LOT of negatives and few positives, but the positives I give are really big, and the negatives are very minor. So while at first glance this is gonna look like a hate speech, in the end, I do enjoy this game. Before I start off I'm just gonna say - this is a long review. to sum it up - Combat is great, tons of minor things that will annoy the hell out of you if you're half as nuts as I am. If you want more examples, then let's get started.
Positives: The combat in this game is downright fantastic. I love it. every weapon has an individual feel but they all feel weighted and realistic. when I smash a zombie with my oar or stab it with a kitchen knife, it feels like an actual weapon. the graphics for combat are much better than the graphics for everything else, and the engine really shines when the player cuts a limb off. (excuse the graphic details-who am I kidding, you guys are here for a zombie killing game). I feel compelled to play the game simply so I can kill some more zombies. Another large positive is the world. It feels alive and dynamic, in that there's places you can go that have their own minor stories that aren't (so far) connected with anything regarding the plot and are just put in to give the world flavor - coming upon a room with a zombie tied to a bed and a dead man next to the struggling zombie comes to mind, for example. People (most, anyway) react realistically for an apocalypse, and the large majority of the people in the safe houses are terrified because *guess what*, they're just average people, not everyone is a zombie killer like it feels sometimes in other zombie games. Anyway: The Negatives: This game is ABSURDLY unpolished. Like, really unpolished. I play as a female character, and several conversations have the other person refer to me as a he. Shadows in the game are blocky and odd, and I have all of my settings turned to maximum. There's a certain part in the hotel where I could literally see a dark part of the hallway - it was cut off from the rest of it, there was an actual line of darkness. that's just basic phasing to make the shadow bleed into the rest of the world, a weird graphics problem. Yes I know these are minor gripes, I said in the beginning that most of my negatives are very picky, remember. Another minor gripe - and this one is really pointless. You pay for repairs, which is understandable...but you're paying a repair table. Not a person. What? Like just...where does the money go? Driving in this game also, was designed by a team of people just learning to drive. Because it's very realistic, in that it's the view of being in the car. That's great, until you have to go in reverse and smash the car into the wall behind you. I feel like an imbecile when driving simply because I can't look all the way behind me like I would when *actually driving*. Also the car makes skidding noises....regardless of the speed you're going. Which is weird. Another thing (slightly more important) weapon durability is really, really frustrating. An average weapon breaks in about thirty swings, which is at most ten zombies. Less important - two odd things with the female characters. First, they're all in bikinis. Sure sure, they're on a beach vacation. Fine. Five hours into an apocalypse and they can't grab a shirt from somewhere or something? Seriously. Also, almost every single one of the female avatars have an mp3 player on their arm. Random I know, but it freakin' weirds me out. Another thing: Voice acting. Terrible. Also it seems like it's on a different audio channel from everything else, when I say yes or no to a quest. Strange. So yes, my negatives section was much much larger than my positives, but the positives were much more important than the negatives. In the end, I suggest one of two things: If this game sounds like the perfect match for you, get it. GET IT RIGHT NOW. Otherwise, wait a few months for the price to drop a bit - I definitely suggest anyone who loves zombie games to get this, but unless you reaaally hate zombies, you may want to wait for the price tag to drop. If you do buy it, good luck killing the infected, and maybe I'll see you guys in game. Cheers =]… Expand
Sep 8, 2011First off to all the pc people saying that they dont buy into the accidental release of the wrong version, The console version works just fine. While this game has its bugs (which one doesnt) it still is a great game nonetheless. Now I can see how its boring if youre playing by yourself, but it encourages multiplayer so get some friends together. I enjoy dead island quite a bit and i believe alot of people just wanted some kind of instant gratification zombie killing game, like L4D. While L4D is fantastic, this is quite a bit different, and it was meant to be. I love the fallout games, and borderlands, and this is a great crossing of both games. While Deep Silver isnt a giant company, it shows in the games overall quality, while not fantastic, it gets the job done. This game obviously wasnt a big budget title like the CoD series, or valves L4D, so im giving Deep Silver credit for doing a damn good job with what they had. All in all i love it and will be enjoying it with friends (and solo) for many months to come… Expand
Sep 8, 2011Way too much motion blur and head bobbing for me. The developers were clearly going for an immersive, first-person experience here, but every little thing you do, whether it's looting a container, opening a door or attacking a zombie has the screen shaking all over the place and every little twitch causes huge motion blur. Add to that the usual "raspberry jam" overlay effect every time you're injured and it just makes the screen a colluded mess. Perhaps this is fine for console gamers sitting on their couches 10 feet from the screen, but when you're staring at your PC monitor 1.5 feet away from your nose, I found it to be too much.
There's other console elements like button mashing mini-game annoyances to do various things (kick open a jammed door, push a zombie off of you). I was hoping for more of an RPG feel, but got more of an action/adventure console port.
It's also not that open world. Sure, there's various buildings around the island but you can't enter them. Sure, there's an ocean out there but you can't swim in it ("Turn back! You're leaving the play area!"). Do I even need to mention the abundance of tribal, barbed-wire tattoos and piercings on everyone and the D-grade rap music? Eh, teenage boys rejoice I guess.… Expand
Oct 8, 2011Whilst the idea of the game itslef is good. The exexcution once more was rather average. Innumerable glitches dragged this game down. Let alone the fact that at the very last stage of the game, whilst fighting the boss, the game decides to crap itself making it unplayable, whilst only using up half of my processor and ram power..
