Dead Island

[George Reisman]

Space Marine is better. Marcus will disagree, because I own him at it.

[Eriksson Foxtrot]

I heard it sucked, lol.

To quote a good friend with his lengthy review he forwarded to me;

To summarize in one sentence, this game is borderlands with zombies and like no guns. The midnight release play was absolutely terrible. The game stutters every 3 seconds for no reason. Everyone's mic is open and there's no way to mute them. I only got to play first three chapters before Techland decided to wipe my save without warning. Apparently they uploaded a console version to steam (DOH!) and considering how it still hasn't been fixed, the issue goes much deeper. The graphics looked absolutely terrible compared to what I was expecting from trailers. The character animations are hideous. Honestly, I've seen half life 2 mods with better animations. The inventory is a pain in the ass to use. Interface was made for consoles and it's absolutely baby-punch-frustrating as a PC gamer to slowly click through things because they were too lazy to change it. Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if weapons didn't break so quickly and I have to access item menu every 3 minutes. You shuffle through 10 diff containers and get 50 dollars which you'll have to spend to repair a knife that breaks after 5 swings. But seriously though, YOU SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME OPENING CONTAINERS AND PUNCHING BABIES THROUGH BAD INTERFACE MANAGING ITEMS RATHER THAN KILLING ZOMBIES AND SURVIVING. The characters are also horrible. The models are hideous and it's really hard to take a liking to a character and level them when they're not likable at all. While they call this game an RPG the characters have no story behind them other than a tiny paragraph intro where they basically prove the developers are bunch of racist white men who never seen a non white person in their lives or something. The asian woman sometimes sounds super asian and sometimes just sounds white. The 'sure' and 'yes's that they say when accepting a quest are sometimes totally out of place and kills immersion. I will say that I liked the zombie animations and their ragdoll mechanics. It's pretty hilarious to stand on some stairs and watch zombies fall down the stairs when you kick them. When I was buying this game, I was expecting more L4D element but I was very wrong. This game definitely has borderland written all over it. It even has aimless driving. Btw, Why does a truck have infinite health in a survival game? It needs to get damaged and stalled by zombies. It's pretty ridiculous you just go godmode-run-over-everything. Am I mad bro? I think so bro. I just spent 50 dollars on this.

tl;dr: they released an unfinished game, it's rushed, why is there god-mode in a survival?, animations suck, characters have no story behind them, etc etc.

Made me lol

[Krow Ames]

Your friend is weird. The game doesn't stutter. I play it perfectly. He should probably upgrade his e-machine.

The graphics are probably some of the best I've seen in a game this year, considering the game is more than five years in development. They did release an unfinished game, but only because Steam released a dev version of the 360 copy that was sent to them accidently. the truck doesn't have infinite health. And there is no godmode now that the dev features have been patched out.

[Cyphre Iredell]

All the bugs so far have been happening to random people. USB sound is unbearable, multi monitors causing failures, crashes abounds, noclip was just a Y key away, etc. Some people had no trouble at all, while others simply couldn't play it, and since they already admitted their screwup, no one is looking into anything directly related to video drivers or sound.

It wasn't anything to do with the 360 version, I don't recall who was to blame in particular (developer or publisher), but they uploaded the wrong version for Steam which was an older developer build. The game itself was built alongside the console version, as the story goes, but yeah, it still feels very console-ish, as there was the intent to have people using a controller on their PC. Combat is a bit more varied with the analog stick controls they put together, but a little silly when it comes to selecting different weapons that could be on a base bar to be selected by the number keys like a regular first person game. Coupled with menus and options that clearly don't favor the PC crowd, and it definitely looks like a port. Though I suppose you could more blame the inexperience of the developer itself, as I don't recall anything else [of significant value] currently using the Chrome Engine.

Graphics are... okay. I guess you could say, at the very least, the facial animations are better than Deus Ex? Otherwise shaders and lighting are a tad out of date, and those are sort of key to a game that is meant to instill some sort of zombie crisis as well as a paradise island.

[Krow Ames]

Okay, let's get down to comparisons. The graphics: Textures, resolutions, and all around looks.

