Dead Island

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:15 am

I know absolutely nothing about this game but the announcement trailer on youtube is awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqrG1bdGtg

Holy. Crap. I really hope this game lives up to the expectations they have just set for me.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:26 am

Fantastic trailer.

Vague interest in game, but thoroughly enjoyed the effort put into the trailer. Clearly had someone with film making talent.

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 5:02 am

Excellent video and horrible at the same time. Spot on for a zombie apocalypse game.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:16 am

Only problem is that the game looks a bit like Dead Rising. Not sure if they'll live up to that trailer emotionally.

Then again, if they can do Dead Rising without being, well, Dead Rising, then I am all for it.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:44 am

Awesome trailer. I was coming here to post it.

I can't say I've seen another trailer anywhere like it. The video is smooth, the action is great, and the way the story folds in to a single point of profound sadness from both ends is actually really really incredible. I was actually moved, by a game trailer.

Now if the game can manage more than a 4/10 and "repetitive, dull, and contrived gameplay with a hollow story" I'll likely buy it.

gameoverman · Post by **gameoverman** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:15 pm

It's like Irreversible, but with zombies!

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:52 pm

Some of the YouTube comments are great. 'So wait, this is a game about delivering your child to zombies?'

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:20 pm

Gamespot did an updated impression: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/ ... slot;img;4" target="_blank

DragonKP · Post by **DragonKP** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 5:13 pm

Trailer was cool, but come on....another zombie game?

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 7:05 pm

DragonKP wrote:Trailer was cool, but come on....another zombie game?

If you had, like me, avoided the vast vast majority of them you would be able to get excited about the possibility of one done well.

More honestly, I'll likely avoid this one too until I get to see it played to see if it comes anywhere close to my expectations. If so I will run out and buy it.

Frost · Post by **Frost** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:29 pm

DragonKP wrote:Trailer was cool, but come on....another zombie game?

I was just thinking that we needed more "Good quality" zombie games.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:00 am

You know.. there's been lots of "zombie" games but I've yet to seen one that really captures the experience of a good zombie film. Left4Dead and Dead Rising come closest.

What we need is some good zombie surivial RPGs, which are hopefully coming.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:03 am

Turtle wrote:Only problem is that the game looks a bit like Dead Rising. Not sure if they'll live up to that trailer emotionally.

Then again, if they can do Dead Rising without being, well, Dead Rising, then I am all for it.

I finally watched it and I get the Dead Rising vibe as well. Very cool trailer forwards and backwards.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:08 am

Well first of all, the trailer bears zero resemblance to the game, so we can't really draw any conclusions. In fact, the trailer wasn't even made by the company making the game. I'm just enjoying the trailer on its own merits, and holding a dim hope that the game won't suck.

Remus West · Post by **Remus West** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:23 am

Zaxxon wrote:Well first of all, the trailer bears zero resemblance to the game, so we can't really draw any conclusions. In fact, the trailer wasn't even made by the company making the game. I'm just enjoying the trailer on its own merits, and holding a dim hope that the game won't suck.

Well, thats good to know. Disappointing but still good to know as it may save me some cash down the road.

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:03 pm

The trailer looks very cool. Hopefully the game can match the impact of the trailer.

Mr Bismarck · Post by **Mr Bismarck** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:41 pm

DragonKP wrote:Trailer was cool, but come on....another zombie game?

To paraphrase a commenter on RPS, we have a lot of games with zombies in them, we don't have a lot of zombie games.

Rumour has it this is going to be a zombie survival game, (possibly RPG, possibly Sandbox), and I'm hoping it'll be a shiny, 3d version of something like Rogue Survivor, where the game will always end badly, it's just a question of how and when.

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:17 pm

This is awesome!! :thumbup: One of the best trailers I have ever seen. Thanks for posting that.

But I don't really like killing zombies and won't be getting the game. Still... an island vacation with the family turns into zombie island. Watching the teaser I could actually see a story there. Man this will be hard to resist.

