OH, YAHTZEE...

Of all the game reviewers out there, only one continually earns my respect and actually holds any sway over my purchase of a game.  Yahtzee, that irritable British-turned-Aussie curmudgeon from Zero Punctuation, almost always seems to echo my thoughts on games we've both played, and can usually predict exactly how I'm going to feel on games I haven't.  Never before have I found a video game reviewer that feels exactly how I do, with his utter loathing for multiplayer and JRPGs, and his ability to see through the bullshit and call the games on it.  We like a lot of the same games, and we hate a lot of the same games.  I nearly wept with vindication when he spoke the words "Even if we concede to the fanboys that a Zelda game can only be judged alongside other Zelda games, Skyward Sword is the worst Zelda game I've ever played."

Though, I've noticed that whenever we disagree on a game, we disagree hugely.

I watched his "Best/Worst Of 2011" video last week, and it's just been bugging the shit out of me that he put Dead Island on his Top 5 Worst list.   I honestly would put it on my Top 5 Best, personally.  So I had to go back and re-watch his video on the game from a couple of months ago to check out his arguments.  I guess I can sort of understand what he had to say, but I really never felt the same way about it.  It stuck in my craw enough that I really feel the need to defend the game.


I loved Dead Island.  Maybe it's because I went in with such low expectations, and it just surprised me, I'm not sure.  But I played it all the way through and, apart from the flat ending, I put it among the best zombie games I've ever played.  Head and shoulders above Dead Rising, that's for sure.  It was less action packed than Left 4 Dead, but much more realistic.  It was the first zombie game to genuinely give me the feel of an actual outbreak.

The sidequests were plentiful, and they got a bit old, being mostly fetch quests.  But apart from a couple of them, they felt like real quests.  Go get food, go get water, go get medicine, go get repair parts, etc.  Things you'd really need in a survival setting. Admittedly, I wanted to shoot some of the NPCs, like the crazy girl that demanded you find her teddy bear, or the drunken Russian girl, Svetlana, that wanted champagne.  At least Sveti paid you very handsomely for your time.  But overall the sidequests really sort of made me immersed in the survival setting.

The only time the sidequests infuriated me were when they involved the police station.  It's a fairly large area, and you only got one police station quest at a time, and they all have you going to the same spot, so it REALLY felt like you were backtracking the same stupid path like six or seven times.   That was annoying, I admit.

The combat gets trashed a lot in the game.  It was, admittedly, love-it-or-hate-it.  I personally found it brutal and incredibly visceral.  You can almost feel bones breaking when you swing.  There's sense of feedback when you slice body parts off.  Guns were a waste of time; it was far easier to use melee and just hack and slash your way through.  I guess I just didn't have as hard a time targeting as Yahtzee did; I found it incredibly responsive.  He also talks about the kick maneuver, but to a point where I don't think we played the same game.  The kick does absolutely minimal damage (unless you get the finishing move that lets you head stomp downed zombies).  Yes it can interrupt just about any attack, but that's about it.  If you've got a horde of zombies piling on top of you, I don't see how interrupting ONE attack is overpowered.  And contrary to what he says, kicking does use up stamina.

The one point I will concede is that of the sewer levels.  Although even still, I didn't find it nearly as bad as he did.  There are only a couple of mandatory sewer sections, and only one of them is very long.  Yes, the sewer is boring, but from there on out the only reason it's there is to provide you with a more direct route than an overland path (where you could be blocked by debris, quarantine walls, or vehicles).   I never once found the city to be generic or bland, in fact I often marveled at the detail they put into it.  Dead Island is easily one of the prettier games I've ever played*. 

His last argument, I again disagree with: the Escort Quests.   Yes, I fucking absolutely LOATHE escort missions in any game, same as Yahtzee.  The Dead Island escort quests, however?  Not nearly as bad.  Yes, the NPCs will often run off without you.  Yes, the NPCs love diving headfirst into unnecessary combat.  However, the NPCs also always know where they are going, never got stuck for me, and can honestly hold their own in combat.  I never lost an escort mission, no matter how mobbed we got.  And I'm not sure what Yahtzee was doing wrong, but there was not a single time where I tried to get into a vehicle, and the NPC wouldn't get in.  It actually made me laugh when I rewatched his video, because Dead Island has some of the best escort AI I've seen in a game in a long time.

The game is not perfect; far from it.  The combat and the hordes of undead do get a little repetitive after a while.  So do the sidequests.  Hell, the whole game gets repetitive at points.  Sometimes the quests send you to the same spots over and over, so you feel like a yo-yo.  The durability on the weapons is ridiculous; a solid steel pipe will break after only caving in a couple of skulls.  And the leveling system is kind of ridiculous; I understand the character leveling, but how are the zombies leveling with you?  How do zombies gain experience and get more hit points?  It makes no sense.

But overall I did love the game.  And I definitely don't think it deserved even half of the shit he piled upon it.  Hell, I even liked the drop-in-drop-out online co-op, and I NEVER say that.  Go rent it, or pick up a cheap copy from Gamestop or on Steam.  I think you'll enjoy it.