Perhaps those of us who play Skyrim have not even payed Dead Island, the game is almost long forgotten with the recent release of so many big name titles. I've never finished Dead Island, but I truly enjoyed it. But what made the game so immersive wasn't the story, surely wasn't the characters, it was the combat. The combat of Dead Island was it's heart and soul. When I hit a zombie my knife ripped through it and blood spurred across the screen, I occasionally cut off limbs and my character's movements felt fluid. Skyrim is fun and for all it offers it really is a wonderful experience, but combat is in-fact a large part of the game and I feel that if Bethesda made the combat as fluid as Dead Island's, the experience would be so much more immersive. To say that Skyrim is simply a bigger game is a bad excuse, just because a player can cook to his heart's content doesn't mean combat should feel like the player is weilding a stick and trying to batter his enemies to death with it. Take a look at the differences in gameplay:
SKyrim:
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/embed/ROizS7KjjTw ]
Dead Island:
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/embed/Wx-chGMzCQY ]
Notice how in Dead Island the enemies react to the blows they receive and when they grab onto the player the screen shakes and you watch your character shove off the zombie from a first person perspective. I'm not asking for a Draugr to grab me and try and bite my head off but it'd be nice if it didn't seem unscathed every time I made contact with my sword