Dead Island 2 gets the zombie killing portion spot on. It's so much with so many different methods. Weapons, both melee and ranged, come in 4 categories, such as "frenzy" or "maiming" each one excels at a different area and gets critical hits in different ways. Then of course you have the actual weapons themselves which can feel different with their speeds, range and so on (so for example a "bulldozer" weapon could be a baseball bat or a sledgehammer).
You can further add variety via perks, including adding an element to them.
You can use environmental hazards to your advantage, though most of them time I found myself just getting shocked or set on fire when trying to take advantage of them. It's also where an area of the game that isn't really expanded upon past the first 2 maps. Like you have electricity, water, acid and fire, but the ways they can interact (setting an oil barrel on fire, drenching a zombie in water then electrocuting it etc) are all shown off very early. It doesn't help that weapons can do most of these faster and better than the environment can, so you'll find these things in the world being more obstacles to yourself rather than tools for killing zombies.
The game does provide a steady flow of other tools for you to use though. Like at the start you just have melee weapons, usually with little to no perks. Then you start unlocking perks, skill cards (perks for your character rather than your weapon), access to ranged weapons, a "special move" and finally full on beast mode.
In other words, there's a ton of ways to kill zombies, and it's a lot of fun.
The amount of enemy variety likewise keeps things fresh. You've got so many types of walking dead. They could differ by simple things like whether they shamble, walk or run (appropriately called shamblers, walkers and runners), but some zombies have elemental elements, like a shocker zombie, dressed up as an electrical engineer, can set off bolts of lightning around itself. Not just offensively, but defensive too - so those shocker zombies are immune to electric weapons, while a firefighter zombie would be immune to all elemental types. This does come with a bit of a downside where due to there being so many zombies immune to all these different types, sometimes it just feels better to make your weapon perk the pure force one with no element, so it can't be resisted by anything, except for things like riot gear zombies which are immune to any damage until you knock their armour off.
The apex zombies are the mini-bosses of the game, which also come in a wide variety. Crushers are huge brutes who slam the floor with their fists, screamers, well, scream, which prevents you getting close, slobbers will spit globs of acid at you etc. They only get better at differentiating themselves when you unlock the ability to harvest zombie parts part way through the game, as each apex will give out different parts, used for some of the better weapon perks.
My favourite aspect of the game though is the huge variety in locales. They chose a great setting for the game. I'd much rather bash zombies heads in in places like huge hotels, pier fairgrounds, beaches, and millionaire houses with pools, than dull grey ruined cities and streets with no landmarks like many games set during a zombie apocalypse. You'll still get some of those darker areas, like the sewers or metro, but they're broken up between much colourful and lively areas.
What can't be said for the variety is the missions. Pretty much all main and side-quests provide little in the way of gameplay changes. They exist purely to tell this games rather mediocre story. While I could understand that with the main missions, the side-quests should really have provided more variety to the usual gameplay loop of "head to area, kill zombies, head back to quest giver". Most of the quests just involve you going to look for someone or something, finding the person the quest-giver talked about is dead and then fighting their zombie self. Rinse and repeat. The only kind I can think of off the top of my head that truly mixed things up is a quest that has you kill off zombies in specific ways, like killing them via fire or electricity. It's such a minor thing too, and that's just how little variety there is.
It doesn't help that it's full of groan-worthy dialogue that I can't tell if it's supposed to be ironic or not. My player character was probably the worst of it, so if you didn't choose Carla maybe you had a better time there.
What also doesn't feel special thanks to not changing things up from the regular gameplay are the bosses. Every single boss in this game is just an apex zombie with a unique name and more health. Granted a lot of the times these are the first time said apex zombie comes into the game, so there's a little bit of a surprise there. But once you beat them, they'll be added to the pool of regular encounters like any other.
