Dead Island - Game Review/Information

Dead Island, the new video game by Techland, developers of the Call of Juarez series, was released this past Tuesday for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows.  I picked it up over the weekend for Xbox 360 and have put several hours into it.  I haven't even scratched the surface when looking at overall game completion.  Zombie Island is at core, a zombie's game such as Left 4 dead, but also includes RPG elements found in games such as Borderlands.  It has a skill tree that includes upgrades for your character as you rank up and includes weapon customizations.  There's an inventory menu, that has a select amount of weapons you can carry.  As you play, you can unlock more inventory slots.  It's an open world game, which means you're free to explore the area you're currently at while going on several quests; some are side quests while the others are main quests, meant for the story.  I've only played through the first act, but after the first one, I was sent into a different area, that had a new map to explore just as large as the first one.  So, I'm assuming that after each act, your character will be thrown into another map that needs to be fully explored, each one as massive as the previous.  There are four acts total.  Lastly, there are four characters for you to try out, each one with different specialties and skills.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun to play.  The fighting is enjoyable and fast-paced, and each the graphics are pretty strong.  There are different types of enemies, each one with their strengths and weaknesses, which makes you change up your approaches/strategies for each of them.  Also, the game's length is very solid.  You'll be getting your money's worth with the purchase.  I've played for a total of about six hours, and I'm only approximately 30 percent done with the main story progress.  Of course you can only focus on the main quests and get it done at a much quicker pace, but you'll be missing out.  The game's all about exploring the various areas, trying out each quest, including the side ones, and raking your character up.  This will take you a while.  On another note, there are 140 collectibles to find, so if you're one who like fully completing their games, finding each of these will keep you going as well.  Also, you might want to go back and try the other characters out.  So, overall, you're looking at a game that could take you 20 plus hours to get full satisfaction with, which is great.  The main and really only complaint I have is repetitiveness.  Each quest asks you to go pick up something for somebody because of a certain reason.  There are multiple side quests that you don't feel like doing because they get boring.  Still, the story quests are fun and at least you aren't stuck in the same area for the entire game.  Like I said earlier, I'm quite sure that there are four full maps to check out, one per act, each very large.  The thing that keeps you motivated to complete quests, both side and story ones, is ranking up.  You want to rank up your character and become stronger in various aspects.  The skill tree is split up into three categories (Fury, Combat, and Survival).  Fury includes upgrades for your special ability, which allows you to kill enemies in a cool way.  Combat includes upgrades for weapons, which allows them to become more effective and stronger in combat.  Lastly, Survival includes upgrades for you health.  It also includes upgrades that allow you to do things such as pick locks.  These make you want to upgrade your character and try out each skill, which is awesome.  The only bad thing is you won't be able to level up to a level where all upgrades can be achieved.  Your level is maxed out at 50, which will leave you short of about half of the total available upgrades.  Level 99 would have to be able to be changed to the max level in order for all upgrades to be achieved/maxed out.  Hopefully an update will be released that will allow you to rank up further and max out all of the skills or at least reset your skills.  That's another issue; once you buy a skill, it's permanent.  We'll have to wait and see if these minor issues are ever fixed in the future.

Dead Island's first DLC (downloadable content) pack will be released later this month.  The pack will be called Bloodbath Arena.  It will include four new maps and a new weapon called "The Ripper".  More information on this will most likely be coming in the near-future.

For a professional review of Dead Island or for more information on the game itself, see http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/955/955540.html.

For the emotional, heart-shattering, announcement trailer, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqrG1bdGtg.