Dead Island

[The Bobby Llama]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on this, but I'm really liking it so far. The game doesn't do anything particularly novel; it's more of a distillation of elements from L4D, Fallout 3, and Borderlands into a something that's rough around the edges at times, but ultimately a lot of fun.

Definitely recommended if you like jump kicking zombies so hard they almost do a somersault. Or connecting a battery to a homemade machete so they receive an unpleasant electric shock in addition to losing their limbs.

[Warp Factor]

I was thinking about grabbing it, but decided to pass since I couldn't find any good info on how it was coming along. I've gotten really finicky about mouse control, most new cross-platform games these days have way too much mouse acceleration for my tastes and I didn't want to chance paying full price on a game that might have the same problem.

[shadewing]

Sept 9, 2011 6:30:39 GMT -5 Warp Factor said:

I was thinking about grabbing it, but decided to pass since I couldn't find any good info on how it was coming along. I've gotten really finicky about mouse control, most new cross-platform games these days have way too much mouse acceleration for my tastes and I didn't want to chance paying full price on a game that might have the same problem.

In that regard Dead Island is very strange. In menus the mouse sensitivity is soo low that I have to turn my mouse OPI up to it's highest setting (yes, my mouse as a button to do that) to make it even slightly bearable, but then in game my sensitivity goes through the roof. I've learned to cope with it, though.

I'd recommend watching some current gameplay videos (there are bound to be some out there by now). Lots of people are saying it's kind of like a zombie borderlands, which in its own way is pretty cool.

And try and ignore the people saying, "OMG THEY RELEASED A DEV BUILD OF THE GAME RAWRGLE)FGJEFIOEF" because as far as I know that has been fixed and that phase is over and done with.

[drjackwolfe]

I thought this came out this week, I'm interested, but behind on soo many games I don't know if I'll pick it up....zombies though....

[Dedlok]

Reposting a write-up I did on another board:

Okay, now that I've finally had a good chunk of issue free multiplayer time for the PC version I feel better about posting impressions.

Essentially, gameplay wise it plays like a melee weapon centric Borderlands with a Fallout 3 style npc talking and weapon degradation system. Combat doesn't feel as awkward as I thought a 1st person melee game would be. Feels nice and smooth. A lot of times against the commons the best way to fight them is to kick them to knock them down 9if they aren't already on the ground) and then stomp them to death. Tho as you level up it may be beneficial to add in a swipe or 2 of you weapon to expidite it.

At first it was kind of frustrating to try to play online as it seemed to randomly disconnect the people who aren't the host. Then the online (for the PC version) shut down in the mid to late evening of the us launch day (Tuesday) and didn't come back on until late afternoon/early evening Thursday (Just in time for the European launch. Coincidence? I think not. ) Once it got up and running it was pretty fun. My main complaint is that, unlike borderlands, there is no "party leader" that sets the mission to track/focus on. Each player has to set their missions individually. Of course you can see who was which mission set when you are viewing the mission log, but if everyone has their own individual mission set/you didn't happen to hear which mission to focus on you could potentially be seeing different pathway markers on your mini-map than everyone else.

One interesting feature I saw, but haven't taken advantage of is the way you or others could join a random game. If you are in or reach an area where someone else is in on the same server and you are roughly at the same point in the story and both have open public slots you get a prompt about it and you can press a button to join their game.

There are 4 characters,2 male, 2 female. Each has their one unique/slightly varied skill trees and specialties. One is a more Jack of all trades type that specializes in weapon throwing, one is a tank that specializes in blunt weapons, one is a support that specializes in guns, and finally a dps that focuses on bladed weapons. Any character can use any weapon, but if you use their speciality they can take advantage of their skills that increases that weapon type's damage, reduces stamina usage per swing, and other stat increases/weapon bonuses. Like Borderlands, you aren't restricted to one version of a character per party, so you could potentially have 1 of each, or all 4 being the same person. skill trees are divided int Fury (temporary damage boost that can have special properties per character) combat (this is where the weapon specializations come into play) and survival (think this tree is mostly the same for all the characters, but some of the abilities in it come earlier or later for some characters compared to others).

Overall I think it's a pretty good game. Still dunno if it's worth full launch price or not, but I feel it's at least worth the $37.50 I paid for it via getting in with a group of people for the 4 pack on Steam.

[Warp Factor]

BTW, for those who're on the fence it's $40 on Amazon's game download service right now. Which basically means they'll email you a Steam key.

Any specific comments on how the mouse control feels, regarding mouse acceleration and so forth? I don't mean the issue with it being slow in the menus, I just mean how it feels in game.

[Dedlok]

Seemed kinda fast at first. But I dunno if that was due to starting out with the dev version or not. Gotten used to it now, but I haven't exactly been doing any gun shooting. I've only found 1 gun so far, and that was a quest reward just before me and Mantid finished up a session. Even so, I just would up selling it anyway as I more than likely probably wouldn't use it as my chraracter is blade weapon focused. Except maybe against Suiciders now that I think about it.

Maybe I should see if it will still be in the Buyback tab next time I get back in. >_>

[Warp Factor]

There's a lot of good modding work being done right now for this game, most anything you'd be interested in is listed here.

I knuckled under and bought it, the improvements from those mods were the deciding factor. Even if the stock game doesn't control the way I'd like, a little monkeying around should fix it.

[Warp Factor]

Just a heads up for anyone who's been holding out for a deal on this game, it's $30 right now at Amazon's download store. And it's really, really fun.