So one aspect I find interesting about the game is that stat increases don't come from levels - they come from beating the in-game challenges. Most of these just provide money, but you can get say, extra damage from specific weapon types by killing X amount of zombies with that type of weapon, or more resistance to acid by killing those slobbers who spit acid as mentioned before. It's a very interesting way to get power growth beyond just gaining exp, and promotes fighting as many types of zombies in as many ways as possible.
But it does raise the question of why have an exp and level system at all. There are only 2 things in the game, other than the player, that I can see using levels - the zombies and the weapons. The zombies scale with you, so no matter what level you are, the zombies will never drop below 1 level lower than that. Sometimes you'll find zombies equal, or higher than you, with the odd zombie having a "skull" as its level to indicate "very powerful and can kill you fast". My theory is that every group of zombies has a minimum level, and once you pass that, the zombies will grow with you - until you pass it they will stay at their minimum, and if you're far below it (3+ levels) it will show as a skull. That's fine and all but does it NEED a level system? It's done to gate players from trying to do things out of order, so why not just scale the enemies to player progress instead of levels?
Weapons likewise keep up with you in levels. And it doesn't matter if it's a random weapon on the ground or a special weapon gained from a long scavenger hunt - they'll all be at your level +/-1. Even worse is that these special weapons don't actually have anything special ABOUT them. They do come pre-loaded with some perks, maybe even ones you haven't unlocked yet, but otherwise they seem the same as anything else in the game. Maybe they're stronger, I can't say I compared every stat of every weapon. But the fact they always start at your level means many of them become quickly outclassed. You could use money to "level up" the weapons, but it costs a lot compared to just using material to craft new perks for higher levelled weapons.
It's such a shame too because these weapons are basically the closest thing the game has to exploring the maps. There's very little else to find. You can get materials, journal notes (some of which are pretty fun to read tbf) and weapons. There's a lot of locked boxes where the key is held by a named, and little stronger, but otherwise regular-looking zombie somewhere nearby (not unlike the bosses, but in this case it's fine for them to be regular enemies). It's a fantastic idea, but it lacks any payoff because the reward is a weapon that likely won't differ too much from your current ones, and will be outclassed very fast.
So levels don't provide any benefit in terms of being able to more easily sweep early game areas, or let you access stronger weapons faster. So what's the point? All they do is give you a blueprint for a mod, or a skill card. Those could easily have been tied with challenges like the rest of the player growth.
While I'm complaining I'll just throw in some random QoL stuff I'd have liked:
-A vehicle for backtracking through areas or a way to fast travel without having to go to a safe room.
-A way to sort weapons by most powerful, by type etc.
-Marking which keys you've already used.
The game provides such many fantastic stuff to play with. The arsenal of offense capability, the wide array of different types of things to kill, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and a setting that never gets dull. But it doesn't do anything structured WITH them. It hands you some toys and says "have fun" and when you get a bit bored of mindlessly smashing zombies heads in, you ask for just a bit more to break things up, it just gives you a weak story and says "continue having fun" with no new toys. You wonder if they maybe hid some new toys in the huge sandbox you're playing in. But there isn't.
I had a lot of fun with the game I want to make it clear. I just think it could have been a bit more, and it's more annoying that this game didn't provide it than it would have been if it had been a bad game to begin with.
You can further add variety via perks, including adding an element to them.
You can use environmental hazards to your advantage, though most of them time I found myself just getting shocked or set on fire when trying to take advantage of them. It's also where an area of the game that isn't really expanded upon past the first 2 maps. Like you have electricity, water, acid and fire, but the ways they can interact (setting an oil barrel on fire, drenching a zombie in water then electrocuting it etc) are all shown off very early. It doesn't help that weapons can do most of these faster and better than the environment can, so you'll find these things in the world being more obstacles to yourself rather than tools for killing zombies.
The game does provide a steady flow of other tools for you to use though. Like at the start you just have melee weapons, usually with little to no perks. Then you start unlocking perks, skill cards (perks for your character rather than your weapon), access to ranged weapons, a "special move" and finally full on beast mode.
In other words, there's a ton of ways to kill zombies, and it's a lot of fun.
