Dead Island is a game that was ambiguously rated by players and ambiguously rated by journalists (with 80 points on Metacritic, what a paradox). But, for me, Dead Island will always remain in my memory as an unforgettable adventure, which I replayed several times, and exclusively in single-player mode and not in cooperative mode.
Yes, I’m just a fan of zombie themes, why do you ask??! Okay, I guess I’ll sit back and start quickly disassembling the game design of this Polish creation – I hope someone will like it.
Crimea is beautiful in spring.
It’s funny, but SG’s review of Dead Island refers to Borderlands, and Borderlands’ review refers to Diablo. I chose not to open the Diablo review.
Oh those oldfags! They constantly refer to some old, incomprehensible games – ugh on them, the time has come for the young and perky ones who have never played anything! Just like me. So, I will compare “DI” with Stalker at most (it turns out to be a hodgepodge for schoolchildren of the 2010s), write all complaints to my lawyer.
There are three ways… and the first was with fists.
I don’t know about you, but I see the gameplay as a combination of different game mechanics, built into each other, or, conversely, existing independently. Just like the story arcs of films or TV series. In Dead Island, I was able to identify 3 “gameplay arcs” – the combat system, the alternation of game “modes” and progression mechanics. I’ll explain everything further. And, yes, the title is so strange, because I didn’t want to write two titles separated by a paragraph – now we will analyze the combat system.
A combat weapon designed for close combat is both original and not at the same time. I’ll tell you about myself – I was in ah@e (well, how can I express this emotion in censored words, moderators?!). Legs breaking, arms flying off from a knife swing. The physics of bodies, in general, is spectacular, and there is no need to argue. But besides entertainment there is something else.
The gameplay begins from the moment we select a weapon. Of course, at the very beginning, only oars and sticks are available to us, but after several hours of playthrough, new and new aspects of choosing the local arsenal open up to us. Criteria – type (blunt, piercing, cutting), range (knife – katana, hammer – sledgehammer) and speed – from what I remember. Of course, the difference between a bat and a machete will be more in the animations – in one case the bones will be crushed, and in the other they will be cut off along with the limbs (although with something cutting and “long-range” you can manage to chop off heads, which cannot be done with a piece of pipe). But when it comes to strike range and speed, that’s a different story. You can “poke very quickly” with a small kitchen knife, but with something heavy you need to select timing attacks. Firearms stand apart – this is part of an economic game in which you value every clip you find and keep the treasured barrel for a “rainy day” – thinking 5 times before using it anyway. And of course, you aim better.
I personally always accumulated quite a lot of ammo towards the end of the game, and for good reason – they will come in handy there, believe me. But even in the middle there was something that just made you “want to shoot” – such moments are very emotional, maybe to some extent they even replace the cardboard script.
This is pretty much how it feels in the game.
BODifferent types of enemies also add more variability. Even at the very beginning, we will encounter at least 3: slow “tupacs”, thugs and screaming runners (they are scary in certain locations).
Yes, you can deal with a couple of ordinary “walkers” without much trouble, but when a whole combination of undead of different kinds comes against you, you have to think.
All other types of enemies are classic, in some way:
The juggernaut ram, to be honest, is quite rare, and is quite likely scripted (like the others).
Level design adds variety to the https://noaccount-casinos.co.uk/ booth. We are talking, first of all, about “special” locations – a hotel, a medical laboratory, a prison and others like them. Not only do these places dramatically add a pinch of horror to the game, but they are also designed so that we encounter zombies when we don’t want to, and so that we always have room for some kind of maneuver. Of course, not Doom, but taken together (you should keep in mind that all this together forms a single combat system) – cool. This does not make a full-fledged “action RPG”, like in Skyrim, but also worthy in its own way And moderately original.
Sometimes leisurely, sometimes fast dynamics, this is what did not allow me to get bored from battles with the infected until the end of the game. Regarding difficulty: if you play alone, it’s difficult (and even scary). But. there is one “jamb” – it’s a kick. An unbalanced thing that ruins gameplay. In good terms, you just need to take it, take a deep breath – and promise never to use it again, try to forget about its existence.
Still not horror?
This somehow evokes S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with its bunkers. Very tense places, in which even the sound design is different – they were conceived as “fear” zones. So we smoothly moved on to the next “root” game mechanics.
Zoning of land plots.
The alternation of “rest” and “battle” zones is an important part of many projects, for example, Sillent Hill 4: The Room or the already mentioned S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – this is just what I know (site users can remember other games in the comments, I’m just a “slow guy”, I haven’t played much).
In Dead Island, fortunately, this system works, as they say, “in the best traditions of the genre”.
Conventionally, let’s call a certain gathering point for non-hostile NPCs, protected from monsters, a “base”. Base means safety. On it we psychologically rest, repair weapons, upgrade them on a workbench, turn in completed quests, receive rewards, carry out the necessary commodity-money relations, form an inventory, collect new quests, watch the development of a simple but understandable plot and… psychologically prepare for a new “soray”. Doesn’t remind me of anything?! It reminds me of “Skadovsk” or “Jupiter” from Call of Pripyat.
