A few days ago, Deep Silver blew us away with the debut trailer for Dead Island, a vividly animated piece that showed the eventual demise of a vacationing family (kid included!) at the hands of zombies. The trailer got tremendous buzz, but we chose to remain skeptical until we saw the actual game, because, hey, we’ve been burned by good trailers for bad games before. This week, Deep Silver reps invited us to check out some actual gameplay – a good twenty minutes worth. And guess what? It might just have something to back up that trailer. In the game, you play as one of four island refugees. You’re not quite sure what’s happened, but you discover that your resort is being overrun by a flood of zombies. There’s all sorts here – slow ones, fast ones, ones on fire…etc. Anyway, your goal is to complete the tasks given to you, such as rescuing fellow survivors or reaching a focal point somewhere on the island, like a nearby station. To do this, you’ll need to fight off the undead using whatever you can get your hands on. This ain’t Left 4 Dead, as you don’t have access to that many firearms.
Click the above image to see all-new Dead Island screenshots.
However, many of the items around the item do serve some purpose. You’ll find everything from a boat oar to a sledgehammer to dispatch zombies with. Not only are they good for melee attacks, but they’re also ideal for throwing, if you have a pickaxe or something like that. In addition, you can combine certain tools, such as an electrified sledgehammer or a new kind of explosive. It’s not the same as Dead Rising 2’s more effective weapon combinations, but it works in its own regard. And you’ll need as many weapons as you can get your hands on, as zombies pop out from nearly every corner of the island, especially in the indoor spaces. Don’t be surprised if one lurches around the corner. There are also some powerful zombies that take a little bit more damage (and, of course, dish out more pain). You’ll need to be strategic in taking them down, or you’ll be killed.
Click the above image to see all-new Dead Island screenshots.
We didn’t get hands-on with the game, but from what we’ve seen, the first-person elements really come together well here. It looks like Techland, the game’s developer, adapted a thing or two from its Call of Juarez games as far as movement and pacing go. The melee combat looks like it’s second nature as well, and you’ll have no problem smashing someone’s head in with your boot. It’s cool that you can upgrade abilities as well, including the ability to activate Fury, in which you become an unstoppable, blood-punching killing machine for a few seconds. Dead Island looks fantastic thus far. We only saw the first part of the game (when you first leave the shack and see what’s happened to the resort). However, it runs at a very fast frame rate, and the details around the island are fantastic, almost like you’re thrust head first into Hawaii. The zombie animations are cool and, as expected, they splatter onto game surfaces quite well. (There’s no shortage of the red stuff – it even manages to get caked onto your weapons after a few smacks.)
Click the above image to see all-new Dead Island screenshots.
As for audio, there wasn’t much music in the game (yet), but the zombie noises are authentic. The character voices, however, could use a little tweaking. Your main character here says his taunts repeatedly after each kill, and that’s something Deep Silver might want to change up a bit before the game releases later this year. That’s a minor complaint, though. Dead Island is definitely shaping up to be an exciting kill-fest, and a nice change of pace from the usual zombie norm. Kudos to Deep Silver for putting some thought into the project, and not just relying on a marvelous trailer. We’ll have more details in the months ahead, so stay tuned. Oh, and you might want to consider traveling to Seattle instead, it's probably safer.
