Dead Island
TL;DR: Fun action surviving the zombie hordes and leveling up!
Gameplay Gist: Well, you run around a zombie-infested tropical resort, bashing in skulls (there are guns eventually, but even then, you mostly beat things with a stick), finding and crafting better weapons, and leveling up and increasing various skills. In a way, it's just a dungeon crawler with a coat of tropical zombie paint over it, but the nature of zombies and the modern technology changes things in various ways. It's definitely all about completing those quests.
Kombat Kuality: Thinking back, I'm not sure why I enjoyed this as much as I did. The fighting is actually pretty awkward. There's also an advanced control scheme available where you can directly aim your swings, but I tried that for about 30 seconds and turned it off. It's bad. Anyway, it's all quite simplistic without that - you just take your swings, aim for the head, and step back before you get bit. That's how it goes for the entire game, with just a few alternatives like dashing in and tackling a zombie, or triggering your Rage Mode to go nuts temporarily and punch their heads off. There are also special situations, like tossing a propane tank into a crowd and shooting it, or the various special types of zombies you have to handle in a different way. Somehow it just never got old even though I can't think of anything super interesting about the combat. You're always listening for that roar in the distance that tells you there's trouble.
Story Stupid? It's alright. The whole thing's a bit of a comic book as usual, but you're one of the very few people who are immune to the zombie virus, and you're trying to be a hero by helping people who are trapped in various places in the resort. Of course there are human villains and a government/military conspiracy, and a super-zombie (everybody loves those!). Pretty much everything you expect from a zombie story.
Wrapid Wrap-Up: I had been hesitant to get into this game from off-hand comments I had heard about it, but when I gave it a shot, I was very pleasantly surprised and totally hooked. Like I said above, I'm not entirely sure what the appeal is, but somehow it just works for me. Trying to collect items from all over, making forays into different areas, trying to combine quests so you don't have to make
too many such forays, combining junk into super weapons, and clocking dead people in the head. It's just fun. There is enough variety in the situations and packs of zombies you encounter that you're constantly having to change up your strategy and pulling different tricks, and being surprised pretty regularly. Like walking around a corner face-first into an suicidal exploding zombie. The danger level is always just enough to keep you on edge and looking out for the energy drinks that are strangely scattered everywhere (and more strangely have a magical healing effect). I liked it all so much that I played all the way to the end, and then I started up Dead Island: Riptide almost immediately.
I did make the mistake of trying the new punching-focused character in Riptide, and I have to say I gave him a shot but I need to set him aside and try somebody else, or I think I might end up hating the game. Getting in close enough to punch a zombie is not fun. But other than that, my note on Riptide so far (a couple hours in) is that it's just about the same game, but improved in every way. Lots of really nice tweaks to spice it up.