Really wish people would put time into making a smooth engine and fix the hundreds of bugs glitches in the game, it is so annoying. Over all the game starts of great, but finishes in a disgraceful manner.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011First how anyone can review a title moments after it is released is beyond me. Did you idiots that gave it a low score even bother to try to play the game or read the forums to get help? There was a major problem with the initial download, and the devs are working on correcting that. That said, there ARE some bugs in the game, but isn't there bugs in all games on initial release? So my review is about the single player experience (since my MP player wasn't working and I didn't care at the moment). This is review is about the game, not about me crying about how disappointing that a certain thing wasn't in the game that I expected. First I'll start with the pros: zombie head bashing. There is a lot of that. I love that. Open word: I can go where I want and kill zombies wherever I want. I like that. Plenty of weapons and health lying around. I like that, because I hate dying constantly. Good graphics (but nothing I haven't seen) I'm fine with that. Seems like there are plenty of missions (including side missions). I like that too! If I were to sum this up positively I'd have to say this is almost like fallout has met the zombie apocalypse with a pinch of left of 4 dead added for spice. So far I have been enjoying the single player experience and the game is very well made. There is a variety of zombies that get harder as you level up. I like the idea of being able to mod my weapons. Now for the cons. The money system is kind of odd, but it works for this game, because the devs give you plenty of it so you don't have to wait long to start modding your weapons and upgrading them. The voice acting at times is LOL funny. Some of missions are quite pointless and off the wall stuff (luck getting a grown woman her teddy bear because she can't sleep), but they add to the time you get to run around exploring and bashing in zombie heads. I've hit a few invisible walls along the way but was able to get around them. At release multilayer over the internet was pretty much unplayable (at the time of this review), but a patch has been promised so soon I will get to play along side friends. Overall this game is fun, entertaining, game play is well thought out and enjoyable. I've played for several hours and it looks like I've just barely scratched the surface. It is just uncalled for giving this game a 0 or 1 because they accidentally released a dev version of the game on launch day. Most of the people doing that are trolls that have not even played the game yet. My advice though is wait until a week after launch then buy it. All this mess will be sorted out by then and you will have fun playing this game.… Expand
Sep 9, 2011The game itself is and was great. There's no denying that I loved the game and what it has to offer. But after the rush of enjoying the zombie filled world you start to realize there are a lot of problems. The main problem being they shipped with a debug build of the game, which was basically a version they sent to microsoft built for the xbox 360, to find this out hurt me pretty bad, i'm very upset that they'd say to us and reassure us that our pc version is NOT A PORT, but look what happens, yes I know people make mistakes and the debug version on steam may just be an accident, but it's annoying, especially after waiting such a long time to finally play the game. I finally finished the game this morning and am happy to say I loved it and I cannot wait to go through and play it again with all the characters. When everything in the game works (co-op, graphics settings) it brings out the best in the game and it's fantastic.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011good idea, just expect the graphics to be so much better, as for the whole wrong version release i just don't buy it. the patch really didn't do much, also can not connected and play with friends unless we setup a VPN 1st. what happen with working with steam-works? i almost feel ripped off i expected a lot more for my 50 bucks, maybe after Friday everything will be patched up and working correctly but till then this game is almost a let down.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Released version was a developer's debug copy, and ran incredibly bad on my system. After the first day patch all my progress was removed, and the game is now completely unplayable due to lag, stuttering, and freezing issues. Combined with the fact that online Co-Op doesn't work, nearly every reason I had to own this game is completely gone until it is fix, eventually. Either way, the release points to shoddy management and QA from a company that just seems to not care.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Dead Island is a grounding breaking game in the zombie genre. The graphics engine provides a truly beautiful landscape that causes the player to become fully immersed in the apocalypse. The game combines a lot of elements from a lot of other good successful games - It is a combination of games like Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3, and Borderlands. Gameplay itself is exhilarating and fresh. The games begins as you learn the mechanics by taking amateur weapons like a paddle to defend yourself against a few walking undead. As the game progresses and players learn how to work together and coordinate themselves against zombie attacks, the game seems easier and more relaxing in such a beautiful landscape. The chapter one "tutorial" then begins for real - difficultly ramps up once players begin to become skilled with one another, and it no longer is a "4 player hunting party" but a "4 player party fight for survival." Zombies become faster and more horrifying. You no longer clear a building for all its loot, but run from place to place picking up scavenged objects to simply stay alive. The game works well - you eventually develop a healthy paranoia and almost never feel safe at every turn, which leads to a great adrenaline filled experience. Even better, this great experience lasts a long time...I have more than 20 hours played and still haven't even scratched more than half of the game content. The game has a high replay value with four character classes each with three separate skill trees. The only negative point I can add about the game is that its not a single player game. Its not meant for single player. As difficulty ranks up it would be extremely challenging to survive the undead by yourself...and the developers know this and even implemented an easy to use system to meet new people in case you don't have friends. If you do have friends that play games Dead Island is a must get for all of you. Nothing is a better cooperative experience than screaming at the top of your lungs in pure horror because your friends can't drive the getaway vehicle fast enough, or aren't climbing to safety in time for your own demise. A person reading these reviews may wonder why a game as great as this has such a mixed response, and the reason why is because many people downloaded an incorrect version of the game. Since the real version is now out, players can enjoy an ENTIRELY bug free game that is a must have for 2011.… Expand
Sep 7, 2011Launch Bugs aside, Dead Island is exactly what the title says. More like Dead Boring. Has great elements for an ORPG however, executed rather poorly with a wonky statistical weapon combat system and very simple designed enemies. Game barely challenges the player and most obstacles are products of a mistake made by the player, not good game design. Another graphical beauty with l poor game play execution. Also, horrible execution of the storyline.… Expand
Jul 7, 2012This game had a lot going for it, but for me it bombed. The combat feels clunky and oddly limited. The use of stamina is ok, but it is too low. Weapon range for melee seems oddly short with items that would otherwise have a greater swing arc. Damage scale for Player vs NPC is terrible, a zombie can hit you with it's fist and take half your health were as a shotgun blast to the zombie's head doesn't. Story is so so, typical zombie out break, graphics are ok, physics could use some improvements. Some zombies seem to run through walls, barricades etc. Knock back with certain weapons needs another pass as well. A hit from a sledge should knock someone to the ground. The RPG idea is a good one, but the route this one takes just doesn't fancy my taste.… Expand
Sep 9, 2011Good idea, poorly implemented. Graphics are not that great for a Pc title. There are SO many bugs/crashes its not funny. This is a poor console port, the UI and inventory may work on the xbox, but its very poor on the PC. This could have been so much more than the mess it is.
Sep 8, 2011Trust the critics on this one! By the time you've read this, you might already have heard about the problems @ release. That seems to be the main complaint with people. Since after the patch everything works just fine, this complaint is no longer valid.
What is Dead Island? Its smashing zombies heads in with hundreds of different weapons, with different stats and levels (unique and special weapons ). Its upgrading your weapons with your hard earned cash.
It's by far the best look'n'feel I've seen in a melee fps ever ( go f... yourself oblivion )
Its collecting blue prints for special weapon mods ( simple, but effective and fun crafting system ). Its tons and tons of loot. Its dozens of sidequests, plus an athmospheric main quest. Its collecting XP for an unexpectedly interesting skill tree.
Its managing the deteriorating conidtion of your weapons.