Moggy123 · Post by **Moggy123** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:13 am

Arise!

Unlocked for me 2 hours ago. Serious issue with settings - changes not being saved and any changes to graphical settings cause a crash to desktop. Seems I'm not alone. nVidia cards seem to be the issue (?). Played a little of the game at the default settings but died on my first encounter with the undead. Decided to wait for a patch and unlocked Space Marine instead.

So much for 1st impressions...

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:12 am

I'd have to say that overall I'm having fun. As everyone else says, the story, setting, and characters is pretty much worthless. But they get a many things right as much as they get wrong.

The mostly open world is a nice touch and I'm really looking forward to trying co-op. The combat works, and is decently fun, if extremely brutal. I like the slower pace of it, even if that means there's a lot of clunky moments. Trying to fight with short melee weapons like knives gets a bit frustrating as well, but thankfully Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is back in force, as the all powerful kick maneuver with no stamina cost to use returns.

But yeah, hitting Y enables noclip mode, which is just plain stupid of them to miss.

There's also way too much bloom lighting being used, which is really annoying because you go to tropical places so that you don't have to see through a layer of smog.

DragonKP · Post by **DragonKP** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:43 am

Turtle wrote: As everyone else says, the story, setting, characters, and everything is pretty much worthless.

Thanks for the honest review. I will steer clear of this one.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:49 am

Actually, I would recommend this to people who want a kind of open world zombie game, and people who can get into co-op games.

While the aspects I mentioned above were kinda worthless, they're also not bad. Just a bit klunky or weird, the kind you see in Japanese of Eastern European developed games trying to represent US culture. So, more an overuse of tropes than something that's just plain bad. If you got through a resident evil game and enjoyed it for the gameplay, you'll probably enjoy Dead Island.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 7:54 am

RPS is reporting that the dev version somehow got released on Steam. That would explain the dev cheats and some of the other weird stuff that's getting reported.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:17 am

Patch coming Friday. I'm amazed at how many things they've identified over the last 8 hours and that they'll be able to patch them all by tomorrow. Truly, we live in crazy times.

Not sure about the developer version being released, but if it really includes info on how users are authorized (Xbox? Steam?), I have to believe someone is in big trouble.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:03 am

Smoove_B wrote:Not sure about the developer version being released, but if it really includes info on how users are authorized (Xbox? Steam?), I have to believe someone is in big trouble.

(Marketing Intern, eating a sandwich he found in the refridgerator)

"What? You guys told me to get a copy from the developer and send it to the Steam guys. He gave me a copy. I sent it."

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:50 am

Tried it briefly this morning before heading to work and I had no issues with crashes or any other technical difficulties. I have an nvidia card, to boot.

Liked what I saw, but I'm a bit disappointed in the list of fixes that are almost immediately being addressed. That makes me wonder what other bugs will emerge.

thrown items can no longer be picked up by co-op partners to stop thieving survivors from jumping in and nicking your precious electric katana.

however, I will be looking for turtle's games online in order to steal everything that's not nailed down.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:58 am

I played with a buddy of mine for a couple hours last night and no technical issues that I saw (using an ATI card). One other guy that was supposed to meet us did have some sort of bad memory leak so he couldn't play, but everything worked flawlessly for me.

Game so far seems really interesting. While we were waiting for our other friend to show we just wandered around the starting area and were impressed with the fact that you could wander a long, long way in the opposite direction of our objective and still were finding zombies to kill, loot to find, and quests to do. My one big complaint on this front is how many houses and buildings you come across are completely inaccessible and there's no obvious visual indication that you can't get in until you get close and see if you can interact with the door. Still lots of places that are accessible though, so not a huge factor.

Combat so far has been all melee, but I like it. As long as you are prepared you can usually slaughter single zombie, but if one gets the drop on you and gets in close, or if you run into 5 or 6 zombies you have a problem on your hands. Swinging any weapon takes stamina and once you are out of stamina it takes a few seconds to recover so you can swing again, and those can be a hectic few seconds when a well endowed zombie in a bikini is bearing down on you.

