Dead Island Reviews

We have rounded up a few more reviews for Techland’s FPS/RPG hybrid Dead Island, its mix of zombies, first person melee combat and RPG mechanics has garnered mixed reviews so far, with an abundance of bugs often noted by reviewers.

Stick Skills, 8.3/10.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned with Dead Island, it’s that talking about the game simply doesn’t do it justice. It’s not perfect, doesn’t have a great story, but I’ll be damned if it’s not just fun. If you’re looking for a title to play with friends, or you just need a new experience on your system, then we can definitely recommend Dead Island. Grab a few friends, a melee weapon or two, and come visit Dead Island.

Rely on Horror, 7/10.

It’s easy to want to classify and label Dead Island and compare it to other games. On first glance, it appears like a bit of a Left 4 Dead re-hash. Looking at the game play, it looks like a cross between Dead Rising and Fallout. Truth be told, it’s a little bit of all of these things and that’s what puts Dead Island in a class all its own. However Dead Island’s ultimate downfall is its lack of polish. It’s still a fun game if you can get past the glitches and here’s hoping that Techland can rectify more of these issues soon. If left to stand as it is, we could see this review score changing a bit.

EL33TONLINE, 5/5.

Don’t let the bugs and glitches scare you away. The most serious issues have either already been fixed or soon will be, and it would be a shame to miss out on what really is a great game because of initial teething problems. If you appreciate the dark undertones of Lost and Jurassic Park, and if you’re a fan of co-op, action, RPG, and of course, zombies, Dead Island is still the must-have title of the year for you!

Voodo Extreme, 3.5/5.

Dead Island has been described many a time and often over the past few weeks as merely an amalgam of already-existing games, but while it’s certainly derivative of a number of other titles (the search term (Left 4 Borderlands) yields four pages of results for Dead Island) the game has more to offer than a selective recycling of other games. Melee combat here is very accomplished; good timing and skilful consideration of your movements pay off to gratifying advantage. In addition to this, the narrative of the game moves along smoothly and compellingly, although it’s often clumsily delivered. The game is relentlessly fun and unashamedly stupid and, while there are obviously a number of glitches to be found around the island, there’s a lot of enjoyment there too.

The Trades, B.

Those last two paragraphs may have been just what some people needed to get them not to buy the game, and that’s fine. (Dead Island) will not be for everyone. But if you can’t get enough of the zombie madness that has seeped into so much of modern culture, and you’ve had your fill of (Dead Rising) and (Left 4 Dead,) you can’t go wrong with (Dead Island.)

Den of Geek, 3/5.

These terrible interludes, coupled with incredibly forgiving death mechanics, lead to total narrative apathy. The joy of Dead Island game is in killing zombies, gaining levels, and finding loot. As soon as the pleasure of that repetition runs dry, the game is essentially over. (There is, of course, the usual co-op caveat. Messing around with your friends can be great fun in a game of any quality, and the semi-open world structure of Dead Island is well suited to dicking about.)