Finally it's arrived- Dead Island is here, waiting on my HDD courtesy of online love/hate delivery system Steam. I've been waiting for this for a good long time, dodging the hype and keeping my brain pristine clean for my own close encounter with the sun-drenched getaway hordes.
Ok, that's a lie- I watched the heartbreaking trailer for the game on Steam when it surfaced and was gripped by the grim and unrelenting tone it took. No punches pulled here.
Right from the off the game will have you in familiar territory, with influences from a whole slew of popular games in evidence. We have the scavenging ethic from STALKER, the general setting and player -created weapons from Dead Rising, a few enemies that look a bit Left 4 Dead around the chops and most obvious of all a shedload of mechanics from Borderlands. All of this makes Dead Island sound like an exercise in derivative toss. Dig deeper into the DI chest cavity and sniff the innards however and you'll see how mistaken that assumption is.
You start the game in typical zombie survival form- utterly screwed. One of four separate survivors with their own troubled past and their own reasons for being on Banoi Island, you party hard, get good and drunk and wander off to bed. When you wake up the hotel you are staying in on this holiday is overrun by undead killers and you realise you have got to get out-now. During your frenzied escape you realise you have an advantage over the other "lucky" survivors in that you are immune to whatever is causing people to lose their minds and start eating each other.
From there you are largely free to wander the island, gathering cash, weapons and assorted junk items like wristwatches and mobile phones to name but two, while beating off the infected with whatever weaponry comes to hand. You can sell these items to the various shady types and holdout shopkeepers you'll meet, but that would be a real waste; this junk comes into its own when you use it to soup up your run-of-the-mill weapons into zombie-reaping objects of carnage. Electric katanas, poisoned shivs and incendiary shotguns are just some of what is available for the intrepid survivor who can find the plans to construct them.
A word on the itemisation- apart from borrowing Borderlands' loot colour coding and prefix system, the game has you rely heavily on melee weapons in the first three quarters of the game and the firearms you do run across don't have enough ammunition to reduce DI to another tedious "shoot the horde from miles away" experience. Most fights carry a element of real risk, because you will have to close with the infected to dispose of them, saving your ammo for more serious encounters. This was a stroke of sub genius on the part of Deep Silver, as it keeps the game tense and involved. More close quarter's fun is to be had with the damage modelling on the zombies themselves. You can break limbs so they flap uselessly, sever body parts, gouge streamers of flesh from bodies with a glancing blow; all good unclean fun. All of this has a practical use beyond being satisfyingly unpleasant; enemies with broken legs cannot run and those with broken arms are left only able to bite at you pathetically. As for those you set on fire...
One way that Dead Island wins points is for it's atmosphere, including references, homages and nods to many zombie films and games. Unlike L4D where the action was largely relentless and a bit arcadey, DI goes for the creeping dread and social decay that an extinction-level event like this would cause. It also deals in passing with mature themes such as PTSD and loss of innocence, murder and rape, albeit through a fairly Hollywood-tinted lens.
Levelling is handled in a familiar (*Cough* Borderlands*Cough*) way, with XP being awarded for completing assignments and challenges. Once a level has been earned you can spend a skillpoint in one of three talent trees, unique to each player character. Again the focus on multiplayer is obvious, with complementary skills no solo player would ever choose to waste points on sometimes getting in the way of the useful stuff you want lower down the tree.
In essence a great survival horror experience, perhaps a little too easy once you reach a certain level, but you are never invulnerable and the game will punish you for being cocky. It has definite weak points in its plotting and the intent that it be played as a multiplayer game is often underlined to the point of being logic-breaking (NPCs will always refer to the player as if they are in a group, even when playing solo for instance). Some might dislike the absence of a third person view, I know I did, expecting one after exploring the environments in Risen had proven so interesting.
Be warned also, the game has a sewer level you'll need to visit more than once. In fact, it has something more horrifying than any zombie assault- a sewer level within a sewer level. That's right. A dull, low-visibility, dungeon crawl without the payoff. This is the weakest section of the game in my view and it really should have been replaced with some one kicking your chosen character in the face for twenty minutes while chuckling and playing with themselves.
So, Dead Island isn't without obvious tanlines and it's had it's greasy little paws in the creative till a little too often, but it's still a satisfying and exciting game with loads to recommend it to those of us whose idea of a holiday involves sun, sea, sawnoffs and simulated blood spatter.
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