My first playtime in this game was an attempt at multi-player
with my brother. After seeming eons of trying to connect with each other, we
finally succeeded, only to find missing graphics, skippy lag times, and an
eventual PS3 freeze. By the end of this ordeal and a flurry of obscenities, I
sent my brother a text that pretty much summed up my thoughts on the
experience: Worst. Game. Ever.
But after awhile I decided to give it another try, this time
by my lonesome, and what I discovered was a flawed, but actually good gaming
experience. There’s not much to the story and there doesn’t need to be. A
cliché MTV beach house island resort somewhere that I don’t know where suddenly
sprouts a growing population of the undead, and four characters that are immune
to their bites band together to kill them all and try to escape from the
island. Naturally, everyone else they meet in their travels are useless,
sentimental sacks that ask you to go on fetch quests for teddy bears and
necklaces and booze and juice boxes. Of course, there are always about a
billion zombies between you and your mission objective.
The first thing I noticed about the game is that your
character is not a badass. At least not in the beginning. Duke Nukem style
protagonists these are not. My first meeting with more than three zombies at
once ended badly. Fortunately, you are given a smattering of weapons, both
everyday and custom built. Anything you find lying around, like paddles, frying
pans, and lead pipes can be used to bludgeon your enemies to re-death. But
weaker objects like these have a limited lifespan and will eventually break,
leaving you with not, but your bare fists and the ability to run like hell.
Eventually, you are able to find blueprints that allow you build custom
weapons, like machetes with cell phone batteries duct taped to them to cause
electrocution, and baseball bats that continually burn without ever burning
away.
Alright, so the upgraded weapons aren’t that realistic, but
they are at least plausible in their way. The rest of the game world does
provide a sense of realism and that’s one of the few things that the developers
nailed just right. The scenes of horror that you come across on beaches and
patios, bar side massacres, and fancy swimming pools full of blood and bodies
are pretty unpleasant. As scary as zombies are in closed, dark corridors,
there’s something much more unwholesome about bikini clad zombies chasing you
down in bright sunlight, through trimmed hedges and by pool side lounge chairs.
This game is fairly long and can become repetitive. While
the settings change up, from beach side to abandoned city, to sewers, and deep
jungle, the enemy threat really doesn’t. Sure there are a few different types
of zombies—you’ve got the slow walkers, the speedy infected, and thick skinned
thugs—but in the end you pretty much just face wave after wave of zombies.
There aren’t many surprises here and if you don’t like the formula, you’re not
going to stay on board for very long.
As buggy and repetitive as Dead Island
