Dead Island: Sandbox Game for Zombie Lovers Pt. 1

Dead Island is The Fantasy Island for zombie lovers minus Tattoo yelling "The Plane", and it’s built on blood, brain matter, and insanely good times. When I was thinking about purchasing this game I was very skeptical to say the least. I have not been a big fan of other zombie based games or modes in other games in the past. So that would mean I was not a fan of the Left for Dead series (never even played the second one), the zombie mode that Call of Duty: Black Ops used to vault the game into the stratosphere was just annoying in the few attempts I gave it. So when a friend mentioned he was picking Dead Island up I was very hesitant to say the least, but after talking to him more I decided that since most of the games I wanted to purchase in the future were still a couple months away I could give this a run if for no other reason than for some random hack n slash fun with the co-op mode.

This review is being done in more than one part because I have only managed to get to the second chapter with one character so far. This isn’t because of playing time, or desire, but more because of what can best describe as the “GTA” factor. This meaning that there is just a ton of side quests and fun to be found while not following the main quests.



The game is pretty from vistas like this.



For the first couple hours on the game solo I found myself doing everything but completing quests, and this meant testing what the game would allow me to do. I first learned that if you end up on the side of mountain looking down at the beach you should not attempt to “walk” down to the beach due to the fact that you will just increase the speed you are descending until you flatten yourself on the sand below. I also found one of my favorite ways to kill the zombies (when playing solo at least) is to walk or run around an area like the pied piper until I have a handful of the screeching and groaning pin cushions behind me. At this point I’ll head into the ocean or a pool where I will just enjoy a game of kicking the zombie, making them fall into the water, and watching them gurgle and continue raching for you until they float up dead in the water. Yes this is completely mindless and pointless to my overall completion of the game. However this is just the sort of activities and random user made fun that has brought me so much enjoyment in other sandbox games like Saints Row, GTA, Red Dead, and Crackdown to name some good ones.

Now I’ll talk a little about the weapons, skill trees, and the RPG style system that gives this game more depth than some of the aforementioned sandbox games. First there is are the weapons, and these at first I was thinking were going to be based solely on the class or player style you started with. The four classes being a knife wielder, gun specialist, brawler, and a jack of all trades to chose from. The weapons range from pieces of wood, sticks, and pipes you pull from the side of buildings to hammers, batons, and oars from boats. It does  come down to the basic choice of something sharp to cut them to pieces or a blunt weapon that you are going to pummel them into a pile of hamburger with. The weapons all have a life bar that is based on a durability rating that you need to always be aware of or you can find yourself starting to swing a hammer and find only your fist swinging into the air, and this can happen at the worst of times. Being surrounded by a few zombies and not knowing that your weapon is going to break three swings into the combat is a bad place to find yourself. This I however not a situation you run into often since you have weapon slots that you can have set up and ready for your use by using a quick menu to swap between them or just hitting “RB” will cycle the weapons you have pre-set.



Brawler's Fury in action



The player skill tree is another area that makes the depth of this game that much more interesting for me. Having a RPG element to the game gives the player a goal outside of just doing the quests. Within the three different trees you can build your player to fit your style. So if you want to build up your attack power first you can, but you could also choose to build your weapon skills to help your weapons more effective as well as last longer so they need fewer repairs. There is also a tree for all four players that is focused on your "fury" and how you will work with it. You want to be able to use the fury that is built up because it is first of all super cool and fun, but also very effective when you find yourself faced with multiple zombies or just one big dude you want to take down fast. These are also based on the class you chose. Here’s the basic rundown of the rage for each player.

1. Brawler: When you engage his fury you still need to get in close since you are only swinging fists, but it does major damage from the fist level you get. Hitting most regular zombies will take them out in one solid punch, but it still takes multiple hits to kill the bigger baddies in the game.
2. Gun Specialist: Her skill has you pulling out a pistol and unloading on the zombies in the area around you. It’s pretty cool to see and also does a great deal of damage.
3. Knife Specialist: Her fury when activated has her also needing to get in close like the brawler, but for her she pulls a stiletto out, and her super fast jabs/stabs are lightning quick to do major damage in a short amount of time.
4. Jack of all trades: His skill is one that is also very fun, but takes a bit of skill to be super effective. He pulls out a supply of throwing knives that he then starts throwing into the zombies at an amazing speed. So from distance he’s great, but it takes being either accurate or a bit closer to fully take advantage of this early on when it only lasts for a few seconds.