Fights would usually be a quick affair, but every so often one would get in close to you or a bunch would charge you from another direction and you'd suddenly be fighting for your life. It's a nice balance to far that keeps you on your toes.

Visually the game looks pretty good too. It won't win any awards, but I was able to max everything out and it still ran at a good clip. The damage system on the zombies looks good too... it's very satisfying to kick a zombie over and smash his head with an oar. The island looks massive and pretty seamless so far. Standing from a good position you can see lots of landmarks around the island and from what we can tell if you see something in the distance you can just walk toward it and get there eventually.

Not sure how I'll like the weapon system in the long run, but it does keep things tense. It seems like basic weapons that you find lying around are pretty fragile (depending on the weapon) and you can't rely on it being around very long, but the game does allow you to carry a lot of backup weapons, so some fights are frantic scrambles to get away from oncoming zombies just so you can go through your pack and get out that crowbar you found to houses ago. Upgrading and repairing those weapons at tool benches does seem pretty cheap though and it looks like each upgrade visually upgrades your weapon as well as making it better and more durable. There's also a system for creating weapons, but I haven't had a chance to play around with that yet.

Coop play seemed largely seamless, but I couldn't find any way to setup a friend only server. Looks like right now you just have to make your game internet ready or not and just hope your friends can hop in before strangers do. On the other hand it does seem like they have a good system to allow you to join in with others: every so often as I was playing single player I'd get a notice that another person was playing that game and was very close to me in the story and map. Just pressing a button would have let me join in with them.

Overall it seems like a good game that might be raised to great on the back of the open world and the fun coop zombie smashing fun to be had. Sadly I won't be able to play again until Wednesday, but the little taste I got definitely makes me want more.

Turtle wrote: as the all powerful kick maneuver with no stamina cost to use returns

Pretty sure kick has a stamina cost, it's just not a very big one. With the cooldown time it feels pretty balanced to me overall though. If you are fighting one zombie a good kick at the right time can win you the fight, but if you time the kick wrong and miss, or if there is more than one brain eater coming for you the few seconds it takes the kick to recharge can feel like an eternity.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:16 am

Really? Because my character has a rapid fire kick, you can start another kick as soon as the animation for the last kick is finished. I'm playing the Asian woman, which might have different properties. But I've been kicking zombies all around the place. Admittedly, it only does a small amount of damage, but if there's stamina drain for it I haven't seen it.

I know that her specialty is bladed weapons, and early on you only find very short range blade weapons like that so I have to kick a lot to knock down zombies so I can close in without taking damage.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:26 am

To be fair it was late and I could be mistaken, but while I could kick fairly fast and the stamina drain was minimal you still had to carefully use it in a fight to keep the zombies off. There also wasn't a guarantee that it would knock an enemy to the ground, just that it would stun them for a bit.

*shrug* Maybe once I get a little more familiar with the game it will seem more powerful, but it seemed fairly balanced when I played last night.

msduncan · Post by **msduncan** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:27 am

I am intrigued by the open world, but I'm still trying to figure out if I want to spend my money on this one.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:32 am

Gameplay video looks ... interesting. A very "in-your-face" experience with lots of zombies getting inside melee range. The video I watched, the guy seemed to have a burning torch, throwing knives, a semi-auto pistol, and a sledgehammer. I was expecting the sledge to be a real zombie-maul, but it only seemed to do about as much as a thrown knife. He mostly used it to pop heads while zombies were on the ground. I did like that he was able to retrieve his thrown weapons sometimes, and that zombies seem to come in variable speeds. Combat looked overall fun and somewhat challenging.

Sepiche wrote:Coop play seemed largely seamless, but I couldn't find any way to setup a friend only server. Looks like right now you just have to make your game internet ready or not and just hope your friends can hop in before strangers do. On the other hand it does seem like they have a good system to allow you to join in with others: every so often as I was playing single player I'd get a notice that another person was playing that game and was very close to me in the story and map. Just pressing a button would have let me join in with them.