Its a kick ass intro song.
Its..... all kinds of crazy fun. All that in an engine with virtually no loading times and a smooth framerate even at high settings. Now there are some bad things aswell. The driving, being very very arcade, doesnt count to the games strengths. BUT: a) youll be on foot like 99% of the time, since this no gta clone. b) if you need the car its effective and brings you safely from a to b...in these moments you wont regret this not being gran tourismo c) C'mon guys, the protagonist shatters the windshield when it's cracked like the thoughtful bastard he/she is - thats gotta count for something :)
Also something PC players ( like me ) might dislike: theres no quicksave/load option since the game relies on checkpoints only. But since I'm usually a quicksave spammer, I appreciate the change of pace. This game is easily one of the best Zombie/Infected ( minispoiler ) games out there and has to mentioned along with games like left 4 dead and dead rising. But be advised ( or intrigued ): this game has a gore factor of Dead Space * Bloodymess Perk ( Fallout series ).… Expand
Sep 7, 2011There's a lot of polish missing; but the fundamental game play (particularly the co-op), is a lot of fun. I give the game a solid 'B' grade. I've only played the game co-op, and can't comment on the single player. Pros: -Melee combat feels right, zombies are not paper-weights ala Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead. At least in the early stages, getting surrounded is a quick recipe for dying. -It's a lot of fun just fighting and exploring the environment. Cons: -Re-spawn mechanic. There's little consequence to dying. There should be a revive mechanic in place for multiplayer. Simply respawning minus some money is too trivial a death penalty. -Graphical glitches-some textures and character facial animations could have used more polish. -Voice acting could be better -Day one bugs... particularly on steam.… Expand
Sep 6, 2011NOTE: The original build that was released was an internal development build and was accidentally uploaded to Steam as opposed to the finished version of the game. Deep Silver/Techland are currently in the process of distributing a patch on Steam that should update the game to it's actual release build.
Sep 15, 2011this game is a smash hit ive played for over 5 hr and have yet to see a bug played by yourself its scary as hell but with a friend or two it the most fun ive ever had on a game and ive been at it before pong its funny to see how many give it neg reviews but yet its top of the steam sale's maybe its time to upgrade your computers or stop thinking a game is gona launch bug free. I just got this sep 6 and it running like butter max settings on my 4 yr old dell inspiron computer with only a so so video card upgrade… Expand
Sep 9, 2011When I first saw Dead Island's trailer I was shocked, then I saw the previews and once I realized it was similar to Borderlands, then I knew I had to play this game!
Being Borderlands co-op one of my favourite games ever, I can say Dead Island's multi player is FUN, The whole zombie Hunting with 3 friends idea makes this game a very enjoyable -and scary!- experience to play! I am loving it so far!… Expand
Sep 10, 2011The idiot children here giving the game a negative rep bomb are all basing their ratings on the fact the game launched on PC with an incorrect version and a few bugs, ALL OF WHICH have been fixed and sorted out now. Do not take the word of a bunch of 13 year old crybabies with cheap computers that fail to run this game. If you like Borderlands-style gameplay, and really visceral gory zombie melee, and an incredibly rewarding game to play with friends this really can't be beat. Do not listen to all of these retards.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011I really wanted Dead Island to be a good game, but I had my doubts. I was very pumped after that infamous first trailer, but my faith in the game went down from there. It is hard to screw up an open-world zombie game - and Deep Silver almost did. Luckily, Dead Island turned out to be an addictive and well-rounded RPG. I can tell that this game will be a strong guilty pleasure of mine for months to come.… Expand
Jun 2, 2012Incredibly buggy. The good art and fight idea are spoiled by the most braindead programming "abilities" of the industry. Where can you hire such incompetent "programmers"? Is it necessary to be drunk to write so bad software?.
They must hire:
- someone capable to understand mouse basics. Just the basics.
- another programmer whose code doesn't delete your progress every week.
- a good manager, to fire the responsibles of the disaster.… Expand
Sep 6, 201112am: Game launch with wrong build. 3am: I fix it and can play for hours 10am: I close and come back to an updated, completely broken game. Ran fine before, now it stutters and hangs and my save file is corrupted. I want my money back and to be compensated for my lost time. Class action lawsuits might be needed in this case.
Sep 12, 2011If you are looking for a decent co-op this IS your game. I was playing with this game with 2 of my friends and I tell you we are having a real blast. There is nothing original in the game so to say, but it has every classic bit of zombie films including references.
The graphic as others mentioned before: the humans animations are flat out horrible, the zombies look great however. The environment is gorgeous we stopped several times and said: wow while taking screen shots. The game has 5 different type of environment through the story and it does not feel rushed.
The sound and background ambiance together with the music is also very very good.
The bugs: I was lucky enough to play with the after-patch version only and played through the whole game without anything game breaking.… Expand
Sep 12, 2011I can't believe that some people give this a stupidly low score because of a couple of minor bugs. This game is great and is far less buggy on the day of release than so many big games I have played lately! Anyone remember Black Ops - unplayable for over a week! For me, the only bugs I have seen is a couple of floating objects (which loads of games have lately) and I can't kick the sandcastles over (which is not a bug but a shame). My mate who has AMD GFX had issues with some lighting, but that will do down to AMD drivers and not the game as it is perfect on my NV card.
Back to Dead Island... it works like a cross between Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead set in Crysis - it's great fun. The story and the characters are pretty good and the fighting is awesome. The game is very pretty, but set on a pacific island it's hard not to be pretty - but that aside, the graphics are done well but they are quite intensive.
Can't wait to get home and play this again!… Expand
Sep 7, 2011"Meh" pretty much sums up the quality of this game, which is unfortunate given how long we all waited for it. The island itself is beautiful: swaying trees, water moving about in realistic waves, and some incredible lighting. They really nailed the atmosphere here. The graphics aren't my complaint (although some of the indoor areas are particularly underwhelming).
My biggest complaint with this game is that it's just very shallow. I find myself skipping all the cutscenes and conversations simply because the characters are so insipid and one dimensional. It's as if they designed the entire game and then thought to themselves the day before release, "wait, shouldn't we have a story?" And I get it: this game isn't about the story, it's about killing zombies, but the novelty of running around bashing heads of the undead wears off rather quickly when it's the only thing the game has to offer.
