Dead island 2 review
So after trying dead island 2 out for the first since it came out, I stopped playing when it came out because I thought it was ass, I have to say it’s certainly better than I first thought, now that’s not to say the game doesn’t have it’s issues, it does, and I feel like that partially comes from the fact it was in development hell for 10 years and bounced from studio to studio so you have one studios feature here and another’s here, and it just creates an annoying but fun mess
Before I do start I want to add that you can’t look at this game as a dead island game. Yes it has the dead island name. But this game went through 3 different studios, has an entirely different combat, level design and traversal system than the first game and rip tide. I found that if I don’t look at this as a dead island game it becomes more enjoyable
Starting out, I do not like the combat system in the sense it’s dodge dodge hit dodge dodge, it’s a very different feel from the first game and rip tide where you could throw yourself in a horde and come out alive, in this one you can’t that because you’ll be hit for 500 damage twice and end up dying, and I get that it makes it so you’re not just running through and you have to take your time but it gets to a point that you’re just sitting there like ok this is getting old
On the topic of getting old, I wanna touch on the various arenas during the story where the game says “kill em all” it’s fun at the start, it poses a challenge. But when you’re already halfway through the game and you see it pop up on your screen for the 10th time in an hour it stops being fun and becomes oh great this again. Building on this more if you die say at the very end of one of these segments you have to restart all of it, which if you do you know what’s coming and what to avoid but it gets annoying
The other repetitive thing that killed the game a lot for me personally was all the locked door and cases, yes I know it gives the player a reason to come back. But early in the game for your first play through it makes it seem like you’re missing a lot of stuff so you search the whole area again just to find nothing and it turns out the key spawns on a named zombie later in the game. And the late game you just run past doors because you know that they are locked anyway
The last thing I wanna add that I didn’t enjoy is that the level design, and what I mean is that each area is sectioned off and there’s a loading screen from each area to area. It’s not the biggest issue but for example there’s just no reason to go back to some areas, the studio, the pier, the sewers unless you’re doing a side quest. But even then there’s I think one side quest for the studio and one for the pier. They are amazing set pieces I won’t deny that and I did enjoy them in their own way, but I just didn’t like the sectioned off way they are
I wanna get into the positives so it’s not just all negative
I like the fact that the slayer’s aren’t based on one weapon type anymore, and they are more so based on a play style, and each character has their own innate abilities. Personally I picked Bruno for my first play through, the low health pool made it annoying late game, but with the game already being a lot of dodging, it made him feel natural, and taking a fast knife hitting an enemy 5 times before they can react then dodging away is really satisfying, and I particularly liked his backstab ability
I also wanna add the card system, I’m neutral about it, I like that you can tailor them to your play style, but I will say this, towards the end of the game it starts to throw a lot of random cards at you. At this point you’ve already picked what cards you like so changing one can mess up how you play. And it seems like at lot of the late game cars are this: perfectly dodge 10 time in a row and kill 4 zombies for a minor boost in agility.
Overall I’ll rate the game a 6/10, it’s fun to run around kill zombies, but towards the end of the game you just want to be done because of how repetitive it gets. If I wrote this mid game it would have been a 9/10, but because it seems like the end of the game solely drives on the fact that you’re almost done so I should just finish it. It unfortunately has to be a 6/10