It was from the very first moments of “Dead Island,” as I read through the objectionable bios of the playable characters and sat through a song called, “Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?” that I wondered about the nature of this game, and what I would be subjecting myself to for the next 25-plus hours.
The setting and premise of “Dead Island” is that of a resort paradise where all hell breaks loose. The dead come back to life and viciously feast on the living. It’s the “end of days” in a little slice of heaven that just turned into undead hell.
You can choose from one of four characters who each represent a variety of bad stereotypes wrapped around a tapestry of four-letter words and attach to a set of limbs designed to kick, punch, swing, smash or pull a trigger. Yet, this team of otherwise incompatible personalities must band together because they are immune to whatever is causing people to turn into zombies. Basically, they’re humanity’s last hope.
The emotional drama, or lack thereof, in “Dead Island” is very inconsistent. You go from witnessing a moment of profound pain and suffering at the loss of a loved one to plucking a knife out of a corpse’s throat and adding it to your collection while the mourning family member just stands there, crying. It’s laughably bad.
While the content of the game and the schlocky, plot-hole heavy story are about as lousy as your average B-movie, it’s the gameplay and the awkward melee combat that got on my nerves the most. The targeting system seems to be extremely off. Easy strikes at stationary targets resulted in a miss, time and again. You’re encouraged to aim for extremities, and head-shots are almost instantly fatal, yet you can’t seem to hit anything exactly where you want to. Being that close-quarters melee combat makes up about 99 percent of “Dead Island,” you can imagine my level of frustration.
The role-playing element of “Dead Island” is what makes it much more interesting than other zombie games. As is typical of open-world role-playing games, most of this game revolves around hunting down items and clearing zombies for the survivors who are either unwilling or unable to help themselves. Doing so earns you special items and experience points to spend on new skills. However, these side-quests often end up costing you more than they’re worth. Eventually, I got sick of costly repairs for my weapons after every brief encounter, especially as I realized that I could easily find better ones just lying around, for free.
Another serious problem with “Dead Island” is how buggy it is. Once, I was reloading a saved game only to find myself two chapters ahead of where I should have been. I had no way of getting myself out of this mess and reloading didn’t help. Had I been unable to “fix” it by accessing a “fast travel” point through a solid wall — something I shouldn’t be able to do — I might have had to start over from the beginning. How’s that for quality game design?
One thing I will say in “Dead Island’s” favor is that, despite all of its flaws, playing in co-op mode is extremely fun — much more enjoyable than playing alone. You don’t even need friends to enjoy it; anyone can join and depart from your game at will. My advice to anyone thinking of picking up this game is to jump into co-op as soon as you’re ready. Otherwise, I’d recommend giving it a pass.
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