The interface is tacky and unnecessary at times. The stamina bar is intrusive and appears in the bottom center of the screen every time you so much as sprint. The zombies have their own healthbars and, each time they're hit, you see "+7 XP, +25XP, etc." which really kills the atmosphere (but this can be disabled).
Another complaint I have is that there's no day/night cycle, nor is there a weather cycle. Granted, certain parts of the game take place at different parts of the day with some variety in weather, but it seems like having a day/night cycle in an open-world RPG would be a given.
I was also thoroughly unimpressed with the "multi-layer damage system". I simply haven't seen it. Little variety in the wounds zombies can obtain and, if you smash a zombie's head, it's smashed in the same exact pose every time. There are plenty of rewards for leveling up and the zombies level up with you in a Borderlands-esque fashion, which is nice. And the weapon customization system is quite useful, although the weapons break far too quickly.
I'm crunched for time right now, but all-in-all, I ended up really disappointed with how this game turned out, but I'm excited to see the mods that the Dead Island community will create.… Expand
Sep 8, 2011I've never played a game with so many bugs in my life. Every quest is has a 50/50 chance of being bugged depending on probably 500 factors. Obviously they rushed the game which was a huge mistake. I will never buy a game from this company again. It has no plot, and after 10 hours of trying to make it fun, I would rather have worked on a coal mine, or been water boarded. It's that terrible.
Sep 8, 2011Awful, terrible, repetative and dull. Obviously a console port. Cutting off a zombies head should never get old, but it does and fast. Pirate the game if you ae curious like I was, but for the love of Allah, don't buy this guff!
Sep 9, 2011This is a great game!
Your on an island filled with zombies, how can it get any better?
While its kind of a pain to join coop, I did figure it out.
Dont pay attention to the bad reviews, those are just people with crap comps that cant play.
Sep 10, 2011Truly disappointing. Completely lacking in depth, as the 18 hours of game play consists of walking around picking things up and returning them to whoever asked. I recall 6 different types of zombies and they must have around 3 different sounds. Not to mention walking around you'll find about four zombies standing around so it really doesn't feel so realistic. The first level area is fun and feels well designed but after that it is apparently rushed, with even some missing textures. The game also will fail to immerse players in the story on-line as whoever accepts the quest can skip the story leaving other players in game clueless. Audio problems, Networking problems with huge lag or game crashes, No mouse support so your lovely gaming mouse buttons aren't supported, and, as it is a console port you'll find the in game mouse cursor VERY irritating (especially if you like a low mouse sensitivity). Add on top of that weapons that break after about 10 hits and one attack move you have a rather tedious game. Its a shame as they could have made this insanely good. If only they spent as much on the game as they did on the original trailer!… Expand
Nov 26, 2011I was greatly disappointed with this game. Honestly this game could do with another few months in development before it's in anyway fun. It is a shame as the game has so much untapped potential but the developers obviously rushed it and that is where things go wrong. Firstly the graphics are fairly good, amazing normally but there are several things that stand out. Faces are rendered terribly and the supposedly sexy bikini models sometimes look really old. The pick-up truck is also badly rendered. Game-play is quite good but the characters and level system is pretty much a direct rip-off to Borderlands. When I heard of this game I thought I would be able to create a character to escape the zombie apocalypse but no, each character is pre-designed and offer very little customization. Also their background stories are far from average every day people creating some distance from the zombie game most were expecting. The sound and music are not impressive either. Can't really say much else. The voice acting is terrible, the music is practically non-existent and the sound is buggy. Overall the game is terrible and barely playable. i suffered a bug for 2 weeks on my game where I actually couldn't save the game at all. This game needs taking back to hte drawing board, taking apart with a chainsaw and put back together with time and patience. Then, maybe, we could have the amazing game that we should have got.… Expand
Jan 6, 2012I was hoping this would be as good as left 4 dead based on the trailer if not better.
Sadly not!
The game simply involves endlessly running around doing mundane tasks. I think the lack of weapons at the start only added to this boredom.
To me this is definitely a lazy console ported game rather than a pc game
Jan 12, 2012This is one of those games you need to grab 3 friends and sit back and enjoy the ride! Played right through loving every bit of it, because even if a couple of parts are boring your mates come to the rescue and brighten it up! The gore is beautiful, some scenes are so nice they actually made me stop just to take a good look. So many people would of played this solo or with randoms and I feel they're just missing out on what could of been an awesome experience. I can tell I'll be picking this up again after a while :) 10/10.… Expand
Jun 2, 2012I was suspicious about that game from the start. In one hand was really teased with trailers where you smash zombies with everything you can found. But in other hand I was skeptical about gameplay and overall feeling.
Because of that I was waiting for Steam 66% off to buy this. I was not wrong. This game is not worth paying full price. I would be more happy if I would pass that one.
Sep 9, 2011I have been having loads of fun since Dead Islands shakey launch techland takes zombie smashing to a whole new level with a epic damage system and RPG goodness all coverd in a nice FPS wrapper. The shipped steam version was origanaly a buggy dev copy of the game but was quickly patched. Any launch bugs will be forgiven the first time you smack a zombie with a blunt object and his arm bone breaks and juts out of his arm in slow motion then if you want to realy over do it break their other arm and kick them over and laugh while they squirm and try to prop themselfs up with their usless limbs. Slashing weapons are just as visceral opening huge gashes and lopping heads arms and legs alike. Dead Island was built for 1 to 4 players. Difficulty seamlessly scales to your specific number of players and level so the action stays ballanced. Overall if you like killing zombies and you like RPGs and shooters this is your game 9/10 for a shakey launch and bugs.… Expand
Aug 25, 2012cut a long story short: this game has a lot of potential but ultimately it falls flat on it's zombie nose. the mission system is broken. soemtimes the map marker does not work so you do not know what do to next and have to to do the ENTIRE MISSION all over again. this is completely unacceptable in a 2011 release. moreover the inventory system sucks so hard and was so obviously designed for consoles instead of a PC. last but not least the story doesn' go anywhere (well at least not after having played for 7 hours!)… Expand
Sep 10, 2011Im in III act. I played the game with 2 friends on coop. I picked up sort of "tank" character and i was mostly using 2H weapons. I gotta say, apart from nice graphics and some cool body chopping effects, this game isn't worth the money.
As a L4Dead fan and CoD5 zombie mod fun, i expected more variety, customizing and coop missions, but it's SIMPLY BORING. You pick up a quest, kill 20 zombies, get quest item, kill 20 zombies again on the road back, return quest, get sucky reward, that's it.
