Dead Island

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

My only problem...

My other complaint...

Also...

 

That word "only" you keep using... I do not think it means what you think it means.

[CorgiShinobi]

[Enervation]

Just finished the game. It's incredibly evident in the last part of the story that the developers had to rush it a bit (empty rooms, very heavily reused textures, random placement of enemies, repeated hallways). Other than that (and the incredibly annoying boss fight where they give you no direction as to what to do to kill the boss, since he's invulnerable unless you trigger a certain sequence) it's a nice game. If they manage to finish it off and improve on some of the dialogue (I noticed that the actors actually misspelled an acronym, saying it one way in one line, but another in the next), as well as buffing certain skills and weapons, the game will definitely appeal to a larger audience (the nitpicky one).

[Vargras]

Get out of my status updates.

[Pirandello]

TL;DR of my post: It's not bad and I don't know what everyone's complaining about because nothing's broken for me and I had a lot of fun with it playing with friends and enjoyed it more thoroughly than I did with Space Marine.

 

Though I seem to have digressed from Vargras's original status update post, so I think I'll just drop my two cents on that: Space Marine getting better reviews than Dead Island was to be expected since it didn't have a launch that had to walk across hot coals and the curse of bugs. Mostly the bugs.

 

EDIT: Spelling.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Pirandello

[deanb]

1. What platform.

2. I'm not necessarily complaining about bugs. At least I assume they're not bugs. I specifically held off on 'acquiring' it until the patched proper release came out instead of the dev build they put up.

[Connorrrr]

Alright, to continue this whole "Trailer vs. Game" debate, allow me to re-state what I was saying in the status...

 

Basically, I think everyone remembers how good that trailer was, and it had people genuinely excited for a genre of game many had denounced as over saturating the market. Now, I've said this twice already but I know that someone, somewhere said something about a zombie game with a deep, human driven story, not merely the "kill zombies" stuff seen in Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising.

 

Again, I know that a trailer is supposed to build hype, but it just feels like the game was falsely advertised. If a trailer is meant to advertise a game and build interest in the game, then why did it decide to instead tell a short, touching story of a families fight to the death when that level of emotion wasn't injected into the main game? Then, all the trailer actually tells us is that there are zombies, and it's on a resort island, and oh wait, the title of the damn game tells us that much.

 

As I said before, that trailer was genius, and kudos to the guys who made it. Techland owe a lot to that animation studio, because without that hype, Dead Island wouldn't have done nearly as well.

[Pirandello]

1. What platform.

I played on the PC version.

 

As I said before, that trailer was genius, and kudos to the guys who made it. Techland owe a lot to that animation studio, because without that hype, Dead Island wouldn't have done nearly as well.

I have to agree on this. Before that trailer alone, Dead Island was supposed to be in development hell since, well, a long time. They only released a single, short teaser trailer before that showcased almost nothing of the game save the fancy title, and then it disappeared for several years.

[deanb]

It was announced in 2006.

 

And even though I've posted my thoughts before I'll sum up here, mainly for pirandello

• It does look kinda nice, and generally how you hit the zombies shows up on the body.
  
• The UI, on PC is terribad. The okay/cancel type options pop from one side of the screen to the next with each new screen.
  
• The mini-map is just squiggly lines to trace the route, no actual mini-map, or even landmarks vaguely scribbled out
  
• Weapons wear out way to quick. I thought Far Cry 2 sucked in this regard but Dead Island is a joke. In the short while I played I'd gone through a paddle, 2 mops and 2 metal pipes.
  
• The quests suck. One of the first (second) quests your given is to find two women. That's it. No descriptions, no starting point on where they may be. Be like me asking one of you lot to find me aunt, she's somewhere in England. Most are just fetch quests.
  
• The trailer lied. I would have cast a blind eye if the game was half decent, but it becomes a major sticking point now.
  

I won't even mention the fact they published the 360 dev build to steam on launch (since that never affected me), oh and releasing not long after Deus Ex really didn't help.

[CorgiShinobi]

I have yet to play the game, but I'm more than able to answer the "Trailer vs. Game" quandary.