At this point it’s a tie for what one is my favorite between the brawler and the jack of all trades. This is a bit biased also since my highest level character is my brawler, and I also haven’t played the gun toting lady at this stage yet.




Infected attack fast and you will hear them coming.

 

So now we move on to the stars of the game, and that is the crew of zombies you will face or at least those that I have faced up to this point in the game.

To start the main and abundant zombies in the early going are those called “walkers” and these are the sloth like zombies that make up the majority of “non-living” life forms on the island. One on one they are not a match for any player even with just some well placed fists or a kick to get them down, and then continue to pummel them into paste. In groups however they can take a toll on you, and will actually surround you so it’s not as if the A.I. isn’t smart enough to try to pin you into corners to help beat you down. They use basic attacks of grasping and/or weapons to attack you.

Next is the “Infected” and these guys you will hear before you see and you should be thankful of this. If you hear the wails from an infected be weapon ready and get yourself into an area with space for movement to help you keep enough space to swing and move. These enemies will come from out of bushes, and over fences if they smell your living flesh, and will attack by grabbing, biting, and swinging at you. I have yet to see one wielding a weapon.

The last form of zombie I’ve run into up to this point are the biggest and most brutal so far, but they are also the slowest and don’t do much for chasing you. The “Thugs” are most often in areas where you “need to be” such as the goal for a quest or in the path where you don’t have a choice but o get past them. Now you can run past them in some situations, but then what fun is that? The XP gains from killing them are worth the possible beatings… or temporary death that you may end up with. The attack with brute strength by swinging their arms and if they connect you are flung a good distance away and it will take a moment to recover if you aren’t down for the count. If you manage to cripple their arms they will still attack by trying to head-but or bite you. It’s rather funny when you get both arms broken, and they sway limp at the sides of a thug as he wails and tries to damage you.  



Thugs are as mean as they are ugly.

The only things that I have to say on the negative side so far are minimal and easily overlooked because of the fun this game has to offer, and also because this game isn’t doing a heck of a lot as far as size and scope of the game. First issue is the handling of the truck in this game. I understand this had to be one of the last things they really worried about in the game play, but when you put two different achievements into the game based on driving you should have the ability to not turn a corner without having to come to an almost complete stop. The other issue is just the clipping and minor glitching that you and/or the zombies will do from time to time. This so far happens most often when you are in or near the different buildings. So again these are minor things I have run into, but have no issue overlooking because of the fun factor of the game.

So overall I recommend this game as a rental at the very least for anyone who likes good co-op fun, loot collecting, RPG player growth, and seeing a head get chopped off a zombie with a machete.

I will continue this with a second review after completing the main quests as soon as that has been done.



Review by: Mike "Sir Snootch" Tomperi

A couple helpful sites for those gamers looking for some info or help.

http://www.deadislandgame.com/

http://deadislandwiki.com/wiki/Dead_Island_Zombies

9/11 We Shall Never Forget

The time is 8:45 AM EST and all is right with the world, mothers and fathers are at work as their children are sitting in school on the east coast. The time is 7:45 AM CST and all is right with the world, parents are leaving for work as the children begin arriving at school for just another boring day of classes. The time is 5:45 AM PST and all is right with the world, families are just beginning to rise to a new day, they are having breakfast and planning their days.

The time is now 8:46 AM EST… The time is now 7:46 AM CST… The time is now 5:46 AM PST….  Things in our world will never be the same regardless of where in the United States of America we live. The change of one minute would begin a tragic series of events that would see both of the World Trade Center towers hit by hijacked planes, another hijacked plane dives into the Pentagon, and one last plane is being aimed at the capitol building in Washington D.C. by another team of terrorists, but this plan ends up crashing into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania  after the brave men on flight 93 realized what was happening not just on their flight but all around the country. The brave men and women on flight 93 chose to make the ultimate sacrifice by attacking the cabin of their hijacked plane and the result of that being the hijackers chose to down the plane and kill everyone on board rather than lose control of the plane.