An unforgettable feeling – returning to your “native fortress”.
The open world outside the base is a danger zone, monsters always spawn in it, it is impossible to simply take it and “clean it up” (many reviewers had complaints about this point) – then the whole ambiance of this mechanic would be lost.
In this zone the player should always feel uncomfortable, preferably alone. That is why the cooperative mode completely eliminates this part of the gameplay – it’s a shame that many players never tried this “zest”. However, it’s a matter of taste, not everyone likes Stalker either.
Here it’s worth focusing specifically on the mechanics of moving around the world – on foot, by transport or using sewers.
I don’t even want to talk about the latter (in a good way) – I always tried to run through this location as quickly as possible (according to the plot, we are directly forced to dive there a couple of times) due to banal adrenaline, because creeppot, guys, creeppot (if this surprises you, then do not forget that the game plays (lol) on contrasts – here you were in open sunny spaces, and then, suddenly, you find yourself in closed, low-lit places, full embittered creatures).
But the cars have their own, interesting mechanics.
Firstly, they give you invulnerability to zombies – an island of safety in the “danger zone”, but only when the car is at speed. And now, here you are already deciding when to stop – this moment is unpleasant for you, you are delaying it, maybe we’ll ride a couple more laps? 🙂
Secondly, you must decide where to park – so that later you can leave in the same car (transport does not disappear). Mentally, you play in your head that maybe you will have to get into the car quickly, but, unfortunately, this never happens – after all, Dead Island is not a horror game. In most cases, after several dozen battles, you limp back to your “car” and just enjoy the ride, and maybe find a new means of transportation (but this is not GTA, running cars are not just scattered at any point).
Driving is also a sure way to enjoy the local scenery.
About "pleasure".
Many noted the clumsiness of the car physics. I don’t know – I liked it. Same thing, unusual but nice. Of course, it’s not very suitable for racing, but for such a game some clumsiness of driving was only beneficial for my taste, since in the “front zone” we still have to maintain concentration, even while in the car.
In general, everything about this part of the story. Yes, not smoothly, I know, but what can I do?.
Diablo, Borderlands or Minecraft?
Despite the odes I’ve written to the other two parts of the game, the progression mechanic is the core.
Without it, the rest would not work properly, it is key, and most reviewers in the old days put the sense of progression in the main plus of the game.
Literally everything here is imbued with progress. And… progression here also has its own special character, let’s say.
For starters, your hero. You will constantly gain experience, which will be converted into skill points, which can be spent on improving your own characteristics in the leveling window.
Your enemies. Their level will increase according to yours, fluctuations will be around no more than 2-3 levels. You didn’t understand. Level everyone enemies will rise. Enemies are not divided into different zones – “there are low-level enemies, and there are high-level enemies”. No. The enemies are the same everywhere, that’s what it’s all aboutAndcount". Some people took this with hostility, but I will further explain what the “trick” of such a system is.
Your surroundings. Not only locations, but also NPCs will constantly change. Moreover, quests from NPCs are built according to such a system so that you visit new, unfamiliar places in locations.
Your weapon. But its level will not increase. Whichever “club” you found with it, throw it away. But how?! I just said a couple of sentences ago that “everything is imbued with progression”?! Yes, that’s it. It’s just that progression here is not a simple increase in your rank in numbers, but rather an internal feeling of progression for the player, progression of the entire game world. Using weapons as an example, the constant increase in the level of enemies, following yours, forces you, sooner or later, to abandon your favorite “arsenal” and switch to new “units” (I just don’t know what else to call swords, hammers, taps and katanas). But the new “units” are not just the same knives, only with a different level. New “aggregates” are, in the literal sense of the word, new varieties of piercing, cutting, slashing and crushing weapons, which are progressing, including in visual terms, which is no less important. And then modifications begin to progress – nails in a bat, electric batteries on a machete or poisonous throwing knives.
The situation turns out that we are trying in every possible way to engage in collecting in order to buy/make/find ourselves a new cool “toy”, upgrade it, invest money in it, in the end, but after levels 6-7 it becomes useless, but by that time we should already have collected money/made/finded ourselves a new “hatchet”. Thus, a never-ending cycle that forces the player to use new weapons, giving a sense of constant progression.
Anime fans couldn’t imagine this.
We found out how this relates to the combat system. But how does this relate to “territory zoning”??! Here’s how: if the level of all enemies does not change, then safe zones do not appear. It’s simple, isn’t it?!
All the elements are put together and the result is a very cheerful cocktail.
In this article I only went through game design solutions, this is not a full review.
Subjective emotions are extremely important – by and large, they are important. If I didn’t like the game, I would have found just as many reasons to say why it was bad – but I liked it, and I just decided to figure out why.
Post-script I can say that the plot is quite adequate for such a game, especially for me, a connoisseur of everything related to zombies.
I can also say that Riptide should not be perceived as another game, but as a direct continuation, where development, progression continues – we have access to a large number of different firearms, the “base” system is brought to the point of absurdity, mechanics for protecting “bases” appear, etc.d., but this, as one famous mustachioed guy said, is a completely different story.