The Island is Dead!

When Dead Island came out about a month ago I didn't think anything of it. Since then I had been hearing some positive buzz about the game from both Twitter and a few of the Podcasts I listen to. But it wasn't until I heard that it's got some RPG type elements withing the game that my interest was peaked.

Even with the good things people have been saying about Dead Island there was just as much said about its many issues at launch on the PC. Amazon had the game on sale for forty bucks, but I was really reluctant to make the purchase for two reasons: the very buggy release and I had a few other games I was in the process trying to get through before the huge November and December releases.

When Dead Island dropped to just over thirty-six bucks on Amazon, I finally caved in a made the purchase. And for that I am quite happy. See, Dead Island is not a great game; it has it's share of issues and annoyances, but it's the perfect game at the perfect time for me.

The gameplay structure reminds me of the more recent Fallout and Elder Scrolls games. Much like those games the player is free to go about and play the game however they want. There is the main story quest, lots of side quests and even repeatable quests that give XP, and one can't forget about the massive amounts of zombies that one will be smashing to bits during all this. There are fifty levels to gain, and each level I believe gives a skill point to invest in one of three skill trees. While you're doing all that you can explore the island and loot the luggage of those less fortunate that you!

I haven't had too many technical issues - some awful sound crackling from my USB headset, clipping issues with zombies and lots and lots of texture popping which is a bit distracting. I do however have a few annoyances with Dead Island. The first person combat makes it tough to judge the distance from a zombie, something that makes fighting a thug a nuisance. The combat is a lot of fun but it can get repetitive and honestly it downright fails when fighting large groups of zombies, something you don't want to do but does happen on occasion.

I also find the weapon degradation to be annoying, but just slightly. There's no shortage of weapons to be found, and in the beginning you will frequent locations with workbenches to repair weapons quite often. Even still, I find that the weapons degrade just too fast. I've toyed with the idea of using a mod to slow down weapon degradation, but I don't because the fear of having a weapon become useless does add the the overall experience of Dead Island.

When I mentioned Dead Island being the perfect game at the perfect time, it's because after watching some Diablo III gameplay streams I really had a hankering for some action rpg type experience. While Dead Island isn't so much action it does satiate my thirst for some RPG. The Witcher 2 isn't really doing it for me so this will have to do me till Skyrim comes in November!