Dead Island for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

"Dead Island" is a pretty neat idea: Take an island paradise, make it an open-world sandbox in which to run around in, and add zombies. Mix in some RPG elements and weapons crafting, and the result should have been a fun game. Sadly, the execution of the final product was not as fun as it could have been, marred by slippery controls, inconsistent enemies, and an endless supply of repetitive quests that are often more mundane than exciting. In the single player campaign, you get to pick from one of four characters (two male, two female) which are more or less carbon copies of each other. You begin in your hotel, where things go very wrong as the undead are on the loose. From there you meet up with various bands of survivors, who put you to work taking care of varying tasks for them. Problem is, they don't bother to help, preferring to let you deal with the zombies, as for some reason you're immune to their bite. That doesn't mean you're immortal: You can die, and you will do so often. And here's where some of the frustration begins to set in, as when you die, you're respawned 5 seconds later. That's not the bad part, however. The bad part is where you respawn, which gets quite inconsistent. Sometimes it will be right where you were felled, and other times it will be far from your objective that you were going for, necessitating a long trek back to where you died, often passed respawned zombies. Yes, they respawn- clear an area out, and when you return later, that same area will be overrun again. There's only an autosave, but you should've had a save anywhere feature in a game like this. The 1st person view, while immersive, doesn't always work well with a camera that can get very unfocused during combat, is in melee form mostly, and the camera makes things harder than they should be. Graphics are fairly good and the voice acting is competent. Your weapons are varied, but they degrade quickly, making you find a place to repair them often. I'd rent this before buying.