Preview by: Jason McMaster

After a wild night of God-knows-what, I awake in a darkened, empty hotel room. Sunlight filters in from between the blinds with a quality like that of the glow of an angel. A quick jaunt around the room reveals very little besides a First-Aid kit and a few bucks. Once I hit the hall, it’s quite obvious that something isn’t right here. After spotting the first corpse, my suspicions are confirmed. Someone has gone on a killing spree. I kneel to examine the corpse because I can’t believe what I think I see. No, my eyesight is working fine, there are bite marks. I stumble back, falling onto my haunches, as my head reels. That’s when it starts to move.

Dead Island is intense.

Once you step out of the hotel into the light of day, the feeling of paranoia doesn’t go away. In fact, it grows stronger, as you are surrounded on all sides by the deep, blue ocean. From here, you head to the beach and find a group of survivors that have missions for you to embark upon, most of which are optional. By this point, even though you might not expect it, it’s clear that Dead Island is an RPG. In fact, it plays more like Borderlands than Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead. As you level up and explore, you come across a variety of weapons and items on the island, which is fortunate because there’s a variety of zombies on the island as well.

The weapons have a durability rating as well as damage, and as you use them, the weapon weakens and deteriorates. You can repair or upgrade your gear, but there’s certainly an advantage to using a wide assortment of what you find. The weapon degradation adds a sense of tension and encourages experimentation and inventory management, as does the weapon upgrade system as a whole.

The overall leveling system works like an MMO or similar RPGs, a variety of NPCs give you quests for rewards and experience. Once you hit the group of survivors near the beach and get your first round of quests, the game begins in earnest. As with most games of this sort, you have the option of following the quest lines and riding the story that the developer has designed or going off the rails and wandering around the landscape. Dead Island, from what I’ve seen in this timed demo provided by Deep Silver, has quite a bit of wandering available, though; being surrounded by zombies makes it a bit harder to linger.

While discussing the game with a few friends, a point came up that I hadn’t considered – not many games or movies focus on the undead in a tropical paradise. Usually the setting is dark and gloomy which adds to the overall atmosphere of horror, but Dead Island can’t lean on that concept to set tone. Instead, the game has to work that sense of fear into you in other fashions. It’s almost difficult to be afraid in such a warm and vibrant environment; it’s like trying to imagine Serious Sam bringing a feeling of absolute dread. Somehow, though, it works.