Dead Island Reviews

Whether Dead Island is the game we all wanted to play or not, Techland’s open world FPS/RPG has received some more reviews from the press, and we round them up for your perusal.

Piki Geek, 4/5.

Knowing your roots is important for any franchise and Dead Island knows exactly what it is. There are little references to the franchises it borrows from all over the place. Such as when you are exploring parts of Act III, you may come across a hut with a deranged man named Jason wearing a hockey mask wielding a machete that will kill you with one hit regardless of health. If you try to run from him, he will chase you down until he eventually gets you. That’s the kind of attention to detail I like in this genre.

The Gamers Hub, 3/5.

Dead Island is a good game that offers a good experience with friends. The story of Dead Island is thin and unoriginal with a simple plot that can easily be discovered within few hours of gameplay. Even the four main characters feel one dimensional when it comes to the story and situations. The gameplay side of Dead Island fairs better with mechanics and elements barrowed from other games to make Dead Island an enjoyable experience. A big open-world, RPG elements, cooperative play, and customization are all part of Dead Island experience, whereby all these elements make the game work. Sadly, Dead Island feels shallow from time to time with standard boring missions, worthless collectibles, a poor challenge, repetitive combat and post-game content. Presentation wise, Dead Island is a huge step in the right direction, where Call of Juarez: The Cartel took a misstep (also from Techland). Banoi’s environments have a good variety and gorgeous detail. The character model could have been better to look at, but have a good variety in both human and zombie models. Dead Island has a good atmosphere and tone with the sounds and soundtracks that it provides, but the voice acting can terrible to downright laughable with addition to the amount of over-breathing that the character’s dish out. Overall, Dead Island is a great try on zombie survival games and if you have friends to play with it’s worth the co-op experience.

AzCentral, scoreless.

Dead Island is one of those games that you start to root for once you realize what the developer was trying to do. Techland has created a violent and brutally fun world where zombies rule the landscape. You’re always in danger of dying, always looking for a better weapon, and always one click away from getting help. So pick up this game and expect countless hours of great fun.

Just please know that there are technical problems with Dead Island that some might find are too much to overcome. I am not one of those people. I was too busy trying to fight my way off the island.

ActionTrip, 6.8/10.

Dead Island’s saving grace is its open-world approach, cool custom weapons and fun coop. Nonetheless, Techland created a perfect foundation for a cool, RPG-flavored survival horror game, but forgot to polish it, in addition to providing a dull narrative. You’ll probably keep coming back to the game for its online coop and generally rewarding gameplay that hurls you into a world of quests and hidden items. Other than that, this game is just an attempt to cash in on the old zombie-slicing routine. Quite frankly, so many other games deliver a far better experience and a less buggish one at that.

Geek Revolt, 3/5.

In the end, while I understand that Techland is a smaller studio that is more than likely not as well funded as many of the big name ones out there and may not be able to afford as many game testers and such, I really find the amount of bugs in this game inexcusable. Dead Island has many great ideas to offer, all wrapped up in one of the most unique gaming experiences out there and Techland really stumbled out the gate on this one. While I agree that Dead Island may have been overshadowed by bigger titles like Call of Duty or Uncharted 3 if they had they spent more time polishing the game, this just means that perhaps they should have pushed it back until Q1 2012 instead of shoving it out the door in its current state. While people that can look past annoyances easily will definitely find a lot to love in Dead Island, those that expect polish in their $60 game purchases will want to steer clear until the game is patched up more.