Chrome Engine 5 is better than whatever Crytek has in Crysis 2. Know why? Because the graphics are comparable, and almost identical on level of detail, and it doesn't hit your PC as hard. I remember the game "Chrome" with the first version of the Chrome Engine. I thought it was an amazing game at the time, and it probably was.

In this, there's no "pea soup" effect on distant terrain.

To sum it all up, I played with a friend and just generally had /fun/. We all focus on these graphics and shit, or menus. I'm past the menus. I so rarely have pure fun with a game, these days. I pick it up for the story or a few key parts in the game, but with Dead Island, I just love playing with a friend and watching his back while we destroy shit. It's just plain fun. And it can only get better with subsequent patches.

[Acheron Gloom]

I'm playing dead island using my x1600. Needless to say the graphics aren't the greatest (its a crappy graphics chip from 2005), but its fun, and even then the graphics aren't terrible. All the bugs I've seen are just funny little things rather than game changing.

The only actual bug that affects you is that if you fall on something slanted you don't take fall damage, which is actually pretty damn useful.

You shouldn't have any issues with durability of your weapons as long as you carry around ~two or three good ones with you and upgrade them fully. I have a high-voltage machete and a toxic cane knife, both at level 5, and I have a shock pistol at level 5. Also a great way to make money in order to afford that is just to get diamonds from that one lady if you give her champagne. Also later on certain harder zombies give you a lot more money. One time I picked up 2000 from a single strong zombie.

I'm not near finishing the game yet, though.

[Ron Bleac]

Does your friend expect to find firearms on a holiday resort island in Papua New-Guinea, Eriksson?

This game is fun. Played it for a while now, finally found a single action revolver but shit still doesn't get any easier.

[Eriksson Foxtrot]

I think he expects a game that isn't pointless to an extent of running around a small island and resort grabbing firearms for characters in the middle of nowhere whom have horrible backing plots while enjoying "circa 2007 graphics" and shooting zombies whilst watching them fall down a flight or two of stairs and then finally sitting in a waiting cabin which surprisingly never gets attacked by zombies. 'nuff said from his perspective. Rofl

Needless to say, I personally have not played the game but I might soon if it's really that good :D~

[Cyphre Iredell]

Theres no crime and no security guards in Papua New-Guinea, Ron?

Unfortunately one cannot simply look past the menu, as the limitations on the number of weapons you can have in your inventory as well as how many you can quick switch to is fairly limited. Durability makes this frequent unless you are always running back to a repair bench after a skirmish (who then respawns after you've left the area).

Guns I've found are most useful against 'Punks' in the city hub. With the starter pistol from the resort, they take one headshot and they're down. Then you can simply take one of their automatic pistols with far superior stats (depending on your level at the time) and plenty of ammo. Haven't seen any firearm mods though.

[Marcus Tinamou]

Uh, the island had its own police force and you can find the occasional gun but the point of the game is not to run and gun

[Cyphre Iredell]

No, its definitely run and kick and slash/pound :P

I believe I've discovered the perfect gameplay reference: Far Cry 2. This becomes very nostalgic once you hit the jungle missions. Respawning hordes along the path, picking up mostly useless weapons that you can repair/upgrade later, ridiculous durability standards across the board, vehicles that respawn back in place, and ragtag gang members that use the same cover and make for easy headshots. Everything uses a proprietary monetary system and everything uses money as an asset. If they had added a map like the one in Far Cry 2 it'd be even more interesting, since you already look at a sheet of paper for quests.

[George Reisman]

In Farcry 2, if you hit a bump in your jeep, that thing was Ffffed. You'd have to get out and repair it.

[Cyphre Iredell]

I only recall having to repair it when it got shot up... because I drove on the roads and didn't hit rocks, just ran into angry mobs of... [people] Lot more driving though and no minimap.

