Review by: Jason McMaster

The hallway is littered with debris. There’s a light flickering in one of the hidden alcoves. At the end is a group of infected, feasting on some poor guy that didn’t make it. I got my hammer and my shotgun at the ready and start out at a jog and boost it up to a run when I’m about 50 feet short of the grotesque crowd. A couple of them manage to stand up before I plow into them. The living dead fly out from the point of impact; I stomp one’s head in before I turn and continue my run to the exit. I could kill them all, but some more might show up. This is a situation where those who take chances don’t come back alive.

Dead Island is a game of choices, but not the choices to which you’re accustomed. Choices like whether you want to take on a group or avoid the confrontation all together. Can you avoid it? If you can’t, what are the odds of survival? The zombies in Dead Island are vicious, so these are serious questions, and ones that can have a fatal impact on your game. What weapons do you have and what condition are they in? It seems we’ve gotten a bit ahead of ourselves. Where the hell are we and why are we surrounded by zombies?

First and foremost, Dead Island is a zombie game that takes more from World of Warcraft than Left 4 Dead. The monsters, and the characters, are set up like an MMO more than a standard game, even more than Borderlands. From tanking to DPS, the standard classes are represented, even going as far as having skill trees – yes, like in WoW – dedicated to party support (threat generation, helpful auras, etc). This game is very much made for multiplayer in the same way that any MMO is easier with a party. Most of the game, luckily, is available for multiplayer. The only part you can’t jump in and out of is the prologue. Speaking of which…

You wake up in a hotel room, hung over and confused. There’s not much lying around, so you wander out into the hall. This is where the dire level of your situation sets in. After you follow a magic voice to find safety, the game starts in earnest and the pain begins. You’re stuck on an island surrounded by the walking dead. There’s no apparent way on or off the island and you’re trapped with a bunch of helpless, hopeless and infuriating survivors. Not that this is anything new to an RPG setting. What is it about grand quests and the end of the world that lends itself to people begging you to run meaningless tasks for them? Oh yes, of course, I’ll go get your teddy bear from a cabin on the other side of the zombie infested beach resort because that’s a valuable use of my time and a good reason to possibly die.

Actually, you most likely will die.

Dead Island is hard. Very hard. It’s deceptively hard, in fact. When you start the game, it’s all pretty much easy to deal with as the zombies are easy to spot and you can see most of them coming from quite a bit away. You’re on the beach resort part of an island, where most everything is happy and colorful – it’s easy to spot the living dead in these situations. It’s when you wander inland that the hammer comes down and the zombies start to pile on. In fact, if you look at Dead Island like an MMO, the beach and resort areas are the newbie levels and the inner island takes you to the higher difficulty zones.