Henchman-4-Hire

Nothing bad could possibly happen here.

Welcome to Banoi.  If the natives had a term of their own for Murphy’s Law, they’d have called it that instead.

Dead Island is gorgeous, particularly if you’re playing in high definition.  You can practically feel the wind brushing your cheek, the sunlight warm on your face…And, of course, the hordes of decaying undead rushing forward to tear you to bits.

Whatever CAN be infested with zombies WILL be infested with zombies

Dead Island more or less explains itself.  You’re on a tropical island in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.  But that’s not what you’re here to read about, is it?  You want to know how it plays.

That one’s easy.  I’ll assume most of you have played Valve’s unforgettable Left 4 Dead before.  If you took that game, gave it a better graphics engine, made it longer and gave it a storyline, you’d have something very similar to Dead Island.  This game also incorporates the particularly brilliant Dead Rising 2 addition of creating or modifying your own weapons.  Cover a baseball bat with razors, create explosive ammunition, run an electric current through a katana-sword, or make a flaming axe–You can do it.  Finding the components to do so, however, can be a long process indeed.

Dead Island takes everything that was great about previous zombie games like Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead, and blends it all into a gorgeous, fluid open-world experience.  Quests in this game range from finding supplies for survivors to escort-jobs.  And the escort missions, as opposed to many other open-world games, really aren’t terrible in this one.  Each playable character has his or her own skillsets, and a level-up system that allows the characters to earn better, more effective moves or stats throughout the game, giving that RPG elements that we all love.

The game has its flaws, however.  It lacks the nugatory fun of L4D, focusing on a much larger campaign, rather than smaller, more bite-sized ones that can easily be played with friends and strangers.  Dead Island’s multiplayer is brilliant, with each player contributing specific character skills to the group, but it’s not a game that complete strangers are likely to play through together.

The game also has numerous glitches that act up from time to time.  Walls and floors open into black, swirling limbos for no apparent reasons.  Motorcars get stuck, the GPS leads you astray, and people that you try to lead to safety can sometimes lose track of where they’re supposed to go.  And the AI, of course, can be truly idiotic (I like to forgive the designers for that, however.  They’re zombies, after all).

I'd be suspicious, but everyone knows zombies are too stupid to write.

The game is tremendous fun in multiplayer, but single-player zombie-slayers will find this game enjoyable as well.  Everything this game does well, it does exceptionally well.  I found it monstrously addictive.  Hack, slash, shoot, stab, and throw your machete into a running zombie like Jason Voorhees on his best day.

Best Day EVER.

It’s a bloody good time, if you’ve got about 20+ hours.  My final score:  4/5.