Console / PC / Reviews / RPG / Sandbox

Dead Island Impressions

The world is open, quite pretty, and full of zombies.

Having played Dead Island for 5 hours, completing dozens of side-quests and only 8% of the main story, I feel I am more than qualified to fill you guys in on the game.   Dead Island is all about an event that has happened on this island which caused people to turn into zombies.  Somehow you are unaffected by this blight and have been tasked with helping the locals, those who have not been infected, survive.

The gameplay reminds me of Grand Theft Auto meets Dead Rising.  There’s a main story line that you can push through right away but littering your path just about everywhere you go are side quests.  The world is open for you to explore and hunt or avoid zombies.  In addition to side quests there are side people in distress that you have the option to save and work benches to create weapons.  Think Dead Rising — you have nails and a bat which makes a spikey nail bat or a saw blade, some tape, batteries, wires, and a rake and you have a chain saw polearm.

The core of Dead Island gameplay is smashing zombie faces (Warning: It’s graphic).  You get a decent variety of weapons, although so far it’s all melee.  You can kick, jump kick, and sprint.  You can even drive vehicles (which is a TON of fun to do with friends).  What sets Dead Island apart are its RPG elements.  You choose a character that specializes in a type of weapon at the beginning of the game but you get to specialize points that you earn each level into three different trees.  These trees are all very different from the other characters.  My brother, friend, each chose a different character and all of our trees are unique — that’s a lot of individuality!

A few technical issues found their way into the PC launch. I don’t know if it’s the game or Steam, but joining friends takes a bit of luck an patience.  We figured out a trick to get it working almost 100%:  Have someone start the game and invite all the players who need to be waiting at the main menu.  Have the players not accept the invite but instead right click the portrait of the person inviting (in the Steam chat window) and click “Join game” on the person’s name.    Other issues include:

  • Sound issues.  Graev gets a lot of static/popping with his speakers but his headset works fine.
  • Mouse sensitivity is way off for me.  There’s a huge disparity between in-game and menu.
  • Apparently the “wrong version” was released on Steam.
  • Minor polish issues best characterized within the “feel” of the game.

Exploring the beautiful world completing quests, mowing down zombies with blunt objects, customizing a character, driving trucks, and having the ability to do it all quite seamlessly in multiplayer coop makes this easily a contender for the best zombie game I’ve played.  Depending on how the rest of the game plays out, it may surpass Dead Rising.  It’s fun — fun enough to play 4 hours straight.  Based on my initial feelings of the game, I feel comfortable recommending Dead Island.

UPDATE: I would like to amend my recommendation.  I do not recommend the PC version until all issues are resolved.  Buy the console version.  The game us fun but the PC’s multiplayer has been down for two days which is unacceptable.

(more…)

7 Comments
September 6, 2011
Game Design / Mobile Games

Our Mobile Game Philosophy

Screenshot of "The Project"

It’s been a while since we’ve updated you guys on where we’re at with our game in development, codenamed “The Project”, and I realized we also haven’t spoken much at all about our mobile game philosophy.  Personally, there are very few mobile games that I enjoy.  I see most of them in the same vein as flash games on Facebook and you’d be hard pressed to make a case against the statement that the App stores are mostly full of garbage.

What makes a good mobile game, or specifically a game that you would play on your iPhone/Droid/Windows phone?  I think the most important thing to consider is the ‘why’ question.  Why is the game on the device and is it there for a purpose or does being on the mobile platform benefit the game design in any way?  For example, releasing Bad Company 2 on the iPhone is ridiculous.  It is inferior to the PC/Console versions.  Nothing the iPhone does elevates Bad Company 2.

“The Project” is a classic adventure game like Monkey Island and King’s Quest.  You discover the world as you explore screen to screen.  You find items, solve puzzles, meet characters and have conversations, and experience the story you unfold as you progress.  Gameplay is simple touch-interaction and in a sense feels more natural on a mobile device than it does on the PC.

What else makes a good mobile game?  Read on. (more…)

7 Comments
September 1, 2011
Console / FPS/Shooter / Reviews

Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team Review

Warhammer 40k: Kill Team (released Wednesday) is a third-person arcade twin-stick shooter game for the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network.  It’s also the first game that we played through a scheduled live event on our streaming channel with the intent to review.  There’s a bit of drama coinciding with the launch of this game.  Unfortunately, THQ closed down the devs that worked on the game the exact day it launched.  Not exactly the best way to launch a game, let alone the fact that THQ did practically zero marketing.  Is Kill Team worth the $10 to get you through the summer drought?

The game is fairly straight forward.  You can play one of four classes in the campaign: Tech Marine, Vanguard Veteran, Librarian, and Sternguard Veteran.  Each class is either a ranged or melee focus with one special ability such as a turret to place down or a nasty aoe.  There’s limited customization via a weapon upgrade that comes easily and some choice of upgrades to damage or health.  Kill Team is definitely about the killing and less about the progression or unlocks.

Gameplay is fun.  The levels have tons of Orks and Tyranids to slaughter.  Boss fights range from ‘run away from the danger’ to ‘wait until it’s vulnerable to kite and attack’.   We have no complaints on the boss fights at all.  However, they were not the challenging part of the game.  Occasionally the players are presented with quick ‘run now or die’ scenarios that come at you without warning.  After being sent back to your last checkpoint, you’ll know it’s coming the next time.  There’s never a dull moment or a wait for any kind of action.  The weapons are fun, the score keeps you competitive, and the sight of carnage is addicting.

There are only a handful of missions to play through and each takes about 25-30 minutes.  This is, without a doubt, the biggest downside to the game.  In all, the game comes in around 2 hours 30 minutes of campaign play with Surival mode adding a couple more hours tops.  In Survival mode you have to survive the waves of enemies for as long as you can in a fairly cramped area.  Around the five minute mark it, in our experience, it became a real challenge.

We only encountered a few bugs during our play-through.  Occasionally you can miss a trigger and advance ahead only to realize something isn’t right.  Backtracking until the event continues should fix it for you without any problems and you can continue on.  When it happens during a major chase scene, it’s definitely a little confusing.   Sometimes the camera gets a little wonky during the random bullet time events and the models spaz out and look elastic.

Kill Team is short but sweet.  We had a blast while playing and when we realized it was over we felt disappointed.  As a precursor to the upcoming Space Marine game, and as an XBLA/PSN title it’s not like we expected a full blown game, but for the $10 it’s just a little hard to swallow.  There’s also no online coop (couch only). We both agree that maybe $5 would have been a better deal.

Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team earns a 3.5 on our review scale.  Good game, but we want more.  We highly recommend you find a way to play this couch-coop to get the most out the game. Watch our full play-through after the jump. (more…)

4 Comments
July 16, 2011