 

While the trailer was good, I never let it become a testament to the quality of the game. It was a cinematic trailer that was, if anything, a prologue to the events of the game. No in-game footage or anything that would otherwise inform the viewer it's a trailer for a video game other than the assumption that most computer animated cinematic trailers are for video games, with the rest being for a select genre of film.

 

It wasn't the trailer that "deceived" anyone, but the talk from those working on the game (and of course gaming journalism) about how Dead Island would be a return to "survivalist" horror titles such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil. What's more, it would be a far more "intense" experience because of weapon degeneration and lack of supplies to aid you in combating the zombie infested resort.

 

I'm sorry, but you will have to put some fault on yourself if you believed all of it. I believe it has been mentioned before, but in the game you do come across the room in the trailer. You see a dead mother and father; what else did you expect?

 

EDIT: Also, we can't forget about amazing games with crap trailers/advertising. They're meant to persuade, and the trailer did get a lot of people interested in the game.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Atomsk88

[Pirandello]

It does look kinda nice, and generally how you hit the zombies shows up on the body.

It does. The combat isn't that bad; I heard the console versions had a special "analog" system that allowed you to choose where to hit the zombie. We don't have that on the PC, so we just swing and hit.

 

The UI, on PC is terribad. The okay/cancel type options pop from one side of the screen to the next with each new screen.

I never really noticed the discrepancies in the UI, so I guess it wasn't high on my list of pet peeves.

 

The mini-map is just squiggly lines to trace the route, no actual mini-map, or even landmarks vaguely scribbled out

I'm not really sure what to think of that. For what it was intended for, the squiggly lines did a good job guiding me to my objective. I usually just resorted to looking at the actual map if I needed to know something. Sometimes it didn't work though (like giving me the long route instead of the obvious one), but it never was really much of a problem to me.

 

Weapons wear out way to quick. I thought Far Cry 2 sucked in this regard but Dead Island is a joke. In the short while I played I'd gone through a paddle, 2 mops and 2 metal pipes.

This was never that much of a huge problem to me, as I'd been playing co-op the whole time (so the weapon durability cost was spread among the whole group), but I do find it irksome that swinging my purple-named Bladed Weapon of Awesome twice at something automatically smacks it down to 90% durability. I realize that there are skills to increase durability but I don't believe it should have been designed to be so, especially as a game with a focus on melee combat.

 

Or at least they should have made guns insanely powerful, but ammunition more scarce.

 

The quests suck. One of the first (second) quests your given is to find two women. That's it. No descriptions, no starting point on where they may be. Be like me asking one of you lot to find me aunt, she's somewhere in England. Most are just fetch quests.

I think I actually turned a blind eye to this. Now that I look back on it, I do realize that some of the quests are actually insanely stupid.

 

The trailer lied. I would have cast a blind eye if the game was half decent, but it becomes a major sticking point now.

Much like what DukeOfPwn said, it wasn't really that much of a surprise that the game would have ended up like that. The trailer did lie, but I stopped relying on CG trailers to tell me what to expect in a game and waited on previews and gameplay videos instead. Much like how I developed my thoughts on TOR; the CG trailer looks great, but, come on, no way is the game going to be explosively awesome like that in the whole time you'd be playing it.

 

I won't even mention the fact they published the 360 dev build to steam on launch (since that never affected me), oh and releasing not long after Deus Ex really didn't help.

Bad release dates don't help anyone, unfortunately.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Pirandello

[Connorrrr]

I have repeatedly stated that I know what a trailer does and that I knew that the families story was not going to be the focus of Dead Island. I wouldn't usually have a problem with a trailer not being all that related to the actual product. However, it's the whole tone it sets. It sold itself entirely as an emotional story-driven game and it isn't, not just in that trailer but through all the promotional stuff, they really rode the hype all the way to release, selling it as a certain type of game. See also this trailer released not long ago, after the original teaser

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O7BjRlUeBc&feature=related

 

and also a quote I found from one of the guys in an interview, "The game is driven by a dark story with some great twists and turns. We are going to tell it through cutscenes, dialogue and quests. While Dead Island is definitely an action game, it does show a spectrum of other people’s reaction to a zombie outbreak. Some of it is emotional and disturbing, whilst some explores really interesting questions about human nature and possible origins of the undead plague."

