Dead Island; An open world L4D without Guns

[Crazed Rabbit]

And an amazing trailer:
Spoiler'ed for bloodiness.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Game info here: http://deadisland.deepsilver.com/infos.php

They've got weapon crafting!

Given that this is a holiday island rather than a war zone, finding weaponry is going to be a problem. It’s not as if there are racks of AK47s lined up next to the souvenir postcards and delightful shell collectibles. You might find the odd gun lying around, but even then, ammo is equally scarce, so you’ll need to get a little Blue Peter on what’s available to maximise the smash and smoosh. Planks, boats oars, baseball bats and machetes are all useful in their own right, but they degrade, and to really do damage you’ll want to take them to a workbench and add your own special features. It’s not just about duct-taping a chainsaw to a surfboard, but more like the World of Warcraft enchanting system, as with applying an electrical charge to hammers or blades.

I saw the shock machete in action – it can remove limbs and provides an entertaining light show. Krakowiak adds: “Some of them are more basic, like nails; others are more complex like the shock weapon, and there’s everything in-between. So it’s not about Dead Rising, putting some wacky things together and trying dozens of combinations. It’s about making the weapons more effective.”

CR

[Fragony]

Incredible trailer. Hoping this will turn out to be what I want it to be.

[PanzerJaeger]

Saw the trailer a few weeks ago, and it is indeed amazing. I'm not so sure about taking weapons to workbenches to enchant them with shock powers though...

[rajpoot]

Been tracking this game for a while now....not really into zombie stuff, but the weapon crafting looked really promising.

[naut]

Oddly serene music...

[Monk]

Trailer made me sad, and is apparently purely PR since the family isn't featured in the game. But it got me to remember the game's name so bravo developers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And all you had to do was kill a little girl. Classy.

That aside, might be interesting. God knows the zombie genre is getting a bit stale - looking forward to seeing what Z-apolalypse is like without firewarms. Maybe a less zany Dead Rising?

[naut]

Anyone know if it's any good?

[rajpoot]

Review on Gamespot. Haven't made up my own mind as yet.

[Monk]

On the fence on this one. The melee mechanics feel a little more viceral than L4D2's, but weapons break so fast it's almost a little ridiculous. After about four or five swings with a steel pipe the thing is already broken and unusable. Mostly i've been using my fists to beat the crap outta zombies...

Not sure if it gets any better, but thus far the game feels pretty boring. It's open world but there's not much that rewards you for exploring. Most of the houses and shacks are blocked off in the first section, and the game feels completely built towards co-op. To the point where the voice acting will continually reference "You guys" and "your group" and "the guy who is immune" even if you're playing as the guns expert, who happens to be female. Kinda kills the single player experience a bit..

I also don't like the field of view for this game. I feel way too close to the perspective of my character, something about it is really off. Makes my eyes hurt.

[Kekvit Irae]

Got it yesterday. It's not a good sign when you have to file a tech support request before getting out of the very first room in the game. More specifically, I had troubles with keybindings and mouse sensitivity.

Rather than bore you with details about all the bugs in the game (it makes Daggerfall's launch version look spotless), I'll tell you that if you are on the fence about buying this game, hold off until they come out with a few more patches. Multiplayer is broken to the point where you can only connect via LAN or Hamachi, mouse sensitivity only works on the menu unless you crank the setting all the way down (at which point the menu is impossible to navigate), and trying to keybind to anything other than WASD will break your keybindings (especially when you rebind Use to something other than F).

For a summary of Dead Island's launch, look here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoilered for language, intense hilarity, and destruction of faith in quality control of Steam releases.

[Graphic]

I started crying after 4:20 and totally lost it when he did the kicks.

Thanks for linking that.

[Kekvit Irae]

I played more of it earlier, and I'm now up to level 17. I had to resort to using a 360 controller... on an FPS.

It's not a bad game, but it's not a good game either. It's pretty mediocre. I'm going to list off the things I hate:

1. Firearms are almost non-existent until you get to around Act 2 (and consider yourself hosed if you play the firearms specialist), and melee weapons have WAY too little durability to bother upgrading. The only reason I really carry around a pistol is in case I run into a Boome- er, excuse me, the Suicider zombie.

2. If you play in co-op as a guest, you can kiss your sidequests goodbye; only the host can do sidequests.

3. Tech support is non-existent. I'm still waiting for that reply.

4. I hope you like scaled enemies; every single enemy is scaled to your level. Instead of walking around the newbie area feeling awesome and blowing off steam, every single area is exactly the same in regards to enemy levels. Unless you're starved for craftable items, or a sidequest sends you there, you'll never again set foot in the newbie zones.

5. Dying is laughable. So laughable, in fact, that you really wont avoid dying. The only thing you lose is a paltry sum of money and some time spent getting back from a checkpoint. Oftentimes, in co-op, the respawn is AHEAD of where you died.

6. Medipacks are virtually useless. There are tons of energy drinks and snacks lying around everywhere, and except for a VERY lucky find, the only place you will find them is on a merchant. They are also used in multiplayer to revive a fallen comrade, but see reason 5 for why you shouldn't waste one on them. They've played enough of the game to understand.

7. Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2 had both humor and compelling plotlines, complimented with character customization and the ability to use almost anything you see as a weapon, adding to the fun factor. Dead Island feels more like a slog through Borderlands, complete with a lack of variation in enemies, without the humor. Seriously, the entire plot of Dead Island is "get off the island."

8. The fun factor, for me, is definitely not in the 50 USD price range. If you're looking for a good zombie slaying game, save 20 dollars and buy Dead Rising 2, or save 30 dollars and buy Left 4 Dead 2. It doesn't matter, Dead Island tried to excel at being both, but failed miserably.

[White_eyes:D]

I played more of it earlier, and I'm now up to level 17. I had to resort to using a 360 controller... on an FPS.

It's not a bad game, but it's not a good game either. It's pretty mediocre. I'm going to list off the things I hate:

1. Firearms are almost non-existent until you get to around Act 2 (and consider yourself hosed if you play the firearms specialist), and melee weapons have WAY too little durability to bother upgrading. The only reason I really carry around a pistol is in case I run into a Boome- er, excuse me, the Suicider zombie.

Yeah, the controls really suck, I needed to use the 360 controller as well.

1. Firearms are not the best weapon of choice, ammo is really scarce and it doesn't do much damage compared to other weapons. I liked using the blade chick with the "stomp" skill, saves an untold amount of durability with my blades. Throwing them at the zombies is also really good as you can just retrieve them at no durability cost.

2. If you play in co-op as a guest, you can kiss your sidequests goodbye; only the host can do sidequests.

2. Weird, because I and the other two guys were doing a bunch of quests and it was so confusing on what we had to do next and were just going around in circles killing zombies because of it.

3. Tech support is non-existent. I'm still waiting for that reply.

3. I will take your word for it on that. I don't get tech support, unless the need is REALLY dire.

4. I hope you like scaled enemies; every single enemy is scaled to your level. Instead of walking around the newbie area feeling awesome and blowing off steam, every single area is exactly the same in regards to enemy levels. Unless you're starved for craftable items, or a sidequest sends you there, you'll never again set foot in the newbie zones.

4. Just last night I was in a newbie zone Co-oping with two other guys and the zombies were just lvl.5...seems to depend on the hosts lvl.

For the most part, I agree with you here.

[Kekvit Irae]

Yeah, the controls really suck, I needed to use the 360 controller as well.

1. Firearms are not the best weapon of choice, ammo is really scarce and it doesn't do much damage compared to other weapons. I liked using the blade chick with the "stomp" skill, saves an untold amount of durability with my blades. Throwing them at the zombies is also really good as you can just retrieve them at no durability cost.

I would have liked to see them buff up the power of firearms a bit. Currently, they are only used for headshots against humans (you would think they would have awesome killing power against zombies, but NOPE!), and to kill Suiciders from a distance, especially since ammo is extremely limited. And on the subject of throwing weapons... I hope you didn't really like that weapon you just threw, because anyone in a co-op game can pick up your weapon. It leads to a lot of potential griefing, especially when you accidentally throw your purple knife instead of your white knife.

2. Weird, because I and the other two guys were doing a bunch of quests and it was so confusing on what we had to do next and were just going around in circles killing zombies because of it.

As a guest, you can pick up sidequests, but only the host can turn them in or track them on Quest screen. It's really annoying when you have a bunch of sidequests you need to turn in, but the host has already done so previously.

4. Just last night I was in a newbie zone Co-oping with two other guys and the zombies were just lvl.5...seems to depend on the hosts lvl.

As noted by the quests, virtually every aspect of the game is dependent only on the host, not the guests (since the game is drop-in-drop-out). It would have been nice to have an option to set level scaling to average player level, scaling off, or scaling based on certain players, rather than scaling based on the host.


EDIT: Aaaaaand... I finally found an unorthodox solution to the keybinding woes. Normally I would absolutely hate the game for screwing up keybinding, but I managed to snag myself a Razor Naga gaming mouse (15 buttons of gaming goodness) for my birthday last month, so I just rebound most of the keys I needed to the keyboard numbers (1 through +) and let me Razor Naga handle that. Works fine, but the mouse sensitivity is still all over the place.

[White_eyes:D]

Yeah, firearms are too underpowered. They need some serious beefing up or ammo should be more plentiful. When I was playing with those two guys we couldn't grab each others weapons and had to trade.(Tried to drop some mollys to a low-leveled player but couldn't)

[Kekvit Irae]

Melee weapons range from "useless" to "I AM GOD!"
I crafted myself one of the Developer Crafts weapons. Can you guess from the name which category it belongs in? Here's a hint: It's a knife that kills normal enemies in a single, instant hit 100% of the time that synergies extremely well with the throwing character's AoE skill.

Oh yeah, and I can craft more at any time using only a battery, five diamonds, and 10,000 dollars.

[Beskar]

I know some one boasting about Gabriel's Sledgehammer, so that is probably another one!

I love that youtube clip you posted.

[Veho Nex]

[Lemur]

Picked it up last night, managed to play a couple of hours. Impressions:

Melee weapons degrade way too fast, as mentioned.

Coop play is pretty chaotic.

Tried playing as the blunt melee specialist, but couldn't take the voice. Switched to firearms lady, since NZ/AUS accent is much less grating. Gameplay be damned, I need a voice I can live with.