Dead Island - Trailer Release and you MUST watch!

90% of gamers will defend their purchases no matter how much it sucks, especially on the internet. Go to the Lair or Golden Axe: Beast Rider message boards on gamefaqs and they'll tell you how awesome the game is and that you should buy it. It's the same with every game too.

I actually find that type of behavior seldom applies to small purchases or impulse buys. It's usually the large purchases that people will deflect their feelings of buyers remorse by trying to convince themselves and everybody else that the purchase was actually a great one.

A menial $60 purchase? Not so much influenced. Especially not when the trade in value of the game is so high right now due to supply shortages. They could just dump the game and move on.

After reading the 'official' reviews and reading the 'players' reviews online, I really get the feeling the harsh reviews are mainly due to two factors 1) Many reviews flat out stated the zombie genre is overplayed in their opinion and 2) Many reviewers thought the game was going to be a survival horror game ala the original resident evil series, rather than a L4D/Borderlands mash-up.

Again, I haven't played it. I might go buy it today and play it this weekend, if I do, I'll let you know if the problems are real or imagined. Then again, as a huge L4D fan and an even larger Borderlands fan, I'll probably either love it or hate it due to my expectations as well! :D
 
I actually find that type of behavior seldom applies to small purchases or impulse buys. It's usually the large purchases that people will deflect their feelings of buyers remorse by trying to convince themselves and everybody else that the purchase was actually a great one.

Not my experience at all. The defense forces are just as eager to march for small, shitty and cheap downloadable games.
 
Not my experience at all. The defense forces are just as eager to march for small, shitty and cheap downloadable games.

Hmm... Could be, maybe I just don't spend enough time doing research or reading about small purchases so I don't notice it as much unless it's more capital expenses.

Anyway, it looks like I won't be finding out the truth this weekend. Best Buy, both Targets, both Walmarts and both Gamestops are all sold out.

Go figure. Maybe those shitty reviews really reduced their sales expectations and put a severe limit on their production.
 
I love this game, like a lot.

Dead Island is the zombie game I've always wanted to play, and for a lot of reasons too. It's got a massive open-world to explore, a leveling system with accompanying skill trees to explore, wacky-fun weapons to easily craft, lots and lots and lots of loot to be had, side-missions in every nook & cranny, 4-player coop and top notch B-quality acting that compliments a cliched story--PERFECT!

I particularly loved that there were no annoying mission timers, no bathrooms to visit to save ones progress (what?), or being taunted by fun-looking weapons I'd never use because of impossible to find materials, or limited weapon slots. Yup, Playing Dead Island felt incredible liberating to play because of my experience with Dead Rising.

Dead Island does a good job of providing missions/side-missions that encouraged me to explore every inch of the island. You know, not all open-world games do this very well either. A good example would be GTA4. I loved the game but it had its moment where it was chore to explore Liberty City.

The melee combat--though at first a tad awkward--felt really solid. When I swung and missed I always felt a sense of panic because in Dead Island you're just a person, and I knew I was briefly exposed to attacks from the undead. On the other hand when I landed a hit it was always very satisfying. Whether it was due to impairing a zombie with a well placed chop to a limb, slicing a head clean off or the outlandishly fun two-in-one kill.

At one point in the game I was fighting a mini-boss and as he lumbered toward me I quickly slice at him completely side-stepping his swing. The next thing I knew his fat-bloody arm fell off and landed right next to me. I felt like a total badass and cackled like a witch...or a warlock. Whatever. I immediately ran up behind him slicing at this other arm and it too fell off too. I was wrapped up in a total Monty Python moment as he chased me around a bungalow trying to bit my head off. Sadly he ended up killing me with his chompers, but I blame the handicap I had at the time (laughter).

There was a time I was concerned for this game, and yes, that's mostly due to the amazing trailer we all adore. It surprised us with it's effectiveness in evoking an emotional response, particularly from a zombie apocalypse based video game. We (rightfully) hoped the game could do it again but to a different degree--through gameplay. Then we saw and heard that, yeah, clearly the game wasn't going for that. Then, we all thought, it was plagued by an identity crisis.

As it turns out Dead Island does evoke an emotional response--but it's one of intense entertainment, not sorrow. For now that's exactly what I want in my zombieland.
 
I just wanted to add to this, I picked up this game over the weekend for $39.99 and so far it has been well worth it.

I understand if people were expecting a survival horror game and got an action FPS instead that they might be disappointed, but the skill tree, the weapon modifications, the four player co-op, everything really minds me a game very similar to Borderlands.

If you liked Borderlands - you should definitely pick up Dead Island.
 
I've heard the co-op is fun, although I haven't played it myself yet. The biggest gripe I hear from people is that weapons degenerate and break far far too easily and often.