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

I just feel like people set themselves up when they take stock in trailers. I bought the game because it was described as "Borderlands with zombies", and in that respect it doesn't disappoint at all. The environments are rather large and beautiful, it keeps a constant state of challenge, and the quests make me feel like I'm in an authentic survival state. Sure, the structure is rather flawed, and it could use some polish here or there. But in the end, it delivers on something primal that no other zombie game has come close to touching, and for that I'm happy I purchased it.

 

EDIT: Okay, I never saw that second trailer. I just heard impressions from sites like Giant Bomb and Destructoid, and it never sounded anything like the trailer. Though to be fair, they do go for some emotional gravitas in areas; you just have to dig to find it. I've stumbled across several scenes purely by accident that told of unspeakable tragedy that befell the people within, like a bathroom riddled with blood and corpses.

 

I suppose if you were following that specific train of thought, then the "WHO DO YOU VOODOO, BITCH!?" beginning must've set you up for one massive let down.

Edited September 13, 2011 by DukeOfPwn

[Pirandello]

and also a quote I found from one of the guys in an interview, "The game is driven by a dark story with some great twists and turns. We are going to tell it through cutscenes, dialogue and quests. While Dead Island is definitely an action game, it does show a spectrum of other people’s reaction to a zombie outbreak. Some of it is emotional and disturbing, whilst some explores really interesting questions about human nature and possible origins of the undead plague."

That sounds like the polar opposite of what was given to us in the game. I'd imagine that they had to change the whole thing to make it more appealing to a wider demographic in order to get more sales or something.

 

Either that, or the PR team is made up of compulsive liars.

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

and also a quote I found from one of the guys in an interview, "The game is driven by a dark story with some great twists and turns. We are going to tell it through cutscenes, dialogue and quests. While Dead Island is definitely an action game, it does show a spectrum of other people’s reaction to a zombie outbreak. Some of it is emotional and disturbing, whilst some explores really interesting questions about human nature and possible origins of the undead plague."

That sounds like the polar opposite of what was given to us in the game. I'd imagine that they had to change the whole thing to make it more appealing to a wider demographic in order to get more sales or something.

 

Either that, or the PR team is made up of compulsive liars.

I've found areas in the game that appear to be placed for emotional weight. You just really have to search and stumble across them. And I felt like there were several parts of the game that didn't outright say or acknowledge the fact that this place that you've either discovered for the first time or returned to has witnessed something horrible.

[CorgiShinobi]

I would say there is an "emotional" side to the game, but poorly executed because of how the game (from having watched a few walkthroughs online) is designed around a "Point A to Point B" quest structure. The NPCs freaking out and asking for help follow along a tired formula that has been presented in many genres of games.

 

It's exaggerated fluff, and sadly this isn't uncommon in our current generation of gaming. There does seem to be a greater demand for games with more emotional depth, but having some dialogue spoken in-between segments of the game isn't the proper method.

[Connorrrr]

and also a quote I found from one of the guys in an interview, "The game is driven by a dark story with some great twists and turns. We are going to tell it through cutscenes, dialogue and quests. While Dead Island is definitely an action game, it does show a spectrum of other people’s reaction to a zombie outbreak. Some of it is emotional and disturbing, whilst some explores really interesting questions about human nature and possible origins of the undead plague."

That sounds like the polar opposite of what was given to us in the game. I'd imagine that they had to change the whole thing to make it more appealing to a wider demographic in order to get more sales or something.

 

Either that, or the PR team is made up of compulsive liars.

I've found areas in the game that appear to be placed for emotional weight. You just really have to search and stumble across them. And I felt like there were several parts of the game that didn't outright say or acknowledge the fact that this place that you've either discovered for the first time or returned to has witnessed something horrible.

 

Personally I wouldn't count a few dead bodies in a room as carrying emotional weight. Those are people I know nothing about. For a game to really strike an emotional chord it has to humanise these characters a bit, which is even harder in a video game than it is for movies, but until then it just feels like shock value or filling the environment.