I don't know of anyone who wasn't touched in some way, shape, or form ten years ago when our country was attacked on 9/11. This tragic event brought our country together in a way that I can't remember it being in my life before. For a short time there were no more arguments about what party "Republican or Democrat" was better. During the days after we came together to show that we as a people would not sit back and let an act of terror push our country into turmoil, but instead we would band together in support of our country. We would see the will of the American people as we mourned we also moved forward to both hunt down those responsible for the actions that killed innocent civilians, and those men and women of the various rescue factions such as the police, fire department, paramedic, and also those soldiers who also lost their lives that day at the pentagon.

We would watch minute after minute, hour after hour, and day after day of television coverage where they were replaying the planes hammering into the north tower of the World Trade Center, a plane hitting the Pentagon, and the scenes being shown of the wreckage of United Airlines flight 93 in a crater that looked more like a bomb impact than a plane.

The outpouring of compassion and support for the people who lost their lives was incredible to see, but for me personally I could only think about how helpless I felt living in Minneapolis, Mn. Where I’m hundreds of miles away from any place that I could offer my arms to dig through rubble, my shoulders to carry supplies in to those men and women who continued digging, cutting, and searching for survivors at first, but then just to find the bodies of the fallen people in the mountains of twisted metal and cement that once were the Twin Towers. I found the only way I could help was to give money and assistance to the local Red Cross, and so that is what I did. I like so many others in our country being wealthy or not chose to help in the only way we could from our area of the country. We gave, we volunteered our time, and overall we poured as much of ourselves out to assist those who were at ground zero 24 hours a day relentless in their search for those who become victims of this horrible attack.

The date is now 09/11/2011 and we are ten years removed from the events that changed so very many of us forever. Yes the country went back to normal eventually, and over the years following the attacks on our country many things returned to how they were back before the attacks. However I know that I can still see the impact that those events had on many of the people In our proud country when I see a men and women that have joined one branch or another of our armed forces because they feel it’s their duty to continue helping fight for our country or protect what they love. There are men and women that I know personally that had no direction in life prior to 9/11/01 but since then they have become police officers, firefighters, and paramedics. The events of that day changed how they viewed their lives, and those of every man, woman, and child in this country even if we don’t see it now it’s all around us. When I drive around my small town in northern Minnesota I see more flags that aren’t just flown high on the Fourth of July, but they are a part of the household for the entire year.

You can go on any social network at any given time during the year and see individuals who you know or are “friends” with on the internet and see at least one person you know that has a profile picture that pertains to our armed forces, civil servants, or just a flag, eagle, and any number of other images that refer to our country and supporting the fact that we are Americans. 

So regardless if you don’t agree with why our soldiers are over in the middle east remember that they are doing their jobs, and that given the order they would happily return to their family and loved ones back here in the united States. When you see a police officer in your local town in a little gas station grabbing a cup of coffee take a minute to shake their hand and thank them for everything they do to protect us every day, but don’t just do this today. Because it’s not just today that they are working to “Protect and Serve” our communities it is a daily job that they love to do, and from talking to the friends I have in the H.P.D. here in town they can’t see themselves doing anything else. If you get a chance to attend one of the open houses that your local fire department has I recommend that you stop in, and again say thank you and shake the hand of even a couple of these brave men and women. These individuals take hours or even days away from their lives to perform their jobs, and it is often very thankless. We need to always remind ourselves of what would happen to us if these heroes were not there to help when we needed it.

This day is a day that we will all remember and hopefully never forget. Our children and grandchildren are safer now than they have been in the past in my opinion, and the tragedy of 9/11 is where it may have started, but it was the heart, determination, and will to move on, push forward, and become a stronger nation as a people that has brought us to this point. It has nothing to do with politics or who the president has been. It has been and should always be that the strength of our country lies in all of the people.

Part of the new memorial at ground zero. It sits in the footprint of one of the Twin Towers.

God Bless the men and women of the Army, Navy, Marines, National Guard, Air Guard, and Coast Guard

God Bless the men and women who serve us as Police Officers, Fire Fighters, Paramedics, and other First Responders.

And finally….God Bless America