Dead Island Anyone?

Started by Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens, Thu 08/09/2011 06:40:23

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Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

I'd like to get together a solid group of 3 other people who'd like to really put Dead Island through the paces in a co-op game.  For zombie survivalists, this is hands-down the most expansive and gritty survival horror zombie game made so far, and it's pretty much everything I was personally hoping for Left 4 Dead to be (instead of a linear campaign).  It has a score of bugs but fortunately as of yesterday most of the problems I was having have been fixed (the memory leaks were the worst).  So if a few of you I know would like to get a steam game of this running from scratch, my steam name is...ProgZmax. 

kconan

  I bought/pre-ordered it on Steam a while back (that amazing trailer sold me), and will supposedly be able to play it for the first time tomorrow.  I'm going to check out the singleplayer story first, and then once I get decent enough at zombie-bashing I'd be game for some co-op action.  This is the first "non-indie" game I've bought in a long time - well, outside of a brief Duke Nukem Forever stint - so I'm hoping it will be good.

Anian

#2
L4d never did recover from lack of content and I for one don't buy the fact I should be happy for DLC that was actually just put off content that should be in the game. The one thing that l4d did right though, was the melee (the push away and actual melee in the l4d2) combat and I hoped they fixed the slugishness and perception because in gameplay videos it really sucked and the feeling of distance and range was terrible.

I mean I like some attention to detail I saw, but some parts turned from "realistic" to action and that makes it look strange and switches tones, unlike L4d which doesn't try to do anything besides campy over the top action (it's not even horror, just action). It kind of even confuses me why this game is made from first person view and not more of an rpg/gta camera view.
I don't want the world, I just want your half

SpacePirateCaine

Man, I remember playing L4D2 with you, ProgZ, that was awesome. I'm hoping to pick up Dead Island pretty soon, but already blew my monthly gaming budget on Deus Ex. If you folks are still playing in a month's time, I'm totally down with some zombie-smashing action.
Check out MonstroCity! | Level 0 NPCs on YouTube! | Life's far too short to be pessimistic.

Buckethead

A friend and classmate of mine pointed to me towards this game and I will most likely pick it up some time. I'm not great at co-op though. I'm very much a team player but I just suck most of the time. I'm usually fine with friends but with random people I usually get shouted at in Polish. In L4D anyway  :=

Another thing. I'll probably get it on xbox, and not on pc. Although it seems like more of a pc game, I'm playing mostly on xbox these days.

Chicky

Dead Island looks like another generic FPS to me, a mashup of genre. Then again, i'm sure it will be a lot of fun playing co-op with friends!

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

For me, it's everything I wanted L4D to be.  Mostly free-roaming (like New Vegas) with scattered hidden and unhidden quests, upgrades, and unlockables.  Some car + zombie crunching as well, and a pretty well realized city to explore, with varied locales (beach, sewers, urban sprawl, hotel, prisons, jungle).  Now that they've done some basic patching I can safely say it was worth my money, and I can only hope it raises the bar for survival horror type games.

If they were to release level building tools for this game it would absolutely explode in popularity, considering the sheer amount of varied locations you could make.

kconan

I think it has great potential to advance the zombie game genre, but overall I would rate it as an ok game.  What is killing me is the video artifacting, FedEx quests, clunky interface, and my biggest video game pet peeve, fake doors (as in you can't open them).  I'm also wondering why the environment isn't more interactive.

The best thing about Dead Island is the open world and the zombies themselves.  The melee combat is pretty cool and more than just a clickfest, though I am starting to itch for a gun.  My favorite moment so far was throwing a meat clever at a zombie and seeing it actually stick in his head.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

If every door in every game led somewhere there would either be very very few doors or loads of empty rooms. 

kconan

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 14/09/2011 06:37:01
If every door in every game led somewhere there would either be very very few doors or loads of empty rooms. 

I think it is a huge waste of time to continually walk up to fake doors.  The Dead Island style isn't as bad as other games (like Duke Nukem Forever), at least an icon will appear when you walk near the door if it is capable of being opened or rammed open.  I still don't like it.

Heck yeah I would take less doors/rooms over fake doors.

Anian

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 14/09/2011 06:37:01
If every door in every game led somewhere there would either be very very few doors or loads of empty rooms. 
Yeah, but some doors really look like they should be openable, I mean you have two same looking huts on a beach and then one you can enter but the other one you can't - that hurts the imersion. I'ts not being able to enter a hut, but the inconsitency that really is the hiccup and kind of shows of limitation of the game, which is never good especially in an exploration game.
There should either be a visual que (not very obvious one, but something along the ways of door being boarded up or no door being there but instead the enterance is blocked by furniture or something and a guy screaming from the inside that he won't let anyone in.
I don't want the world, I just want your half

Igor Hardy

Quote from: anian on Wed 14/09/2011 08:09:22
Yeah, but some doors really look like they should be openable, I mean you have two same looking huts on a beach and then one you can enter but the other one you can't

It's a game made by my fellow countrymen. We enjoy being mean like that.  8)

Anian

Quote from: Ascovel on Wed 14/09/2011 13:43:29It's a game made by my fellow countrymen. We enjoy being mean like that.  8)
Well my fellow country made are makers of Serious Sam, so in the end that door would not stand a chance.  ;D
I don't want the world, I just want your half

ddq

Dead doors was a problem in Alpha Protocol, too, and several other games. I really like the LA Noire solution of golden doorknobs on the ones you can open. I'm not suggesting all games do this, but a similar vusual clue that can be spotted at a distance would be nice.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

QuoteYeah, but some doors really look like they should be openable, I mean you have two same looking huts on a beach and then one you can enter but the other one you can't - that hurts the imersion. I'ts not being able to enter a hut, but the inconsitency that really is the hiccup and kind of shows of limitation of the game, which is never good especially in an exploration game.

