Surviving as a Team
Dead Island: Riptide is a co-op experience, there’s no denying that. The game was meant to be played with four players. Wreaking bloody havoc all over the island with friends is still a pleasure and you’ll find yourself grouping up again and again to ruthlessly annihilate whatever stands in your way, whether that be man or zombie. Teaming up with others has never been easier. Friends can drop in and out of your game as they please, making it simple to lend a hand or partake in a short co-op session. The game will even alert you of other players online and you’re free to join them if you don’t mind surviving the apocalypse with a stranger. There’s no need to worry about huge differences in character levels as the game scales enemies for each person individually, a feature which was patched into the first game post-launch. So, for example, if you’ve imported a level 50 character and someone else is fairly early in the game, say around 15, then you’ll see enemies as level 50 and your partner will see them as level 15. It’s an intelligent inclusion that works out for everyone.
NOT
Uninteresting Story and Characters
If you expected the character or story elements to change much from the first game, you’re in for a disappointment. You aren’t given any reason to care for the characters or the generic quest they have found themselves on. You probably won’t even show much sympathy towards the side mission-offering survivors, whose only purpose is to gain XP or new weapons. The main characters are just as silly as ever, with their dull dialogue and exaggerated accents. It’s no surprise that the Australian newcomer, John Morgan, falls in line with the rest. Since the game takes itself so seriously, it’s hard not to laugh at the game instead of with it when the cheesy lines crop up. These characters are but hollow shells controlled by you to satisfy your zombie-slaying desires and nothing more. The zombie killing is all that drives you forward through forgettable characters and plot points over the 20+ hours, and that can’t last forever. Just like the previous entry, the ending and final fight leave you wishing for more than what’s presented. Here’s hoping that the true Dead Island sequel (it’s coming, you can be sure of that) gives us a set of new faces and finally fixes the glaring flaws in its formula.
Missions and Dialogue Lack Variety
The inability to evoke any form of emotional investment from the player when it comes to the story and its characters is only further amplified by the game’s horrendous lack of variety. You’ll find yourself typically doing one of two things: fetch quests or defense objectives. As expected, side missions usually revolve around you running to the other end of the map to grab a single object for some NPC you won’t remember moments later. The saddest part is this mission type is overabundant in the main quests as well. The monotony of it all sets in after you’ve spent several hours taking care of everyone’s post-apocalyptic needs. The fort style objectives see you setting up fences, mines and other defenses to keep the dead out. While fun at first, they eventually suffer the same fate as the fetch quests. Even the dialogue is nothing worth listening to really. You’ll hear the same lines during play and uninteresting remarks during cutscenes. I would not be surprised to find that a majority of players in co-op will continue on in conversation with their friend(s) as the characters talk.
Returning Issues
Dead Island: Riptide is very much the same as Dead Island. It looks the same, it mostly plays the same and, with this, it suffers in the same ways. While I was fortunate enough to play it on PC, visuals didn’t differ greatly over the two years and some pop-in could be found. Word around the net is that console versions (PS3, specifically) have received less attention in terms of improvements. It is as if Techland heard the community’s feedback and decided to ignore a majority of the suggestions/complaints. This is very much Dead Island 1.5 and not a full sequel. More time to refine and polish the game would have been preferred. What we ended up with is almost a copy and paste of 2011’s title with a few minor tweaks here and there, but not where it really counts.
Verdict
Dead Island: Riptide brings up mixed feelings. Sure, it’s nice to get back into the swing of things (quite literally) and reconnect with my previous character, despite their bland and uninteresting characteristics. Taking on the zombie masses with friends is still as fun as it was two years ago, although not as fresh, especially with John Morgan’s entrance. However, looking past that we find almost the exact same title from before with little effort into fixing the issues we all had pointed out. The lack of concern or interest in the community’s input is off-putting. Riptide was made for two types of people: those that just couldn’t get enough of Dead Island and those that haven’t experience the series before. Those in the middle ground will find themselves trudging through the repetitive design and lacking story just to find the nuggets of enjoyment embedded within the game’s structure.
[Editor’s Note: Dead Island: Riptide was reviewed on the PC. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
