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And now, a small lesson in managing expectations.
Deep Silver spent the first half of a 25-minute presentation gently stepping away from the fresh and exciting game trailer that instantly put them on the industry's radar just a few weeks ago. Dead Island, they told us repeatedly, is an action role-playing game, period. They want to hit you in the face with a zombie apocalypse and then let you hit back even harder. The emotionally devastating moments that took them viral — such as a family's doomed last stand against an undead horde — aren't a big part of the feature set.
There can be only one!
"There's some emotional stuff," according to writer Harris Orkin (who also scripted Call of Juarez), "but no. Dead Island isn't that trailer.
So subtract the very thing that got you interested in the first place and look at this for what it truly is. Based on the fairly entertaining demo I saw and Deep Silver's own descriptions, one thing sticks out to me: Dead Island doesn't seem to demonstrate a single original idea.
Let's break it down.
You pick one of four class-based characters and level up skills (Borderlands) by jumping into a first-person, mission-based, open-world environment (Fallout 3). You grab improvised weapons which degrade over time (Dead Rising), and you also find blueprints that allow you to upgrade your arsenal at workbenches (Dead Rising 2). You can electrify a machete, for example. You'll use your makeshift arsenal on fast zombies (Left 4 Dead), slow zombies (Half-Life 2), and special zombies like a detonating suicider (Halo) and what look like spitters (Dead Space 2). As you explore, you'll piece together what happened via audio logs (BioShock) found around the island. Yes, exploding propane tanks/barrels and collectables (all games) show up as well.
To be clear, I'm not saying Dead Island's combination of these elements can't — or won't — be fun. Graphically, the demo looks very good, and the gameplay shows a great deal of promise. But again, divorce yourself from what you might've hoped for.
"You a dead bitch now!" (actual game dialogue)
The game proper starts hours after the outbreak shown in the trailer. You wake up in a hut on the beach, surrounded by other nervous survivors and dead people pounding on the walls from outside. Your first job: Go outside and save the Maori lifeguard who pulled you to safety.
Combat happens up close and personal. You might find a gun with one clip of ammo (Mirror's Edge) later on, but mostly you're swinging oars, sledgehammers — which remove a zombie's face quite nicely — and fire axes to bloody effect and soaking up experience points with every hit. Our demo used the tank-class character, Sam B., a one-hit rapper whose upgraded Fury ability lets him throw on brass knuckles and go sickhouse on everything in sight. The other classes are still under wraps, but Deep Silver described them as an assassin, a leader, and a jack-of-all-trades.
After clearing the beach, it's time to find someplace more secure to hole up and wait for rescue. You can go anywhere you can see (Assassin's Creed) on the island of Banoi — a major city's in view, along with the hillside hotel shown in the trailer, though neither is recommended until you've leveled up a bit. Instead, a nearby lifeguard station fits the bill for a new HQ…once you make it a little more zombie-less. From there, more missions unlock.
Who hasn't had a date like this?
The variety of encounters shown in such a short time felt encouraging and included basic zombie mashing, changing up threats (including a few on-fire opponents), and a few places you could quietly tip-toe past snacking undead. Early missions also give you access to vehicles which increase your range and allow trips to more populated areas which promise to keep things jumping. Deep Silver doesn't want to dwell on suspense when they can throw more zombies at you. Combined with all its side quests, they put Dead Island at a 20-30 hour experience per character class. That's not a bad selling point…and not the only one, either.
Dead Island's trailer got our collective imaginations running with possibilities that simply don't match up to the actual experience, but the real game has possibilities of its own. The juxtaposition of a gorgeous tropical paradise with a gory beat-em-up — you're frequently acing now-rotting babes and hunks in swimwear — works. The graphics completely sell the environments and the bloodletting in equal measure. Combat looks fairly solid, with new challenges presented at decent intervals. Dead Island might be borrowing heavily from every game you've played in the last five years, but at least it's stealing from the best.
Deep Silver plans a 2011 release, so we won't have to wait long before we find out if they can make all the pieces fit.