The amount of enemy variety likewise keeps things fresh. You've got so many types of walking dead. They could differ by simple things like whether they shamble, walk or run (appropriately called shamblers, walkers and runners), but some zombies have elemental elements, like a shocker zombie, dressed up as an electrical engineer, can set off bolts of lightning around itself. Not just offensively, but defensive too - so those shocker zombies are immune to electric weapons, while a firefighter zombie would be immune to all elemental types. This does come with a bit of a downside where due to there being so many zombies immune to all these different types, sometimes it just feels better to make your weapon perk the pure force one with no element, so it can't be resisted by anything, except for things like riot gear zombies which are immune to any damage until you knock their armour off.
The apex zombies are the mini-bosses of the game, which also come in a wide variety. Crushers are huge brutes who slam the floor with their fists, screamers, well, scream, which prevents you getting close, slobbers will spit globs of acid at you etc. They only get better at differentiating themselves when you unlock the ability to harvest zombie parts part way through the game, as each apex will give out different parts, used for some of the better weapon perks.
My favourite aspect of the game though is the huge variety in locales. They chose a great setting for the game. I'd much rather bash zombies heads in in places like huge hotels, pier fairgrounds, beaches, and millionaire houses with pools, than dull grey ruined cities and streets with no landmarks like many games set during a zombie apocalypse. You'll still get some of those darker areas, like the sewers or metro, but they're broken up between much colourful and lively areas.
What can't be said for the variety is the missions. Pretty much all main and side-quests provide little in the way of gameplay changes. They exist purely to tell this games rather mediocre story. While I could understand that with the main missions, the side-quests should really have provided more variety to the usual gameplay loop of "head to area, kill zombies, head back to quest giver". Most of the quests just involve you going to look for someone or something, finding the person the quest-giver talked about is dead and then fighting their zombie self. Rinse and repeat. The only kind I can think of off the top of my head that truly mixed things up is a quest that has you kill off zombies in specific ways, like killing them via fire or electricity. It's such a minor thing too, and that's just how little variety there is.
It doesn't help that it's full of groan-worthy dialogue that I can't tell if it's supposed to be ironic or not. My player character was probably the worst of it, so if you didn't choose Carla maybe you had a better time there.
What also doesn't feel special thanks to not changing things up from the regular gameplay are the bosses. Every single boss in this game is just an apex zombie with a unique name and more health. Granted a lot of the times these are the first time said apex zombie comes into the game, so there's a little bit of a surprise there. But once you beat them, they'll be added to the pool of regular encounters like any other.
So one aspect I find interesting about the game is that stat increases don't come from levels - they come from beating the in-game challenges. Most of these just provide money, but you can get say, extra damage from specific weapon types by killing X amount of zombies with that type of weapon, or more resistance to acid by killing those slobbers who spit acid as mentioned before. It's a very interesting way to get power growth beyond just gaining exp, and promotes fighting as many types of zombies in as many ways as possible.
But it does raise the question of why have an exp and level system at all. There are only 2 things in the game, other than the player, that I can see using levels - the zombies and the weapons. The zombies scale with you, so no matter what level you are, the zombies will never drop below 1 level lower than that. Sometimes you'll find zombies equal, or higher than you, with the odd zombie having a "skull" as its level to indicate "very powerful and can kill you fast". My theory is that every group of zombies has a minimum level, and once you pass that, the zombies will grow with you - until you pass it they will stay at their minimum, and if you're far below it (3+ levels) it will show as a skull. That's fine and all but does it NEED a level system? It's done to gate players from trying to do things out of order, so why not just scale the enemies to player progress instead of levels?
Weapons likewise keep up with you in levels. And it doesn't matter if it's a random weapon on the ground or a special weapon gained from a long scavenger hunt - they'll all be at your level +/-1. Even worse is that these special weapons don't actually have anything special ABOUT them. They do come pre-loaded with some perks, maybe even ones you haven't unlocked yet, but otherwise they seem the same as anything else in the game. Maybe they're stronger, I can't say I compared every stat of every weapon. But the fact they always start at your level means many of them become quickly outclassed. You could use money to "level up" the weapons, but it costs a lot compared to just using material to craft new perks for higher levelled weapons.
