The Post Game - Dead Island

The best way I can sum up Dead Island is that it tries to catch the co-op flavor of games like Borderlands and bring it to a tropical paradise with weapon crafting. But fighting the same hordes over and over again in the hopes of getting that one special component for my ultra-rare weapon build wore out its welcome quickly. It's much better in co-op, though, and it's still quite easy to join a match; just hope you don't land in a game populated with obnoxious teens more interested in showing off and hacking the game than playing the game.

+ The world is huge. Be glad there are vehicles and fast travel, because there are a lot of places to discover. It's not a true sandbox – it 's a number of large connected areas – but it will take a lot of dedication to complete the list of missions.

+ The graphics are decent and not too stressful. Expect high framerates even if you have a basic gaming rig like I do at the time of writing (A10-6800k + R7 260X). (No screenshots because, while the graphics are decent, I never had any "wow" moments I wanted to capture.)

+ Four different characters to play as, each with their own bonuses and skills. (I played as Purna most of the time because of her firearms bonuses).

+ Crafting is good, adds some unique effects to the weapons and increases damage.

+ The co-op element works well. Very easy to drop in / drop out of games. Leveling happens much faster, and I had no trouble finding other people to play with.

+ Decent characters, if you can ignore side missions and stay focused on them. Thematically Dead Island has a lot of mature elements. It's just cloaked in this B-movie zombies-on-a-tropical-island setting. Jin's story is touching.

- / + Not really a positive or a negative, since your experience may be different, but the player-base I encountered while pugging coop matches was – immature would be a kind description. I encountered one youngster who asked me if I wanted to go join him in Minecraft. Another person was hacking the game, making everyone die repeatedly (it costs in-game money to respawn, so I didn't find it funny at all). And another player was constantly begging for attention: “Look! Hey, look! I can punch zombies! Look at the size of my fists! Did you see that? Hey, look!” If you have a group of friends you want to play with, you'll have a much better co-op experience than I did.

- Despite the decent story and some good characters, there is very little time is spent with these characters; take time to do plenty of side-quests, and any sympathy built for any of them will have gone by the time we return to the main quests. Don't do the side quests, then; but the risk is going into an area under-leveled – and you are in for a frustrating time if that happens.

- The combat gets boring after the first few hours. Guns only work well against human targets, not zombies. Melee weapons and throwables are for zombies. Run up to an enemy, hack their arms or legs off, dodge a few incoming blows, kick to stagger, kill, rinse, repeat. And enemies respawn REALLY fast, so get what you want from an area quickly, or you'll have to do it all over again. What a chore. 

- Weapons decay FAST (especially blade weapons). Always be on the lookout for workbenches to repair your weapons. Again, a chore.

- Finding materials to craft is a pain. Even if you loot every single corpse or house that crosses your path, you'll frequently be short of materials. Much better to join a co-op game in the hope of finding someone to trade with.

- The quests are repetitive. “Get 5 cans of food” “Find parts for the generator” “My friend / wife / husband / father / mother was infected, they had a memento / letter that I'd like to have back, can you help?” “Get 5 cans of food”

- Maybe because the missions all feel the same after a while, I stopped caring. I rescue this one guy who is trapped in a bungalow with zombies beating on the door. Down the street is a gas station. I rescue him, he opens the door and says, “Thanks mate. You saved my life. But I really need gas for the generator. Think you can help me out?” And I'm thinking, “The gas station is literally right there. Get your own damn gas.” Main story missions are a bit better, but even those suffer from an over-use of escort missions.

Dead Island makes a great first impression with its beautiful island paradise and aggressive zombies, but the copy-paste missions, same-y combat and rapid weapon decay left me annoyed and ready to move on to something else.

The Post-Game: Borderlands

Borderlands leaves me with mixed feelings. I had a great time playing it – when I wasn't bored by endless fetch-quests, easy combat and (in the DLC) re-used bosses.

I enjoyed the weapons the most. They feel and fire great, with a lot of variety. There's a finite amount of cash, so most of your weapons will be found via looting. And there is a TON of stuff to loot. Any fallen enemy drops loot, from bandits to wild animals. And if you find a stash, well, you just might land yourself a rare. Sniper rifles have a fixed zoom, though.

The game world is huge and drab; a real wasteland. The visual style is still unique (even with Telltale using a similar hand-drawn, cell-shaded look for most of their games). It was a little jarring at first, but after a few hours I found the graphics very appealing. And light on system resources. I am able to run Borderlands at max settings @1440p on an R7 260X! Borderlands is just not that demanding.

Getting around the huge world isn't a problem; Scooter's vehicle terminals are everywhere, making it very easy to “Git you one!” But why are we traversing the gameworld? Fetch-quests, mostly. “Bring me 20 fish!” “Destroy 3 fuel tanks!” “Find 20 parts!” They're not all fetch-quests, of course, but there's quite a bit of padding. The attraction was supposed to lie in the combat (and looting) while completing the quests. Which is fine, except the combat is easy. If you do a few side-quests and suddenly find yourself 2 or more levels higher than recommended, you'll breeze through the missions. Co-op play is supposed to mean harder enemies and better loot; I found co-op even easier.

I'd heard so much about how good the characters of Borderlands are, and they're there, but barely; the characters are the start- and end-points of the missions, but that's it. You'll barely even see a cut-scene with them (except in some of the DLC). Claptraps are everywhere, and they're obviously designed to be cute. What about the story? Well, you're looking for a vault; think of it as a box. You're on a planet named “Pandora”. Put the two together, and hopefully you won't be too disappointed when you finally get to the vault after an endless level of “guardians”.

So, I have mixed feelings about Borderlands. I found it tremendously fun in co-op, though, so if you have a few friends who want to run around together shooting and looting, grab it by all means. If you're planning to solo most of it, it will be a solitary, easy grind for loot. Not a bad thing if that's what you're looking for; if you were hoping for more, though, you'll be disappointed.

"Wait, you forgot about your reference to 'recycled bosses'!"

Read on.

On DLC:
There are four DLC, all of them substantial additions to the main game; campaigns are large (as are the rewards) and well worth the purchase – especially if you're buying the game for its co-op.

Some problems with the DLC, though:
- No fast travel. Wait, wtf? That's right. You fast travel to the start of the DLC campaign, but within the DLC, there is no fast-travel, meaning you'll spend a lot of time running (or driving). If you pass a save-point deep within a level, and quit your game, the next time you load your save, you'll be back at the beginning of the DLC, and have to run / drive all the way back to where you were when you saved.

- RECYCLED BOSSES. You'll re-fight the boss from the main campaign, and in the Claptrap Robot Revolution DLC, you'll also re-fight the bosses from The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and The Secret Armory of General Knoxx – sometimes even multiple times! Borderlands tries to be self-deprecating as it does this, but it doesn't change the fact that they're re-using assets. It reeks of being cheap. Did the devs seriously think we would swallow the EXACT same boss three times without complaining? Come on.