This is pretty much the whole game. Other then that, the number of available weapons is just SAD. I wanted to get huge hammer to smash things, i've got lvl 31 and still after checking all the "vendors" there's NOTHING new. Just "old" weapons for higher level. Sad really.
One big plus for this game, is it's climate. You really feel in danger, the people are fighting to survive and it's great. But this is like only plus along with pretty decent graphics.
More coms : a lot of graphic BUGS, glitches, disappearing textures, artifacts in cutscenes. I mean, really? Did anyone from the dev's play the game before the release? Seems like they didn't.
All in all, as a person that played it in coop mode for the last 3 days, i do not recommend buying it. I had some fun, but i just can't imagine playing it solo, it must be devastating after 1 h gameplay.
Get Left4dead 2 instead, there are lods of mods and maps for it, it's not so "open" as Dead Island , but definately it's worth its money.… Expand
Oct 2, 2011Once you get past the novelty in the first hour or so, it becomes a brain dead trudge to victory **** you dont even have to know what your doing half the time. Not to mention the plot is of the calibre of an 11y/o's attempt at creative writing. Total waste of money :(
Aug 22, 2012I got this game on discount and I got interested in this game for a while. I installed it and finally started the game...and now after 20 hours and more of gaming, I really notice why this game wasn't all that greatness they mentioned in the past. The best way to describe this game is that it's a hybrid between Skyrim/Oblibion and Borderlands, even though it doesn't completely work at its finest. However there are positive things: I actually like the fact that you're a survivor against a zombie infection and the fact that you're basically stuck on a island and you have to kill any zombie you cross even though the scare factor completely dies because this island is never in the dark and the zombies never stop coming, meaning that you won't have any growing tension or unexpected meeting. The 4 characters aren't extremely different with the exception of their main weapon skills (blunt weapons,blades, thrown weapons and guns) but they differ enough to be interesting to play all of them. There's also a story but I hardly followed because I was focusing on the game itself and the quests (like in any WRPG). The island isn't "huge" but it's big enough that you'll take some time to explore it all, especially when you need to find materials for making your modified weapon, which is a nice addition...but it's extremely hard to make those weapons. However, I do have 3 big complaints in this game and, to me, they are BIG flaws that ruins my game. A lot. First of all, the controls are clunky...I understand they tried to make this as much realistic as possible but I'm pretty sure I can move and walk AND fight better than them! The combat for instance is very harsh because you don't have a huge range, understandable since your main weapons are melee weapons, but you don't feel in control of your swings and you can easily miss zombies because of the slow pace the characters have! Without mentioning that you can't parry (at least I never could, if there is one) and your dodge is hard to use and has a really weak range...plus it's useless since you need to be in melee range ALL the time and you'll only use it once in a while to avoid sudden attacks from the zombies. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but the controls aren't my favorite part here. And no, I can't try analog controls, so I can't say if that's good or not. Second: your energy never recovers in time....really? I don't get why I don't recover my health, especially when they just hit me with fists! Yes there are some zombies that hit with weapons and you'll sometime fight men with guns, but this is still a big problem because the zombies HIT HARD! I've died a lot of time because they can easily 3-4 shot me, and add the fact that you're always in numerical disadvantage, you cannot parry and dodge sometimes it's useless since some zombies can run faster than you you can see big problems on the way The only way to recover health is to eat and drink food or use first aid kits, which are rare to find but luckily not costy to buy, but I don't get why our energy never gets back with just resting or waiting (and no, it's not because we're infected): it basically says "gunshots can be easily recovered with few seconds of resting (the general fps idea), but fists? They hurt you more, so you need a lot of cheap food to recover!". I don't know, maybe I'm taking it too seriously. And third: the game seems a lot short: I've played for almost 23 hours and I'm at 70% of the game...and I've done PLENTY of quests, so that means that the game itself it's even shorter! Of course the game will be longer if you manage to do all the quests and the problems I've mentioned will disappear if you play in co-op, which is very well implemented, without mentioning that it makes the game a lot longer too, but even Borderlands had a longer main quest! It's still longer than the average game but my guess is that if you want to make it last long, you have to do quests or else it won't last very much, which is a pity. I liked the game though but It's not the best I've seen: it looks like an attempt to copy both Borderlands questing system and Oblivion combat, but making one weird hybrid that doesn't really shine in either side...so my advice is to stick with either those 2 games (which are ten times bigger also) or you can give this game a try if you want to play something different...… Expand
Sep 15, 2011Best Zombie Game Evar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!… Expand
Sep 10, 2011Although I haven't completed the game yet, I can safely say it is a good one. I've played around 11 hrs so far and love it. It really has that sense of actual survival to it, searching for items, money, food etc (except for only losing a bit of money and re spawning near where you died.) And being able to modify and create weapons but not to the retarded extent that Dead Rising 2 did with weapon modifications. I personally didn't experience any of the bugs and issues that a lot of people seem to have, and the only thing I don't like is that there is no v-sync option (only minor though). It's nice too to have a different setting, as the game is set in Papua New Guinea not the typical American setting etc. The developer techland, has managed to create a good and well fitting atmosphere for a zombie apocalypse.
Co-op is extremely fun, and the drop in drop out co op for me has worked flawlessly with no issues at all. Certainly a worthwhile purchase… Expand
Sep 10, 2011Very very fun game with friends. If you can get past some of the game breaking bugs, ugly HUD, terrible voice acting, hilariously bad "tragic" moments then its worth a purchase.
Sep 25, 2011regression the early hours of a zombie infection Dead Island: regrea a classic zombies. could play this out from the mind of George A. Romero, rarely find loading screens, ensuring free exploration few are accustomed to first-person games with melee weapons, but I liked the change ami to other games ... he usually does worse in some cases
Sep 9, 2011Dead Island started out pretty rough. A developer build was released for steam users in NA that was incredibly buggy, and had developer tools like no clip and third person view. A quick patch was released the next day to update steam to the right build, but in the process corrupted game saves, created micro stuttering , and other graphical issues.
Once 1.1 and 1.2 patches were released a lot of the problems were fixed, not all but enough for the game to work as intended. However soon afterwards the stress on the multiplayer servers caused them to be overloaded and the awful in game multiplayer join system stopped working or just became super unreliable.