That's pretty slick. A real good catch - "Another survivor is nearby!" kind of thing, and it doesn't even sound like it's a forced encounter.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:34 am

msduncan wrote:I am intrigued by the open world, but I'm still trying to figure out if I want to spend my money on this one.

After being burned by too many release day flops this year, I'm in the same boat. Amazon digital download is currently selling it for $39, but I think I'm holding out for $20.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:36 am

You can use a thrown weapon to detonate gas tanks. That's what I used to kill the first Thug zombie.

The main benefit to the slege is its reach and heavy hit. Thrown weapons do only okay damage, it's likely the video showed the character with a specialty in thrown weapons.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:46 am

Paingod wrote:Gameplay video looks ... interesting. A very "in-your-face" experience with lots of zombies getting inside melee range. The video I watched, the guy seemed to have a burning torch, throwing knives, a semi-auto pistol, and a sledgehammer. I was expecting the sledge to be a real zombie-maul, but it only seemed to do about as much as a thrown knife.

I think that's probably a reflection of one thing that people may not like about the game... the zombies will gain level as you progress in levels. The first level walkers died pretty fast to my Oar of Destruction + 1 (I made up the destruction and the +1 part), but after a few levels it took a few swings to bring them down. It still felt pretty organic since that's just an oar you can find laying around any number of places though. It looks like the intent is for you to find a few weapons you like, upgrade them, keep them on you, and cycle through them as they get damaged.

Another thing I should mention that I liked is, while there is a gauge to show how damaged a weapon is, you can pretty much just look at it and tell... crowbars get covered in blood, oars start to splinter and crack, etc. Not sure how dense the repair benches are at this point, but last night I went through long stretches where I was using whatever weapons I could find since my trusty level 3 crowbar was too damaged to do much good.

Combat in general is much better than I was expecting though, and I think as melee engines go it's well done. My most common attack method was definitely: Boot to the head to knock them down, then crowbar to the face. A very effective strategy against a handful of zombies, but things change a lot when 5 or 6 of the buggers come after you.

baron calamity · Post by **baron calamity** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:08 pm

I just read that there is a patch coming out today and it completely breaks saves. So hold up on playing.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:54 pm

How strong are the RPG elements? I'd like a good zombie game, but not one that's too frantic and action-oriented.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 4:19 pm

tgb wrote:How strong are the RPG elements? I'd like a good zombie game, but not one that's too frantic and action-oriented.

Hard to judge the RPG elements on the limited amount I've played, but there is a large skill tree, and it looks like you'll have to specialize among 3 different lines of skills. There are also levels and experience to be gained.

It's pretty action oriented though... combat is a lot about timing attacks to knock zombies back and clicking when you have the right limb targeted. There's also a very fast paced mini game when a zombie grapples you, but it seems like it's the same key sequence every time to get out of that, so I didn't find it too hard. There's a lot of leeway to combat, but it definitely gets tense and confusing when 3 or 4 zombies get in close and are knocking you around.

Best description I've heard is Left 4 Dead meets Dead Rising. Not a perfect description, but it's in the ballpark.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 4:27 pm

Example: Skill Trees

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 4:38 pm

I haven't played Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising. How would you compare the combat to Witcher 2 or Dragon Age 2?

Also, I've read a lot about coop. Is that necessary, or is there a strong single-player element?

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 5:46 pm

tgb wrote:I haven't played Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising. How would you compare the combat to Witcher 2 or Dragon Age 2?

Also, I've read a lot about coop. Is that necessary, or is there a strong single-player element?

I in turn haven't played those yet.

The combat is much more FPS than RPG though. It's first person and one click = one swing/shot with your weapon. If you've played Oblivion or Morrowind I'd say the combat is a bit akin to that.

Coop is just the single player game with more people, so if you're looking to just play single player you shouldn't have any problems.

Given what I know about your usual choice in games though I'd say this might be a little too action oriented for you, but who knows.