Dead Island was a special game when I was in high school. It was gory, fun with friends made easy with the simple drop in/out system. The game stood out from other zombie games with a melee focused approach to gameplay, though there were guns but these only came much later in the game. It labelled itself as the Zombie Slaying RPG and it was the first dip into the bloodied water that developers, Techland, took into Zombie games…keep in mind these were the guys behind Dying Light which has gone down as one of the best zombie games in gaming history, and playing Dead Island again, I can clearly see some aspects of Dying Light in their infancy here.
Recently, my friend and I saw Dead Island as well as the follow-up, Riptide for sale on Steam. These were the remastered versions and so we decided to give them a try.
I forgot how fun this game was and I forgot how brutal it was. The zombies react to being burnt, electrocuted and chopped in such awesome ways and my friend and I often just stand there and watch a zombie freaking out as it is burning to dead. I’ll be honest, I was pleasantly surprised of how good this game looked on my laptop. I remember it on Xbox 360 graphics where everything was blurry (why was that generation so blurry though?) and I played it briefly on Xbox One, which was the remaster but it just looks more crisp on my laptop.
The game is still a ton of fun and it keeps me busy. It’s crazy how after all these years I still remember some quest item locations and specific weapons. To think that this was the precursor to Dying Light makes me respect it more while I’m playing through it again.
Dead Island is a special game and I really don’t mind that this is my third time buying the game and if they were to amp up the graphics even more in another remaster ten years from now, I’ll buy it again without shame.
