My recent playthrough of the remainder of the Dead Island series is now complete. Back in the day I had enjoyed the original Dead Island but then I had fallen off the series, preferring Dying Light, which did things better. So in April I played through Dead Island: Riptide and the non-canonical Escape Dead Island and today I finally completed my playthrough of Dead Island 2. While there is story DLC out for the game, I played it on Xbox Gamepass and so didn't want to pay out for that additional content. From what I read the DLC story takes the form of relatively self contained side stories anyway, rather than take place after the events of the core game. If I ever spot it on sale I may pick it up.
It is fifteen years since the contained zombie outbreak on the island of Banoi, now a new zombie outbreak has occurred in Los Angeles. Efforts to contain the virus have failed, with safe zones overrun and nearly the whole remaining population dead or infected. You play as one of six survivors who have sneaked onto the last plane out of L.A. Unfortunately an infected passenger turns, causing the plane to crash land. You survive the crash but end up getting bitten while trying to save other survivors. Thankfully you discover yourself to somehow be immune and so the nightmare apocalypse turns into a hellish joyride. Joining up with a group of survivors at a film star's mansion, you decide it is up to you to find a way to escape the city for the group. During your search, you are contacted over the radio by Dr. Reuben Reed who tells you that due to your immunity to the virus you are a V.I.P and that if you can reach him he will be able to get you on an evac helicopter out of L.A.
The first game had a cheesy vibe to it, but mostly it did try and play things more straight. Here the tone has adjusted to be far more comedic. While there are some dark moments, the whole vibe is more light hearted. The most difficult decision came for me during the character select screen. All six playable characters seemed insufferably irritating, I really didn't want to have to play as any of them! In the end I chose Latino mechanic Carla, someone who was indeed annoying with her positivity and thirst for reckless behaviour. By the end of the game she had grown on me, coming across as a bit of a lovable idiot. I was impressed with how much voice work there was for the character, she was constantly talking and commenting on things happening. I imagine this would be the same for all six characters, rather than have them all say the same lines I figure they would all have unique personalities. If I were so inclined, I feel this would create a lot of replay value.
The general pacing of the original had the game world split into a series of large open world areas. This time around the open areas are a lot smaller, but their smaller size gave room for far much more world building with incidental detail. The prologue to Dying Light 2 was a fantastic feat of world building, yet when the game begins proper this was all but gone. With smaller locations, the world of Dead Island 2 is able to tell its story more through the locations you visit. There are ten areas in the game, with a map system eventually allowing you to easily return to previous areas to do any new emerging side quests or to defeat special zombies who have keys that can open special lockboxes. They range in size from the suburbs of Bel Air and Beverley Hills to the beaches of Santa Monica. A few areas are more like through routes to other larger areas, while the final location is very tiny. Most zones are full of side quests, more opening up as you progress in the core story, you also get to choose whether you re-visit the location during daytime or at night. The main story was fine, but it was just another 'trying to escape' type one that previous games always followed. The side quests were meaty and ranged from affecting stories of people trying to escape the city, to fighting undead while being filmed by a social media influencer. Many of these side quests had more serious tales going on under all the jokey comments from the protagonist.
Combat is the meat of the game, and this increases as the game goes on. The graphics are superb, and zombie violence you can inflict is most gruesome and impressive. Limbs can be chopped off, skin dissolved, zombies set on fire and electrocuted. This is all done via weapons you find that can then be upgraded at work benches to cause a series of different status effects. You can also go into a rage mode where you get super strength and healing for a limited time. This violence comes at the expense of any human enemies, with them removed completely. I guess it would have been a bad look to cause the same amount of trauma on living enemies, and they were a weaker part of the original game. Every now and again there are boss fights, and these introduce new zombie types, such as regenerating ones with claws, hulking brutes, fat acid spewing monstrosities and more. I thought the boss fights were all fun, these bosses then showing up later as regular enemies.
Rather than have a skill tree, when you level up there is a card based system that grants various perks. I thought this system was a little dull. There are plenty of guns in the game, but it is more designed with melee combat in mind, I found getting up close and personal a lot more satisfying than the occasionally twitchy feeling gunplay.
By the time I was nearing the end of Dead Island 2 I was getting quite tired of the format. If I had concentrated on the main story it wouldn't have been so bad, but there were a lot of side quests I did that took up over half my playtime. Combat increases to the point of frustration towards the end, with you placed in plenty of combat arenas where you are just tasked with surviving against waves of zombies. Dead Island 2 was a solid adventure game that I mostly enjoyed playing, but it is somewhat of a one trick pony geared mostly towards fun but eventually a little monotonous zombie combat.
SCORE:
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