When Dead Island was announced back in 2011, it made a huge mess in the gaming media. The trailer got people excited for the game, the trailer looked promising, but the game unfortunitely under-delivered, with notorious glitches storming the game... wait, we're not here to talk about the original Dead Island. Ok, so, when Dead Island Riptide was announced, the trailer was sad just like the 2011 trailer for the original game, but didn't do that much of an impact.
The story:
Its a mess, thats how i can sum it up. It starts right after the ending of the original game, you land on a ship, the military tried to handcuff you, some business man talks to you, the screen goes black, you wake up in a cell with an unknown guy, he tells you his name, and then the game starts, when you walk in the ship, you find zombies, how did the zombies break into the ship?? Nobody knows, the game doesn't even care explain to you how all that happened.
So, i just summed up the story, after that you don't notice that there is a story. The story is just there to fill in the gap.
The gameplay:
This is where the game shines. There is a whole lot of variety of weapons ranging from Firearms to Melee weapons
Each type of weapon can be modified, for an example, the Machete can be modified to a Shock Machete. But you don't need weapons to survive, from my experience with John the new character, all you need to do is locate a Zombie, rum towards it and press L2, you send him to his death. Every playable character in the game has something thats overpowered, it kills the immersion of you being outnumbered by zombies on an island where there is no help and you're on your own.
The game lacks variety in terms of missions, especially side missions where everything you do is get someone a certain things, help defend the safe house, go check somewhere in the island.
The main missions suffer too with the repetitiveness of the missions. The difference between side missions and main missions is that the main missions include a cut-scene every once in a while. And the missions don't reward you something worth it, most if the time its a weapon that you already have, but weaker, or they give you money, and very rarely, they'll reward you with a mod. In general, the missions aren't rewarding and not worth the miles of walking and fighting zombies the entire road to the objective.
The game still has the technical problems that had stormed the original game, but this time they're a lot lesser, but they still occur every here and there, such as horrible framerate issues, slow loading textures, your weapons disappearing out of the blue.
I forgot to mention the huge open world map, thats used for nothing, the opportunities for a huge map like this are big, but what a waste, i thought the developers of the game would learn from the huge map of the original game but its all the same, instead, we get a boat that helps you in a few missions and you're done with it.
As for the improvements, the technical side has improved, there are less glitches, less game crashes, which believe or not, the game (Dead Island Riptide) has never crashed on me a single time.
Interaction with zombies have improved, they now run at you if you near, there are now more types of zombies such as The Drowner, the Screamer, the Wrestler, and finally the Grandier.
The online(Co-op):
To he honest, this is where the whole Dead Island series shines, the Co-op in the original Dead Island was simply a blast, it compensated for all the glitches and notorious bugs. But in Dead Island Riptide, it saddens me to say it didn't hold and did not compensate. Why? Because its the same experience i've had in 2011, nothing really was worth doing, 8 hours in, i got turned off but my co-op buddy is what kept me playing. My whole time in the game was 17 hours, mostly doing side quests until i realized its not worth doing and kept doing the boring main missions.
The ending:
I made a whole section for the ending because its simply the worst ending i've ever witnessed. Not that i cared for the story, but it simply blew my mind by how its out of the place. I'll sum it up with spoilers:
You fight the final boss which was a hilarious fight, during the fight, you inject yourself with a some sort of a virus that makes you invincible to kill the final boss, so you finally kill the final boss, a few minutes later, you find a boat, and you escape, most of the survivors come with you, it shows that you're on the boat, the screen goes black, and then shows that your boat is nearing a small harbor with a house nearby, a woman comes close to the boat, then you realize that there is no one on top of the boat but you hear some music inside the boat, then you get a small glimpse that a door on the floor of the boat opens and the game ends. Thats horrible to my standards, note that the developers had the balls to recycle the mission in the original Dead Island and put the exact same mission in Dead Island Riptide.
Throughout this current console generation, the question of "Who asked for this remaster" has been frequently bandied about, with games like Metro Redux and Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition leading the charge. But never before has this query been so valid, as Riptide is neither fun nor functional, and, if anything, deserves a demaster instead.
"Amazon has added new game deals for this weekend. Deals are Dead Island Riptide $9, Street Fighter V - Collector's Edition $80, Quantum Break $49 and lots more!"
Adam Cook: "There from the very start of the company’s existence, Techland’s CEO Pawel Marchewka is a passionate man. He seems to care deeply about the people who play Techland’s games, and is open and honest about learning from past decisions, how the future for the company lies in self-publishing, and how they must work hard to shake past misconceptions."
I hope i did it right. If there is anything about how the review is put together. Please tell me :)
I disagree, i enjoyed both of them. Played thr story but didn't pay attention cause I just had fun exploring and killing zombies. It's a very fun game both were. The glitches Arnt that bad as people claim I barely experienced any.
One quick note, the first Dead Island was announced in 2007 and not 2011; re-announced yes but not the first announcement. Great review other wise.