[Acheron Gloom]

words

your friend is silly

[Lanny Ansar]

I don't own this game yet, figured i'd play it somewhere else and try it before I decided to shell out cash for it. On the other hand I enjoyed Far Cry 2 quite a bit, simply because the game was SO friggin' expansive and there was always cool stuff to find. The respawning cars deal in FC2 wasn't much of an issue, since after a while you realized that without those cars, you'd have to run everywhere. And with that constant Malaria micro-management, that gets kinda silly. Durability wasn't much of an issue, since after a while you could just buy the weapons others use and get an infinite supply of fresh AK-47's from an Armory, and Ffff rocks. I hate rocks.

[Arokh Takakura]

For 7 years in the making, this is a horribly unfinished game which the community could have made better with a source mod or someshit, I've been playing it with my friends and it likes to randomly disconnect us from one another constantly and then refuse to let us join again due to awful network coding. There is no vsync so it hammers my graphics while looking like ass, my weapons break constantly no matter how good they are, and already people have brought out mods to add vysnc and mic mute options, and bugfixes, essentially completing the game development. Why couldnt the dev team do this if it took one modder a day and some file tinkering? Astounding frankly. It really feels like I'm playing a really early alpha or beta of the game, and this is the release after 7 years? Shocking.

[Lanny Ansar]

It's the same reasoning on how a company can release a game and updated anti-cheat software, and within 3 days some 14-year old in Romania has already figured out how to crack n' hack the entire thing. Companies don't do it for the community, they do it for the cash. They provide updates and fixes because if they don't, nobody buys their digital paperweights. :O

[Arokh Takakura]

It's the same reasoning on how a company can release a game and updated anti-cheat software, and within 3 days some 14-year old in Romania has already figured out how to crack n' hack the entire thing. Companies don't do it for the community, they do it for the cash. They provide updates and fixes because if they don't, nobody buys their digital paperweights. :O

Anti piracy and cheating are one thing, as they are basic code sewn into the primary exe file which is relatively easily removed if you know your stuff, not adding features that every single other pc game has had on the Market since 1997 is a crime against pc gamers.

[Marcus Tinamou]

For 7 years in the making, this is a horribly unfinished game which the community could have made better with a source mod or someshit, I've been playing it with my friends and it likes to randomly disconnect us from one another constantly and then refuse to let us join again due to awful network coding. There is no vsync so it hammers my graphics while looking like ass, my weapons break constantly no matter how good they are, and already people have brought out mods to add vysnc and mic mute options, and bugfixes, essentially completing the game development. Why couldnt the dev team do this if it took one modder a day and some file tinkering? Astounding frankly. It really feels like I'm playing a really early alpha or beta of the game, and this is the release after 7 years? Shocking.

They released Dead Island the way it is, to make people like you, post topics like that, in threads like this.

[Arokh Takakura]

What the Ffff Marcus.

[Ron Bleac]

For whatever reason, I am not having any issues with the game itself. The only complaints I have is the lack of a mute button and push to talk in Multiplayer. Weapons do wear down quickly, which makes me want to scream because a stainless steel pipe shouldn't bend when I crack skulls with it.

[Marcus Tinamou]

What the Ffff Marcus.

Indeed, I am simply pointing out that their releasing of the game, was a conspiracy so that you would in fact...post that post. It is another simple case of the 'man perpetrating' and a set of internal politics that few can understand. It is a very lucrative business.

[Arokh Takakura]

Indeed, I am simply pointing out that their releasing of the game, was a conspiracy so that you would in fact...post that post. It is another simple case of the 'man perpetrating' and a set of internal politics that few can understand. It is a very lucrative business.

Cool story bro.

[Marcus Tinamou]

Cool story bro.

No Arokh, your story was 'cool' bro. You could be a video game critic when you grow up, then you can petition to have games workshop and THQ to make to Ordo Imperialis into a licensed second life counterpart and then the next THQ game can be: Warhammer 40k: The Dark Fur

But all in all, Dead Island is a pretty solid game, sure it has bugs and what not....but it blows left 4 dead out of the water, imo. But Arokh makes a good point that they could of polished a few things....but its still a good game.

[Arokh Takakura]

Furs? Warhammer? Heresy. Spacemarines would forget orks if furs existed. They'd devote their everything to removing such deviancy.