[deanb]

I just feel like people set themselves up when they take stock in trailers.

 

And that's why I try before I buy. Still a trailer should, up until that point, be a major point in telling me how the game is.

 

I was kind of expecting from the trailers, though it was dimmed down by the various screenshots posted through my inbox (so it's not like I went into the game totally expecting this), something kind of Heavy Rain like. To actually have an emotional and deeper look at the breakdown of civilization in this small micro-thingy(economy?), and have a greater sense of depth to the characters n such. It's not like it's something that hasn't been done before. Maybe something along lines of the recent Torchwood: Miracle Day where they had a look at how the world kinda went upside down once people stopped dying (just not undying).

 

Instead you beat the shit out of zombies with a paddle.

 

 

Come back from the dead, that's a paddlin

 

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

I just feel like people set themselves up when they take stock in trailers.

 

And that's why I try before I buy. Still a trailer should, up until that point, be a major point in telling me how the game is.

 

I was kind of expecting from the trailers, though it was dimmed down by the various screenshots posted through my inbox (so it's not like I went into the game totally expecting this), something kind of Heavy Rain like. To actually have an emotional and deeper look at the breakdown of civilization in this small micro-thingy(economy?), and have a greater sense of depth to the characters n such. It's not like it's something that hasn't been done before. Maybe something along lines of the recent Torchwood: Miracle Day where they had a look at how the world kinda went upside down once people stopped dying (just not undying).

 

Instead you beat the shit out of zombies with a paddle.

 

 

Come back from the dead, that's a paddlin

 

Best Simpsons bit ever.

[Enervation]

To be honest, I didn't really feel any emotional attachment at all to any of the characters in the story. I didn't even feel any attachment to my character (I played Logan), because I was fairly certain that with his attitude he'd be fine.

 

The only thing that surprised me was that Logan is actually fair-tempered and a gentleman, more so than Sam B.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Enervation

[Hot Heart]

This misleading trailer stuff is quite funny when you consider this from five years ago

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AfJtNORMlo

[DocSeuss]

I like this game almost as much as I wish it would be set on fire and sacrificed like that lady in King Kong. This is not at all how an immersive co-op zombie sim should be made, and it's full of utterly bonkers stupid design decisions, like moving slowly while strafing.

 

At least there's an FOV fix.

 

EDIT: How is that misleading, Hot Heart? Other than the fact that the gameplay is more conducive to HRRGRRRAGEFUCK, the game's entire narrative, art direction, and so forth is all designed with tearjerking war drama in mind.

Edited September 13, 2011 by DocSeuss

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

Okay, fuck this later mission. There's no way this particular part was balanced for just one player AT ALL. I just need to pray for a XBL friend to help me out of this jam. Because fuck escort quests, especially when they throw 6 zombies and one thug at you.

[Pirandello]

Okay, fuck this later mission. There's no way this particular part was balanced for just one player AT ALL. I just need to pray for a XBL friend to help me out of this jam. Because fuck escort quests, especially when they throw 6 zombies and one thug at you.

 

It doesn't happen to be the quest where you have to escort the tribal lady down the mountain, right? I did that quest with 2 other friends and I expended almost all of my assault rifle and shotgun ammunition covering the rear flank from charging Infected as the other two used their melee weapons to cut our way forward. I see how it would be insanely frustrating if doing it solo because we had a hell of a time with it ourselves.

 

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

Okay, fuck this later mission. There's no way this particular part was balanced for just one player AT ALL. I just need to pray for a XBL friend to help me out of this jam. Because fuck escort quests, especially when they throw 6 zombies and one thug at you.

 

It doesn't happen to be the quest where you have to escort the tribal lady down the mountain, right? I did that quest with 2 other friends and I expended almost all of my assault rifle and shotgun ammunition covering the rear flank from charging Infected as the other two used their melee weapons to cut our way forward. I see how it would be insanely frustrating if doing it solo because we had a hell of a time with it ourselves.

 

No, but it IS with a tribal person. 5 or 6 walkers, along with a thug, show up out of nowhere and all start attacking the guy. No matter what tactic I've tried, he's down within the span of 30 seconds to a minute.