It's such a shame too because these weapons are basically the closest thing the game has to exploring the maps. There's very little else to find. You can get materials, journal notes (some of which are pretty fun to read tbf) and weapons. There's a lot of locked boxes where the key is held by a named, and little stronger, but otherwise regular-looking zombie somewhere nearby (not unlike the bosses, but in this case it's fine for them to be regular enemies). It's a fantastic idea, but it lacks any payoff because the reward is a weapon that likely won't differ too much from your current ones, and will be outclassed very fast.
So levels don't provide any benefit in terms of being able to more easily sweep early game areas, or let you access stronger weapons faster. So what's the point? All they do is give you a blueprint for a mod, or a skill card. Those could easily have been tied with challenges like the rest of the player growth.
While I'm complaining I'll just throw in some random QoL stuff I'd have liked:
-A vehicle for backtracking through areas or a way to fast travel without having to go to a safe room.
-A way to sort weapons by most powerful, by type etc.
-Marking which keys you've already used.
The game provides such many fantastic stuff to play with. The arsenal of offense capability, the wide array of different types of things to kill, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and a setting that never gets dull. But it doesn't do anything structured WITH them. It hands you some toys and says "have fun" and when you get a bit bored of mindlessly smashing zombies heads in, you ask for just a bit more to break things up, it just gives you a weak story and says "continue having fun" with no new toys. You wonder if they maybe hid some new toys in the huge sandbox you're playing in. But there isn't.
I had a lot of fun with the game I want to make it clear. I just think it could have been a bit more, and it's more annoying that this game didn't provide it than it would have been if it had been a bad game to begin with.
4 Comments
@appreciations Thanks!
I wouldn't say that the ranged weapons are pointless at all. Assuming we're talking about guns, they're very good. There are also 2 slots for grenade-type ranged weapons, though I don't find those pointless either, and since they have their own slot and have a recharge time rather than ammo, you're never gonna wanna not use them.
Only really bad thing I can say about guns is that the ammo capacity is pretty low on them. I found shotguns in particular to have that problem. Ammo can be found in the world, but it's rare. Otherwise it has to be crafted from a workbench. So I guess if the critics were talking about ONLY using them, I could see how they'd run out of ammo too fast, and be too resource heavy to use. But having a mix of melee and guns and you're all set.
I wouldn't say that the ranged weapons are pointless at all. Assuming we're talking about guns, they're very good. There are also 2 slots for grenade-type ranged weapons, though I don't find those pointless either, and since they have their own slot and have a recharge time rather than ammo, you're never gonna wanna not use them.
Only really bad thing I can say about guns is that the ammo capacity is pretty low on them. I found shotguns in particular to have that problem. Ammo can be found in the world, but it's rare. Otherwise it has to be crafted from a workbench. So I guess if the critics were talking about ONLY using them, I could see how they'd run out of ammo too fast, and be too resource heavy to use. But having a mix of melee and guns and you're all set.
@Clearin Great to hear, exactly what I was hoping. Thank you!
Pretty good review!
I remember there was a build of the original version that leaked years ago, and that had cars in it. I guess the reason that they were cut here was because they were going for a stupid simple approach. I can see why you'd want them in the game, though. Backtracking gets kinda annoying.
I remember there was a build of the original version that leaked years ago, and that had cars in it. I guess the reason that they were cut here was because they were going for a stupid simple approach. I can see why you'd want them in the game, though. Backtracking gets kinda annoying.
appreciations
1 year ago
One thing I've been wondering before I eventually pick this up is the viability of the ranged weapons. I've seen a fair amount of critics say there's basically no point to using them and you're better off sticking to melee weapons but is that so?