Dead Island 2 Review - Survive the Apocalypse in this Zombie-Filled Open-World
Dead Island 2
Dead Island 2 is an action role-playing survival horror
video game in development by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver. It
is the third main entry in the Dead Island series, following the storyline laid
out by its predecessors Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide.
I was ready to play this one, get my zombie killing on and I
found that I was getting my butt handed to me more because of my aggressive
playstyle. This is another game where an isolated area is overrun by zombies in an apocalypse open-world style.
You start with getting to choose between an array of 6
different characters, each with their own stats and perks. As you level and
explore the maps, you’ll get cards that are a bonus. Some are extra attacks while
others are passive effects. It looks like there are some cards that are only
for certain characters. So there isn’t a skill tree, but cards that add to
your character.
As you navigate through houses and open areas, you collect scrap and resources to not
only spend them in a trader shop but also to repair weapons, upgrade weapons,
and make a few consumables like med kits.
I have found that each green weapon has an attribute slot
and a mod slot that can improve the weapons, I’m not sure about any higher
tiers as I haven’t gotten there yet. You can also scrap weapons you aren’t
going to use, or sell them to the trader (only some of them)
I only have melee weapons right now, which kind of sucks. I
do have ninja star consumables and meat to throw. Both of them have a cooldown which I found interesting. You have limited space so you can only switch
between 8 weapons while you have another 8 in your book bag. You can store
things in a storage area by the work benches.
There are a lot of weapon and environment interactions. Hitting a car could sound its alarm, and noises can draw in zombies to you like
breaking glass, loud weapons, and explosions, speaking of explosions water can
move around electric currents, oil can spread fire, water can put out fire, and
some tanks can explode. Watch out for traps.
The map is… Well, I don’t like the map. It looks like someone
took a postcard and boom there it is. I mean I get that someone just grabbed a
scrap and quickly made a map with where is blocked off. But it doesn’t really
show all the blockages, and it is, I don’t know just weird. Things like side
quests and areas where you might need certain items like fuses will pop up on the map
too. So that’s kind of nice if you can actually navigate it properly.
The keyboard controls are kind of weird. I ended up changing the
mapping to some of the buttons on my mouse to make it easier. I mean I
usually turn the one button to crouch/sneak anyways. While I did another button like the dodge button. I
have small hands my fingers don’t reach down to the ctrl and alt buttons very
easily. I mean it took forever for me to find a mouse that wasn’t too big or too
small for my hands. I really don’t like to play things with controllers
anymore, it’s just weird and confusing since I’ve been using the keyboard for so
long.
Story (spoilers)
So far the story is interesting, so spoiler alert you stow away on a plane, it crashes, and then you get invited to a place by a celebrity and get freaking out assistant? With her. You try to save a couple in trouble and end up getting bit, you wake up after passing out and go to the actor lady's house and they freak out because of your bite you pass out after being shot at and wake up handcuffed to a treadmill. Your bite mark is healed and after saving the house from a wave of zombies you learn from another survivor who is immune that you are also immune and your main goal is to help everyone get out of there, while the other survivor wants to stay put. And that’s like the first hour of the story.