On top of the techincal problems with the game there's a lack of graphic options that are easily changeable. No menu options for AA, FOV, filtering options, vsync, etc. The settings you can change in the menus don't have enough options. like shadow quality for example: high setting in the menu is pretty low at max, now if you go into the games files and make changes to video settings setting shadow map size higher the shadows are much better quality. The menus also exclude setting/changing options that the engine supports. Like FOV you can find workarounds to change FOV in the games files but the menu lacks these options. Why Techland doesn't allow users to set these options through the menu is a puzzling question.
The game also lacks default support for modern game technology like SLI, crossfire, and multi-monitor setups. SLI and crossfire can be enabled with tweaks, but doesn't work from the start. When using a 3 monitor setup the game uses one monitor to display a huge mini map. While Dead Island technically works multi monitors the UI and way its displayed could have been done far better.
So I've explained a lot that is bad about Dead Island, but whats good? Well for one once the game is tweaked and working, the game does look good. Animations could be a lot better, but you normally don't see the weird moving unless looking at your shadow.
The game is a ton of fun and that's ultimately the most important factor. I had a lot of fun playing multiplayer with friends running and exploring an island full of zombies that want to take a bite out of your face. Killing zombies with melee weapons really never gets old. The ways to do so are also many. Want to smash a zombie with a paddle? no problem. Jump kick them down, then smash their head in? You can do that as well. Want to rig a baseball bat with a circular saw? Go for it! Which brings me to crafting.
Crafting in the game revolves around finding or being rewarded with a blueprint, find the items needed and make a weapon, the quality of the main part(s) define the quality of the new item. every item has stats. so if i used a crummy bat to make a mace, that mace is going to be worse then if i used a superior bat in the design.
Another well done thing in the game is the damage system. Like fallout 3 body parts have HP and can be destroyed. For example I walked up to zombie hit her arm and broke it. then I kicked her down, she attempted to get up but because of the broken arm she fell flat on her face again. When she finally managed to stand back up i broke her other arm, so instead of hitting me she attempted to bite at me.
Game play is advanced through a quest system like an RPG there are quest hubs that you move in between and every now and then you'll discover a quest how in the world, like a man trapped by zombies you must save. Each hero you play has a unique back story and talent tree, and although you are playing a hero that is a gun expert your not forced only to use guns. The classes are flexible and unique in different ways. While not as dramatic as the trailers for the game, the sense of urgency and "zombie apocalypse" feel is done well, survivors are disturbed and scared by the nights events. You feel like danger is all around you as you explore the island.
Despite the games draw backs, issues, and rough release, Dead Island deep down is a great game. Once you can overlook the bad and see the good the game is a blast, multiplayer is definitely a huge part of the game. With support for 4 player co-op that scales in difficulty and a length of around 25-30 there's a lot of fun to be had with this game.… Expand
Sep 9, 2011Everyone has heard by now that Dead Island may be a bit buggy, but im playing the UK PC release, and after putting in 5 hours already I can honestly say its one of my favourite games of the year. Great graphics, very addictive gameplay, awesome weapon crafting, great combat (its nice not just shooting stuff from a distance, getting up close makes it way more hectic!), loads and loads to do, nice rpg elements. Im playing this maxxed out on the PC and it looks stunning, so far my top- game of the year!… Expand
Sep 9, 2011Simply the best zombie game to date. The combat feels very visceral with the game's outstanding damage models. A constant sense of struggle and survival makes this a very solid buy for either a single-player or multi-player experience.
Sep 10, 2011Good game at best, not great. This is from single player experience and am disregarding bugs for the rating. I give it a 7 tops maybe as low as 6.5 based on the gameplay and story alone amongst other things I finish the game. This game is largely melee based with a few gunplay moments Let's talk about the good things first -Lengthy game, can't beat in one day. -Good challenge, sorry no easy mode. I died sometimes during certain main quests
-The graphics are good, however lacking more advanced graphical options. A bit too much bloom.
-Good skill tree for each character; helps create a "build"
-Lots of weapons and mods, some only attainable through sidequests
-The city and jungle environment looked good, reasonably detailed
-Driving is fun
-Combat is good. Can cut off limbs or break limbs, creating a use of strategy when fighting.
-Always zombies around, endless population
-Can carry infinite misc items that are not weapons,heath and throwables
-Never safe, doesn't matter what level you are; if you get swarmed and surrounded you are dead
-Stamina ensures that most people cannot just run around and spam attacks.
-Great zombie sounds
-Weapons durability rate is fine; encourages the use of different weapons
Now the bad
I dislike the fading health bar; it's always important to see the health bar because life and death well, depends on health...
-The story is not exactly compelling. The things you do in an hour before the end of the game was not exciting at all; there is no climax point at all. That's it? Really?
-The characters are very simple, little to no history. Players don't really get to be immersed in their struggles on the island.
-Not enough unique zombies, only 5. Most of the time it was just walkers and the raged infected. I like to fight strategically, and I found myself bored before half way of the game. I became very bored of fighting walkers and infected; I started to avoid zombies all together whenever possible. The combat was great but the limited zombie types made it very repetitive.
-Sidequests have nothing to do with the story and don't reveal anything. Not only that, they are very tedious and boring because it's always fetch X item for Y person. -Auto saves are very bad especially for the quests that involve escorting a person. If the person dies and you choose to load the last save, the zombies come back but your ammo and weapon durability stays the same right before the npc death AND the game AUTOSAVES AGAIN which makes absolutely no sense; If you don't pass the point of struggle, eventually you'll have a "save" where you have no weapons left because they'll all be broken by then. It didn't exactly reload in time, the games just places you back where the "save" location was which was ridiculous. Sometimes I was stuck in a very bad situation which I could not fight through, luckily I made backup saves but I had to play up to the point where I was ruined by the autosave. -The facial animations are poor, little to no expression and sometimes even the wrong expression during cutscenes and conversations. Their eye movement was a little robotic and looked lifeless.
-Thinking back through my playthrough, there's not too many memorable moments at all. Again, story is weak
-Main quests are similar to one another, not enough variety
-This is a preference but the lack of hectic events and the overall intensity of the game was not as high as I expected. No real exciting moment other than the regular uh oh I'm swarmed or oh no here comes the raged infected.