Regards,
SB
 
It's a pretty good game, got it on pc for $20 last year. Problem is that it does get repetitive. It was fun, but I stopped playing it after about 3 hours or so.
 
I've heard the co-op is fun, although I haven't played it myself yet. The biggest gripe I hear from people is that weapons degenerate and break far far too easily and often.

Regards,
SB

I haven't gotten a chance to play Co-op yet either, then again.. I haven't tried. Playing with strangers often breaks the entire experience.

And I actually like the fact that weapons degenerate. It adds an extra element to the game of constantly managing your weapons and making sure you repair them. I guess it might get annoying later on in the game when you have really great modded weapons and then they break.. But, just like Borderlands, the weapons tell you what their characteristics are: "Flimsy homemade knife" or "spiteful diving blade" with flimsy and spiteful indicating how strong they are and how much damage they do.

NRP - if you're thinking about picking it up (you can probably get it cheaper than I did), send me a shout, I'll be playing this weekend and I haven't progressed all that far in the story yet.
 
I had a lot more fun playing this than I thought I would, the way the story is pinned together is a bit meh, but overall it was pretty enjoyable.

Some sections, like the jungle, later on are pretty good looking but suffer from the invisible wall syndrome which forces you to take prescribed routes. And since cleared areas regenerate baddies that can be frustrating. Especially if you've worn your weapons out and are nowhere near a workbench.

Have yet to try the co-op mode but I have heard that its a whole lot of fun,
 
Yeah, and honestly, Borderlands was very redundant itself (even if you weren't weapons farming), but what broke it up was the multi-player interaction. I haven't played it in co-op either, but I bet that really helps with some of the issues. The game feels just fine as a single player, but it was really made for co-op.

Like I said, I'm only level 7 so maybe I'll feel different after a few more hours are put into it, but I was just really amazed that I couldn't get over the "WOW, this game really is very similar to Borderlands" vibe.

If they could only add some humorous DLC's like Borderlands did it would be spot on.
 
The damage model for the zombies, and the variety of zombies is impressive. There aren't many different types of zombies, but the way they mix and match clothes, hairstyles etc makes them all look different.
 
Played and finished this game, and from end to end i absolutely loved it.

One of my GOTY for 2011 most definintely.

I'm thrilled it seemed to have soled pretty well as well.

I played a little co-op with it but i mostly prefer to play games SP. I did like the fact that the game didn't force me to be in the same vicinity as any coop players. Sometimes a coop guy would drop into my game and i'd just ignore him and do what i'm doing half-way across the map :)

Game was incredible and i loved dicing zombies to gibs with my super-duper rigged up crazy weapons :LOL:
 
I turned off all the public slots to prevent drop-ins and only play co-op with friends. So far, the game has been really good, but it's a much longer game than I anticipated. Not sure if I'll ever get the chance to finish it. Very good game though. Hopefully they'll make a good sequel at some point.
 
This game rocks soo hard.

I want them to quickly announce a sequel.

That's what Riptide is. I'm guess from its description that it's probably using the same engine, maybe even parts of the same island, but it's supposed to be a new stand alone title.

Not like Ryder White which was a completely different game, but still just a DLC pack.

We'll see in a while, they're doing press releases about doing a 'reveal', rather than just actually doing a reveal, so I imagine it's probably a full priced sequel.
 
I also thought this was interesting in light of some of the conversations going on the main console board about the E3 presentations:

Just announced last week at E3, Dead Island: Riptide is in development by Techland, and Published once again by Deep Silver. Not only will it be a completely new game, it's RRP will only be $49.99 at launch, which should be around £34.99 or lower in the UK. Nice!

To my surprise, the reason for the lower price is because Deep Silver think that the current generation of consoles, are due to be replaced with the new generation of gaming. Or to be more precise, the end of a console cycle. They believe that it will be time to move on soon after their fun, gory, zombie sequel launches in 2013.

Aubrey Norris, the marketing and PR manager at Deep Silver had this to say about the whole situation, after the site, Ripten, contacted the team:

"That's not a placeholder :) that's the real price!" She said, "It's the end of a console cycle - we think this price makes a lot more sense given that."

Very generous, i must say, as other publishers out there are still sticking with the normal asking price. Let's hope they follow this example. Until then, they have my respect.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been any details on the upcoming zombie title yet, but we should expect to see more in the coming weeks and months. Braains!

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/25818/Dead-Island-Riptide-will-be-priced-at-just-4999/

Discounting the title because they believe by the time it hits it will be the end of the console cycle. They're planning an early 2013 release right now, and don't believe people will still be shelling out $59.99 per game at that point.

I'd say that's probably because they believe an announcement will have been made before or right around the time this game gets released.
 
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