So as you may or may not have seen, there is a new video out regarding Dead Island, the game which caused some interest and excitement recently with their rather good announcement trailer. The new one features plenty of gameplay footage, so I thought I’d take a look at it and give my thoughts, being a lover of all things shambling and flesh-eating.
Okay. Let me start out by saying that this isn’t Dead Island, this is Left 4 Borderlands: Far Cry Edition. And that’s okay! It does look like a great game, I will almost certainly be picking it up when it hits. But I will admit to being somewhat disappointed because the vibe I got from the first trailer, and from what I had seen of developer comments so far, it was going to be a bit less action-oriented than this and a bit more concerned with survival and so forth.
The one thing that is really bothering me though, is what happens at 2:50. Yes, she blew up a propane tank by throwing a nail bat at it. This really, REALLY pushes my suspension of disbelief over the edge to a jagged cliff far below; I’m all for a game which is action-centered, and I’m all for killing zombies in ludicrous fashion (Hello Dead Rising!) but seriously, come on.
That rant aside, there’s not a huge amount I can find to complain about if the game is taken on its own merits rather than what I was hoping it would be. The animations need work for sure (That kick, oh my), and the HUD is incredibly obtrusive, but really, a game which is centered around open-world zombie slaughter using customizable weapons (“Explosive Homemade Knife of Concussion”) and locational damage? Yeah, I can get behind that. I can get behind that BIG TIME. What will be really interesting to see is how much you influence things on the island and to what extent things can happen dynamically. I cannot begin to elaborate on how much I want a zombie game where you can lose entire quest hubs to zombie onslaughts and you can’t do anything about it.
Another thing I’m deeply interested in is how good their mod support is going to be. A foundation like this means that, with powerful mod tools, even if the game proper doesn’t provide exactly what I’m looking for, it’ll still be possible to implement something like it. Like taking out the ability to detonate propane tanks with melee weapons.
“Left 4 Borderlands: Far Cry Edition” made me laugh.
I’m curious what you guys think about the reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. Frankly, I’m a bit sick of everything being rebooted but the actual game and a continuing change to the environment as you progress sounds interesting if I consider it separately from the Lara Croft 2.0 aspect.
PS – Loving the blog!
@ Capital Nineteen – Thank you for the compliment! :D The question you asked may very well turn into a blog post later that one or the other of us writes, so thank you for that suggestion, as well!
I ain’t gonna write a whole blog post on Tomb Raider! Mainly because my opinion is very short: I’m intrigued by the emphasis on survival, but leery of the purported emphasis on action. I hope there are plenty of puzzles and traps like the Hand of Midas because that was seriously awesome.