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PLATFORM
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PS3
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BATTLE
SYSTEM
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INTERACTION
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ORIGINALITY
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STORY
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MUSIC
& SOUND
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VISUALS
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CHALLENGE
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Easy |
COMPLETION TIME
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Less Than
20 Hours
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OVERALL
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+
Fun weapon
modding.
+
Great level design in the
second half.
+
Great audio
presentation.
-
Tedious
weapon management.
-
First half is
tedious and boring.
-
Lack of a real challenge.
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Click
here for scoring
definitions
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Dead
Island: Riptide is a follow up to the
original Dead Island that continues the
story on a new, though equally not alive, island.
Though the game has its moments, a number of
issues with the mechanics combined with a majority
of areas having boring level design hold Dead
Island: Riptide back. Without much real
challenge and not much new for returning players,
there's not a lot of motivation to dig into this
RPG. It's a shame, because the core elements could
easily have made a much more enjoyable zombie
experience.
The story takes place
immediately following the end of the original Dead
Island, with the game's four heroes escaping
the island and landing on a military ship.
Naturally, things quickly go downhill from there
as the heroes are taken into custody by the
military and the ship is infested with zombies
soon afterwards. Despite an attempt to add some
twists, the story never really ventures beyond
typical zombie movie plot beats. The NPCs lack any
sort of character depth, and when betrayals and
other character events occur there's just no
emotional impact. The story serves its purpose as
a way to keep things moving while providing a
reason for its primary missions, and does not
genuinely try to do more. In this regard, the
story serves its purpose. This does unfortunately
represent a disappointment for an RPG, given that
many moments throughout fall flat thanks to a lack
of character development.
Axe
swing induced motion sickness
not pictured. |
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The action
itself has a large number of issues. Dead
Island: Riptide is a first person action
RPG, focusing mostly on the use of various melee
weapons with some gunplay included in the mix as
well. Though the action itself relies heavily on
the player's skill, typical RPG leveling along
with skill trees unique to each character
influence the combat. These skills provide bonuses
to certain weapon types, to health and stamina,
and in some cases even provide extra attacks that
will help players against the zombie hordes.
Weapons can also be modded with extra effects such
as elemental damage, or the odd act of wrapping
one in barbed wire will hurt the enemy instead of
the wielder. Fighting through masses of zombies is
especially satisfying with these modded weapons.
Firearms are also present in the game, but the
ammo supply is never sufficient enough for them to
supplant the the use of melee weapons. Still, the
availability of more mods as the player advances
prevents the lack of firearms from becoming a
major drag.
There are a number of other
issues that prevent the gameplay from being a
completely smooth experience. The first is the way
the game handles inventory and the durability of
weapons. Melee implements degrade at a relatively
quick pace, seemingly with the intention of
provoking a survival horror feeling that forces
careful inventory management. Unfortunately
everything else about the game completely
contradicts this. Melee weapons litter the game
world, so much so that the trouble will be
managing the limited inventory and deciding which
ones to keep. In addition, there are repair
benches all over the game's locations, so that as
long as the player has some cash on hand there's
never any real risk of being without a beloved
modded weapon for long. This makes the management
of weapons feel like pointless busy work instead
of a way to carefully manage resources to survive.
The city
areas are some of the best in
the game. |
|
The game
balance and level design further this issue. Dying
in the game simply causes the player to respawn
after a short countdown. While this works fine in
multiplayer to keep the action going, in single
player it just further makes the durability system
feel pointless. Why worry about the condition of
equipment or bother to avoid attacks when the
player can simply respawn and continue
immediately, with bare fists if necessary? It
completely destroys the tension of combat. The
exceptions are the base defense segments in the
game, where an NPC dying will cause a revert back
to the last checkpoint. These segments can be
tense and chaotic, and give a sense as to what the
game proper could have accomplished if it took a
similar approach. These segments aren't immune
from the game's issues however, as the player will
always find a repair bench and extra weapons and
ammo to eliminate any need for conservation.
The early game is filled mostly
with fetch guests and boring treks through jungle
and water areas sparsely populated with the game's
weakest assortment of zombies. Once the game's
latter half moves to a city area, some effective
moments with more carefully constructed quests
make Riptide pick up noticeably. Locations
like dark buildings and tight streets allow the
game to create more atmosphere and challenging
combat scenarios even with the ability to respawn.
These areas also include the most challenging
zombies the game has to offer, which require more
than just brainless hacking.
In terms of audio and visual,
the game shines quite nicely, with one big caveat.
The game takes place in first person and it
attempts to realistically create head movement
based on the player's movements. This means that
with every motion the perspective will jerk
around, sometimes in an energetically violent
fashion. Such a mechanic may make sense in a
horror game, but the result is often extremely
disorienting and can cause motion sickness. At
least the locations and zombies in the game look
fantastic, with some especially gory effects when
taking the undead down. Riptide mostly
lacks music, but uses this as an advantage with
great environmental and zombie sound effects to
keep the player on edge. Combat also has a great
element of sound to it, effectively creating the
audo qualities of the player's respective weapon
and mod choices.
At the end of the day, Dead
Island: Riptide has a lot of good ideas,
especially in its latter half. The combat, while
repetitive and often frustrating with the annoying
inventory management, still manages to provide
exciting encounters. It just seems as if the
developer didn't trust players enough to fully
immerse them with the survival horror title
suggested by the mechanics. There's a good
template for a zombie RPG that hopefully can be
realized in the future. Sadly, this is not the
game to do it. Those both new and old to this
young franchise would do best to approach it
with the caution one should employ next to actual
zombies.
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