Side notes:
The experience may be better when playing online; you'll kill less zombies playing with someone else and less strategy is required. I think I probably would not be bored as fast playing with a friend but now that I beat the game on my own I think I had enough of this game; I can see where people are coming from when they say it is tedious,boring and repetitive because there were times I felt that way. At the same time, near the beginning of the game it was fun and enjoyable. As the game dragged on, I felt it became a chore to continue on. It's a decent game and I may replay again in the future with friends if things get patched up.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011In its current state, Dead Island suffers from technical issues. These technical issues, however, do not prevent it from being what I would argue is a unique and thrilling game. While almost none of the concepts in the game are original, the eclectic mix which I have described as Dead Island meets Oblivion meets Borderlands, is a unique and incredible atmosphere.
Graphics : Absolutely stunning, the world is made fantastically and incredibly, with a myriad of environments to be absorbed in. The zombies running around on the beaches, for example, stand in stark contrast to the dark and creepy halls of the hotel, or inside certain larger buildings. The zombies themselves are crafted brilliantly, being appropriately disgusting, and they even look good when limbs start coming off. 9.5
Gameplay: Combat has yet to get old for me. The fact that guns & bullets are so scarce creates for some epic zombie hacking gameplay, and using the lady from Hong Kong, her special ability to crush heads with high-heels is perpetually hilarious. While quests may be tedious, the combat isn't, and as such it makes the quests well worth while. Co-op makes it that much better, and it never stops getting funny when there's one zombie left and your crew runs up and starts stomping it to death together. 9
Sound: Nothing spectacular. Enough to create atmosphere, but the voice acting does leave a bit to be desired. 6
Atmosphere: Brilliant. I touched on this in the graphics section, but Ive found the environment to be engrossing and enthralling. Being able to explore a large open world, which is littered with zombies, is an exciting and unqiue experience. While the penalties for death are quite low, the game manages to keep me on the edge of my seat as I traverse the zombie ridden landscape. Never, when outside of specific safe zones, do I feel totally safe. Furthermore, many of the areas are composed of very compact little lanes with limited visibility, so you never know what could be around the next corner. Even when driving, the game keeps you very worried about hitting something or getting stuck, because when you do the zombies will be all over you. This fear is diminished when playing in co-op however, as having friends there creates a sense of security that is otherwise absent when playing by yourself. 8.5
Technical: The game suffers from bugs. Straight up. These seem to be constantly worked on and are being patched out, which is excellent, and in time it will resolve them. For now they can be very irritating, like arbitrarily being spawned on the opposite side of the map from where you were, while your friends are still there fighting. 7
Overall, I chose to rate this game a 9, because its short comings, in my mind, are more than made up for by its strong points. Its quirky, unique, odd, and a damn good time. I would, however, highly recommend playing with friends and using voice because when you do the game is that much better.
Thanks for reading this and for your time.… Expand
Sep 18, 2011I love this game its Fallout 3 meets L4D. I like the survivalist type games and this definitely gives me that. Sure there are some issues, but I haven't had what allot of people are experiencing since release. People complain of not enough guns...well do you have a loaded AK-47 with 200 rounds in your closet if a breakout starts...didn't think so. I want real world and I think this is a good start. Weapons degrade as they should...trick... always kick zombie to the ground and aim for the head w/blunt weapon and happy times for all. Overall a great game that needs a little polishing...but what new game is perfect from the start?… Expand
Sep 20, 2011Dead Island is one of the most entertaining cooperative experience that i ever played, because even if it was a little buggy, it managed to have a funny gameplay, awesome graphics and a lot of guns.
The character need to slay zombies with all of your crazy weapons and other stuff to earn experience for leveling up. Also it manages an amazing skill system that contain amazing upgrades to your character or your arsenal.
The story was solid, with a lot of drama and it have amazing creative main quests and unique side quests that gives the game a sense of great entertaining.
Dead Island may have some bad things like the shipload of bugs or graphic problems, but it still being one of the best action, horror, zombie slashing games that i ever purchased in my entire life.… Expand
Oct 19, 2011I liked the game, but it has some aspects which are just stupid (like the reactions of over survivors before or after you've rescued them) or the cutscenes in which all the 4 characters are shown, but i liked to look for weapons, mods, id cards and other stuff to lookf for. i'm sorry that i don't have time right now to restart the game with my character (which is around lv 50).
Sep 11, 2011After playing through the whole campaign it's hard not to ignore some of the glaring console port flaws, lack of polish and obvious missed opportunities to make the game so much better. But even so it's still a great game, there hasn't been a zombie survival game like this for a long time that actually creates an environment that can creep you out and scare you a little. The areas are well designed, very detailed and fun to explore. The melee combat feels "right" and while firearms take a backseat until late in the game they are fun to use too. It's also a great looking and extremely well performing game if you have the ability to do a few configuration file changes. The co-op mode works great after a few launch jitters, i've never had any crash or even any type of technical hiccup while playing co-op for hours on end. Anyone that enjoys zombie games should check this one out.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011it s borderland with zombie, just the perfect co-op game to play with some friends and a cold beer !
I love it !!
Sure it's not story driven...but who care, sand boxe game with awesome gameplay and co-op ??
one of the best game i played this year.
Sep 9, 2011Found no bugs so far. Likely because I got it on the 9th while the guinea pigs got it on the 6th. :>
Real fun game to play with friends and the world is pretty huge.
Sep 12, 2011I dare to say I am one of the few lucky people who could get this baby go well. Played many hours now without bugs. And it is FUN. Much more realistic than any zombie game this far. Combat is reasonable, hit boxes too, damage system as well. My only problem is that sometimes repairing weapons with money becomes boring and frustrating. Bit of a cycle. But all in all, don't listen to trolls, this game is fun, balanced and beautiful. Cheers!… Expand
Sep 10, 2011Game was a disaster on launch, however it was patched quite quickly. The game now runs stable and beautifully provided you edit the games video settings file. The FOV is still very narrow, though this is expected from a console port. The game itself is loads of fun, it is not the dramatic zombie survival game we were all hoping for however. Food and items re-spawn within minutes of leaving an area, ammo is hardly as scarce as was suggested.… Expand
Sep 12, 2011Right... I can say that I'm enjoying it so far. Some comments that I've seen compare it to Fallout 3 mixed with left4dead, mixed again with Borderlands. IMHO that's certainly true; but with a hint of FO (but the dialogue is one-sided) a large dash of Borderlands (particularly the skills sytem), a sprinkling of Oblivion (in as much as it's heavily melee combat oriented) a pinch of Dead Rising 2 (combining items to make better weapons) and it has all the zombie gore of l4d.
