Dead Island can be safely described as the wheetabix of video games. Not because of it is a low fat and filling alternative to its more sugary competitors, but more because of how basic and safe it is at its core. You can add on to the top of it and produce something with a bit more flavour, but all you’re really doing is adding on top of a simple base. But (by the same tortured metaphor) you can’t really go too wrong with wheetabix, and sometimes its all you need to get your fill.
Putting cereal asides (for now) Dead Island Definitive Edition is a remastering of Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide (though my review copy only included the original Dead Island) and a rather twee retro de-make known as Dead Island Retro Revenge. The remastering is actually quite extensive compared to others last gen ports. This version of the game sports more high quality textures and a robust new shading system. In fact the entire game was rebuilt on the Chrome engine 6, which is the same engine that Dead Islands spiritual successor Dying Light is built on. In terms of graphical fidelity the two games are now more or less comparable but they are also comparable in terms of performance as the frame rate is prone to semi-frequent fluctuation. Thankfully it isn’t all that jarring, so unless you are a card carrying member of the frame rate police, then this shouldn’t be a deal break. The environment and art design of this game really sell the tropical aesthetic and there will be reasonably size chucks of gameplay where you’ll forget altogether that this island paradise has now become an island hell, because you’ll be far too busy taking in the hugely impressive vistas. The design becomes decidedly more generic in the mid to late game, which is a shame, but a sewer level is a sewer level is a sewer level. All in all though, the graphical fidelity impressed me and as a remastering this game is a damn fine success, one of the best I’ve encountered all generation.
But then again beauty is only skin deep, and while I can’t call Dead Island ugly on the inside, it is definitely not Miss Personality. The game originally released in 2011 in a time when Zombie media was so ubiquitous they were even making undead based remakes of classic literature. I was sick of Zombies in 2011 and while that genre hasn’t really slowed down since then, I felt ready for more of the living dead in video game form when I sat down with Dead Island. As much as I and others have bemused at the prevalence of Zombie media, it has to be admitted that slashing up a walking corpse is still damn satisfying. And Dead Island offers up that thrill in spades… unfortunately that’s all it offers. There’s no real sense of escalating in the games structure outside of fighting more numerous and powerful enemies, do not go into this expecting the Zombie equivalent of Bayonetta.
The actual gameplay itself is a competent affair in and of itself. It is melee focus combat governed by a stamina bar. Now don’t let that description fool you into thinking this is some kind of first person Dark Souls because any chance it had of earning such a distinguished comparison went out the window with how lenient fighting is. While you cannot attack at will, you can kick an enemy pretty much whenever you please, and that kick is absolutely godlike! It stuns nearly every enemy in the game and interrupts all attacks with almost no risk to yourself other than wearing out your L1 button. The special zombie variants threaten to liven things up, but even they are powerless against your almighty boot. And even if they weren’t outsmarting their daringly formulaic patterns takes almost no mental acuity if you’ve ever touched a video game. Now I don’t want to sound like I’m completely down on the gameplay. It all works perfectly fine and there is a massive breadth of different weapons and variants you can try out and use to your leisure. The combat is flexible enough to provide the player with enough tools to think up new tactics on the fly, but the encounter design will never force you to think on your feet, so if you want to play the game that way you’ll have to go out of your way to make it happen.
In reality Dead Island acts as more of a time sink than a game I have a real passion to play. Its fine and serviceable and if you’re looking for something like that, then I can’t recommend this game enough. As a value proposition its quite substantial considering you’ll be getting two games for less than the price of a new one and on top of that you’ll get the ‘retro’ side game as a cherry on top… I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. Retro Revenge is a runner/beat’em’up style game in which you run along the streets and build your combo metre. Its fun, but it’s only really going to last you fifteen minutes before the novelty wears thin. Much like its older brother, Retro Revenge is best used to fill time when you need to switch off.
So in the end, I’d have to give Dead Island Definitive Edition a tepid recommendation. As a remastering, I really can’t fault it but the game is as standard as you could hope for, but it will keep you more or less entertained for as long as you need it to. There is a lot of content on offer here for a decent price, so if you’ve got the time then more power to you. For the majority of people though, there’s nothing that’s been done here that wasn’t done better and with more flair than in the aforementioned spiritual successor Dying Light. So my real recommendation is to go buy that.
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