I don't think it's inconsistent because there are several huts (and later on homes and buildings) you can break into that will have a door with bar locking the door, that when removed, make it accessible.  There are other huts I've entered that will have couches and all sorts of stuff overturned blocking the door, and there are even a few doors that will open slightly and hit said objects that you can then see when you enter through a working door, so I think it evens out pretty well.  

I'm surprised so many doors are open in the game, really.  If it were me those suckers would be reinforced and everything else to keep out those bitey bitches.

kconan

  I finally got a few guns, the shooting aspects remind me of Rainbow Six Vegas's shooting galleries.  I know taking on punks is a sidelight to the zombie takeover, but hopefully decent AI can modded in down the road.

  In the handful of times I've played Coop the other players were tricked out with crazy hand-to-hand moves, which means I still haven't scratched the surface of melee combat.  Even with bugs and mostly lame quests, Coop is a blast.  I love the simplicity of "KewlDoodz69 is nearby, press J to join".

Grim

I bought the PS3 version few days ago and I'm really enjoying it. I do agree about the doors... but I suppose it just doesn't bother me enough to grumble.

I haven't been able to play any co-op though. I press the required button when other player is nearby, I get loading screen... and the connmection always fails. I wonder what's causing that? Lame PS3 lobby system or maybe my wireless connection dies out after a while and by the time it's ready that other player is already gone.... I don't know. But so far I have not managed to connect with anyone, therefore I slay zombies alone. It's a big job for one man....

  I should also add that Ascovel's fellow country men are my fellow country men too.... So I'm very proud, as well:) First the Witcher, now this... Soon, we're gonna be bigger than Japan ( with the release of The Cat Lady hopefully, hahaha:) ) Go Poland! ;)

LimpingFish

I'm ten hours in, and I'm liking it so far. I'm not a huge fan of the melee mechanics (judging swinging distance is almost impossible), but I like the scale of the world and such. I've always enjoyed Techland's expansive level design, ever since I played Chrome back in 2003.

Oh, I'm playing single-player too. Co-op holds no interest for me.
Steam: LimpingFish
PSN: LFishRoller
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Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

#18
I was having trouble connecting to groups when I first got the game, but after re-verifying with steam I haven't had a problem since.  I'm not sure if the PS3 has had a patch yet.

It's a shame you don't want to co-op, Fish.  It's actually quite fun (depending on who you team with).  I quite enjoy the melee all around, I just wish the group mechanics had a gui approaching L4D's so you could keep better track of your team members.  Fortunately though, from the mods I'm already seeing (there's a 'haunted' mod that makes it really dark and foggy outside) I'm looking forward to a good 3rd person mod and a gui overhaul if it's not done officially.

Of course, we already have an additional campaign promised on the horizon (and in the extras menu).  If they release level build tools for this game someone could really release a Dawn of the Dead total conversion.  There are already mods that make the infected behave like traditional romero zombies right up to the point of suffering no 'damage' when struck anywhere but the head.  You can take their arms off and repeatedly hit them in the chest and they'll keep coming until you take off the head.  

Really exciting stuff ALREADY happening with this game, and it has such a massive variety of locations (indoor and outdoor) that the potential for zombie violence is just amazing.  

And considering the sheer variety of weapons, someone could mod in just about anything short of maybe a bazooka.

It's really rare for me to gush over a game but I'm just so impressed with Dead Island overall that I have to.  This is the kind of zombie game horror fans like me have wanted for ages, and again, it's not perfect but it's done so many things right that I can easily look past its flaws.

LimpingFish

And that, as they say, is that.

Thirty hours to complete, pretty much saw and did everything, all in single player of course.

Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.

I liked it, despite some HUGE flaws. My opinion of the melee combat never changed; I still think it's horribly imprecise and badly executed. The lack of a block or parry move is criminal. The amount of damage you take from a single swipe from a common walker shows how unbalanced the health system actually is; an infected can kill you in a one triple swing attack, taking you from full health to zero. Ranged weapons are only of benefit against human enemies, with one-kill pistol head-shots being ridiculously easy to achieve. Against the undead, guns are almost worthless. I'm in two minds about weapon degradation, which both adds tension while also being a contrived pain.

Also annoying is that not one of the four main characters is remotely engaging, though the female leads are at least less overtly hideous than the male. The faux-hawk dude (Oh, Modern Warfare, what have you done?) and the par-for-the-course black rapper (pig-headed boorishness seems to be standard issue for this character type) would be offensive if they weren't so lazily defined. The addition of the teenager and the tribal girl help the story along, but the former soon dissolves into sulky teen territory, while the latter does nothing except give the player someone to rescue. NPC characters provided some interesting side-stories, though, such as the guy who gets you to tell his wife he's dead so he won't have to spend the apocalypse in her company. But overall, the story went nowhere and was a major letdown.

But I liked the scope of the environment. I liked actually exploring the various locales, far more than I enjoyed killing Zombies. I liked having the ability to drive around, despite restrictive boundaries and obstacles; a pile of empty suitcases seem to be able to stop a truck dead in it's tracks. I liked having so much stuff to do, to be honest. There was always some goal to achieve or side-quest to complete.

So while it's partly a horribly broken game, it's also an enjoyable one. As long as the combat doesn't grate, and you can stand the arse-numbingly lousy story. :)
Steam: LimpingFish
PSN: LFishRoller
XB: TheActualLimpingFish
Spotify: LimpingFish

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