I can't say with all honesty that it's better than L4D as they're games of a very different ilk; L4D is of course very heavy on gunplay, and Dead Island's emphasis is very much on melee combat. But the delight (and the occasional howl of anguish!) of it's combat system is in the improvisation that you find yourself doing - split second judgement even. You will find yourself thinking "right, I'm gonna throw this at here Fast Zombie sprinting towards me, then a quick kick to this one on the right, pick up this hammer here and try and break the arm of the one on the left....". Notice I said "break the arm". I could have equally said "cut off the arm" - which in itself is fantastic - this game gives you the ability to chop off various limbs (although you won't see any zombies dragging themselves along by their arms if you cut both legs off - believe me, I've tried!). It is hilarious though, watching a zombie trying to headbutt you to death!
The game is not perfect; there are some graphical glitches and the main storyline is a bit weak and dull in places. However, for the sheer joy of going toe-to-toe with the walking dead (and revelling in the resulting gore!) you can't get any better than Dead Island.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011I like zombies a lot, though I can understand people who say that they are over-rated. I mean, there are so many movies and games about zombies, that making a game about zombies will not seem original. But, Dead Island is original. There is no other zombie game with such fantastic melee fighting, and such nice and open world. It is a lot of fun to just explore the island. The plot doesn't seem original, and neither do quests really, but, at least for me, most of them are fun. It's really fun how many survivors are out there, that barricated themselves in huts or wherever. They'll always need our help one way or another. There are many weapons which we can improve, or craft new ones. Similar to Fallout:NV, except that here we use melee weapons most of the time. I didn't play co-op a lot, since as of now I don't have any friends to play with. But as much as I played with random people, I must say that.. I just don't know if there's a bigger sense in playing co-op mode. This game is nothing like L4D. Sure, it may be fun to kill zombies together but you'll never really feel like you're badly needed. Maybe it is tougher later down in the game, I wouldn't know, but so far I've been playing alone and I didn't have bigger problems. Died only few times. The truth is though ,when you play with friends.. every game is be fun. And playing Dead Island together with friends would be fun aswell, methinks. But as for playing with random people... I dunno, I think I'd just recoomend L4D better. The character skills tree seems to be done well. Our opponents' level is matched to ours, but when we join somebody's else game and they have low level... Opponents are matched to the host level and then we can truly see how stronger we became. As for the graphics, the models could be better, but how detailed the world is, the light effects and stuff like that, the views... It all makes the game beautiful. Makes you want sight-seeing. As for characters, there are 4 characters with background stories, explaining their life and why are they on the island... And they aren't bad. Each character has different specialities too. I think that's all I wanted to tell about the game, really. If you're a fan of Fallout/Oblivion and like zombies, you'll love this game. Ps. I just realised I'll add one more thing. Plenty of bad things could be said about the multiplayer but then again there is no other RPG with such well done multiplayer.. It's sorta like playing Fallout or Oblivion with someone. Pros: -Amazing melee fighting system. -Beautiful, open world that just makes you want to explore it. -Gore. -Well done character. Cons: -Plot. -Repetitive quests. -Multiplayer could be done better.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011Dead Island is a decent game, though it could certainly do with some polishing and bug fixes. It's more or less a combination of Left for Dead and Borderlands with a heavy focus on melee combat. If you enjoy those types of games, or just zombie games in general, you might want to check this out. I will say this: the game seems to actively drive you away during the first act, with weak weapons that break after a handful of swings and a lacking atmosphere. It picks up during the second act when you enter the city and are faced with fighting zombies in dark streets and alleyways while a storm hits, though it never quite becomes survival horror. The quest system is pretty bland, filled with fetch quests and 'kill/find my family who are probably zombies now' quests. Melee combat is fun and satisfying, and it can get pretty intense when you are facing a horde of fast moving zombies in a running battle and need to prioritize your targets.… Expand
Sep 10, 2011this game is so epic i dont even know were to begin its simply awsome people just diant like this game cause there were whinning its great :)..th this does not deserve such a low user score. you can mod weapons and create in all sorts of way rag and galss on a batton is my favorite and the story and side quests make it very long plus using the diffrent character classes
First off, I'm one of those 'poor' victims that have been left to play Dead Island on the PC with the 'developer' version or whatever the hell that was. After being linked to this metacritic thing and seeing how biased people's votes were, I just had to make an account myself to rate it for myself.
The game was quite nice even when there was obvious bugs/issues that literally consumed 2 hours for me and my friends in trying to get a single lobby going where all of us were in the same game. Of course after we got that out of the way, we only suffered minor issues such as graphic cards overheating and crashing someone's computer and crashing our game due to random things like, crashing into a female zombie with a truck. But overall, I found that the game had a huge potential. Its intended features/concepts are present but just left in a lackluster manner due to the known bugs/issues that was released on the first day for the US. So I say give this game a chance, and ignore the 'rage' from these people that are bringing this game's score down to as low as 4.4. Chances are you'll like this game since it offers a lot of fun and exploration, as well as replay value. Oh and in before massive negative votes on this review post from those same raging nerds that can't just go have a life and maybe return late in the evening to find a better patch---Or something, rather than wasting their time trying to defame a game after only a single cluster of issues (admittedly a huge cluster). Because don't get me wrong, they should have avoided all of this via quality assurances or something.
Was actually going to give this game a 8/10 or 9/10 because it was quite satisfying for me, excluding all the annoying bugs and the inability in 'push to talk' or having an easier way to arrange lobbies. But since the game's score has been shot down by angry nerds, I must give it a 10. Enjoy the game when it's fully patched.… Collapse
Oct 19, 2011Dead Island is maybe rough around the edges, has things that could have been better and has some strange solutions to gaming mechanics, but really, who cares? The main thing, close combat with zombies on an open environment, is both exceptionally well done and most importantly, great fun. Even alone. In the land of blindingly pretty, but simplified tubeshooters the ugly zombie game is the king. [Sept 2011]
Oct 17, 2011Dead Island has plenty of reasons to be likeable: a satisfying duration, enough freedom and interactivity to create addiction and enough potential to become a classic. And although it isn't what the elitists would call a mandatory title, I think it's infectious enough for me to pull my friend's sleeve to buy the game too.
Oct 9, 2011It's the mission design that proves most disappointing. Its scale is highly ambitious but Dead Island's population of living dead aren't enough to compensate for its barren lack of variety and an increasingly tedious structure.