Dead Island (2011)

Completed the game again as Purna at level 43, picking up where I left off years ago. I noticed I was missing 2 locations for the achievement to go everywhere so I scoured the maps for places I had not yet been. Found an entire town with a bunch of sidequests that I completely missed on my 1st playthrough. She was much more difficult to play compared to Sam, but the whole point of playing her was to make it more like a survival horror shooter. I used guns, molotovs and throwing far more often. Rarely used the kick other than when a zombie was getting up. For walkers it was usually enough to circle strafe around them and slice their heads off. For infected I would dodge to the side then slice, or more often just gun them down. For thugs I would target their arms to cut them off while dodging back. A 2 handed weapon with reach is really needed to deal with thugs, and it took me a while to realize the splitting axe I had expressly for this purpose was only a hatchet. I soon found a flimsy white katana and used that only for thugs. My other weapons were a couple of good purple machetes modded with elemental damage.

By the end I was using the orange zed’s demise katana lv 41. Katanas are by far the best melee weapon in the game because they combine reach with speed and high damage, making it easy to kill any zombie from just outside their reach. I even found blades in general to be better than blunt as Sam, despite having talent points to improve blunt. Purna ended up with very similar weapons to Sam; 38 blue wakizashi with short circuit as a great high dps general purpose weapon, 38 orange Tijuana machete with fire which was great for igniting poison enemies, 34 green shock auto rifle which is probably the best overall weapon in the game. Rams and even the final boss cannot stand up to bursts that guarantee electrocution stun. Then I had a 42 purple heavy pistol modded with striker, which was very effective for igniting poison zombies from distance, and a 38 green short shot gun with striker. I skipped the arena but went there often to buy ammo. Despite how expensive everything was, I had no trouble being rich. Struggled at the final boss as I forgot I had to go up to him to trigger the cutscene for the real fight. Instead I was trying to snipe him and getting killed by the flaming weapon wielding armor wearing guard infected that came out of nowhere to almost one hit kill me. I put her talent points into survival first, skipping utility skills and going for her aura: deeper pockets, conditioning, recovery, rain of bullets, and second chance. Then I went into the combat tree to improve her effectiveness with guns: hard knocks, vampire, randori, maintenance, elemental affinity, wunderwaff, and piercing shot 2/3 (where my last point went).

Love this game. The combat is very satisfying, despite the slow and clunky movement. It was obvious that this was designed as a console game and not really optimized for PC. I loved exploring the world and the survival horror atmosphere where I could easily die at any time. My main gripe was how everything respawned; enemies, loot, food. It cheapened the survival horror aspect and I would love to play a mod that disables respawning while adding more enemies and harsher penalties for death. Some of the side quests were annoying when they expected me to actually search for the item rather than showing exactly where it was, and the parts with infinite infected were annoying.

I honestly don't understand why this game is so hated. The story might not be a Pulitzer winner, but I didn't find it as crap as a lot of people say. It's a standard story of you getting involved in something you weren't prepared for, standard characters that are trying to survive, standard missions of "can you find this for me" which are available in any game with sidequests, and standard "I've planned this from the beginning" boss that you can fight at the end (the figth is meh, that's true). If you're expecting in a game a soul-shaking story this is certainly not your game.

I've played the Xbox 360 version of this game and I didn't find so many bugs as people are reporting. Strange, maybe the PC version is different.

So, why I've given it 5 stars? Because I really had a lot of fun, Carl! I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the simplicity of the map, the decoration half peaceful/half "I don't know when the bloody zombie will appear". I liked how the zombies are running towards you, the sounds you hear before they appear and how you have to cut his head clean if you don't want to receive any damage. It's true that as soon as you level up a lot it becomes smash and run, but again that's something that happens on any game.

It's not a difficult game, so if you're looking for a challenge this is not for you. There are no different builds that can make replay the game differently. Even though the characters have different skills in the end they do not change anything. With a controller, I found to aim with weapons extremely difficult, so at the end, I was using melee weapons only.

The map is not really big, even if it can look like that at the beginning. However, there's a certain fun in using cars and trying to explore the map a bit trying to reach roofs through hidden ladders, etc.

Beat the game as Sam B, because I like hard to kill tank characters. In fact I took it to the extreme and found I could get away with using garbage white weapons. My inventory was constantly full of junk as I methodically used each weapon until it broke, then sold or tossed it. I did not make much use of the crafting and never bought anything, leading me to have ridiculous amounts of money. There were tougher spots where I needed to use my better weapons. Despite my character being specialized in blunt weapons, I found blades to be overall better. The katana was the best overall weapon type, followed by other swords, then axes. Two handed axes and blunt weapons were a bit risky to use due to their slow speed, but the extra reach was useful when fighting from a top vehicles. One handed blunt weapons are in the middle of effectiveness while knives and knuckles were the least effective; mind they have very high dps but you have to get so close that they are very difficult to use without taking significant damage. I kept a compliment of each type of gun but found them to be difficult to use and not really needed for zombies.

Sam ended at level 43 and my skill points are:

Recuperation

Motivation 3/3

Hardened 3/3

Deeper pockets 3/3

Regeneration

Bulletproof 3/3

Last stand 3/3

Rebirth

Feel no pain 3/3

Greater haymaker

Pain killer 3/3

Incredible haymaker

Heavy hitter

Devastation 3/3

Effortless 3/3

Lights out 3/3

Blunt expert

Hammer blows 3/3

Aimed shots 1/3

My equipped weapons are:

Orange Zed's Demise, level 41 katana

Blue short circuit wakizashi, level 38

White spiteful katana, level 39

Blue cruel magnum, level 38

Green pride short shotgun, level 39

Green shock auto rifle, level 35

Last slot for molotovs

I have a few other weapons, the best of which is a purple lethal metal kanabo at level 40, but is not as good as those blades. I did complete the arena and the short side campaign as Ryder. Later I played through again as Purna to try and get a more survival horror experience (not very scary when you can just tank everything with crap weapons). She plays a lot more like Ryder and is a much bigger challenge. No more hoarding garbage weapons and using them up, now I have to tactically choose which to keep, use and repair. Knives are kept for throwing and guns are used far more often. She is currently level 34 at chapter 11. At some point I will finish as her, and maybe play the chinese girl next.

I greatly enjoy this game with the combination of 1st person combat, zombies and diablo style loot. Fun environments to explore and an interesting enough story. My notes say I give it 8.5/10.