Studio Techland More than once it has been possible to be caught in – to put it mildly – “creative borrowing”. The old shooter Chrome, authored by her, clearly resembled Halo, and last year’s arcade race nail’d was suspiciously reminiscent of Pure from Black Rock Studio.

Here is a new project from the Poles, a first-person action movie Dead Island, upon quick inspection it looked like a copy of Left 4 Dead 2. Judge for yourself – a zombie apocalypse, four immunes, cooperative playthrough, active use of improvised objects as weapons… Plagiarism?

Diablo Island

We’ll answer right away – more likely yes than no. However, the developers did not look at most of the ideas in the brainchild Valve, and in Borderlands. We have access to an entire tropical island for exploration, where we are free to travel (on foot or by car), destroy crowds of monsters, carry out orders for the few survivors and occasionally be distracted by watching story videos. The latter, however, can be safely skipped – the script here is primitive, and you don’t want to follow it. Perhaps, even if instead of the ending we saw the inscription “and then everyone died,” we would hardly be upset.

Like Borderlands, Dead Island takes others – she quite skillfully provokes the munchkin that lives inside each of us.

Firstly, a lot of attention is paid to fiddling with the arsenal, as well as collecting money and various junk. Firearms are rare at the paradise resort, but all kinds of machetes, oars, baseball bats, cutlasses and sticks are in abundance. Of course, any means of killing has its own characteristics, which can be increased by purchasing upgrades. And so that your favorite mace does not break at the most crucial moment, you need to monitor its condition and regularly pay tidy sums for repairs.

In addition, it is not forbidden to collect weapons and other items useful in battle yourself. The local “crafting” system is reminiscent of those from Fallout 3 and Dead Rising 2 – first of all, we need to get a “blueprint” for the next deadly thing, then find the necessary parts and, finally, a workbench. Voila – a machete that shocks enemies, a bat with nails or some other good thing goes to inventory. Hand-made “toys” warm the soul, and the desire to make something correctly encourages looting.

By the way, Dead https://gentlemanjimcasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ Island is an extremely tolerant project. Not only is there a lot of blacks here, but there are also these plump dead people.

Another essential element of Diablo-like entertainment is the progression system. Unlike Left 4 Dead, each hero Dead Island has a specialization: the fragile Asian Xian prefers knives and other piercing and cutting things; former football player Logan excels in throwing weapons; a black rapper named Sam B is not averse to cracking a couple of rotten skulls with a sledgehammer or a bat; Finally, no less black girl Parna is great with everything that shoots, be it a shotgun or a pistol.

“Pumping up”, however, can hardly be called a strong point of the project. Distributing hard-earned points is certainly a pleasant procedure, but there are few truly interesting skills. Basically, we are offered boring improvements in the spirit of “reduce stamina consumption by 5%”. Characters so different from each other lack truly unique skills.

The class balance is also flawed. Playing as a “firearms” specialist turned out to be simply boring – it seems like we’re supposed to pour lead on the zombies, but the cartridges quickly run out, so willy-nilly we have to engage in close combat. This means that we are not nearly as effective at dealing with enemies as other adventurers. In a word, in “Dead Island”, where a couple of clips for a machine gun are a luxury, such a hero is not very appropriate. Plus, swinging an ax is much more fun than holding the trigger.

“If you go on a journey with a friend…”

A small disclaimer needs to be made here: Dead Island – entertainment is exclusively cooperative. If you don’t have a group of friends with you, all the benefits of the project crumble before your eyes. The process of destroying the living dead turns into a routine, car trips are tiring… There is no one to even brag about a brand new “epic” machete to, after all!

Walking together literally transforms creation Techland. Traveling from point to point brightens up conversations with friends; zombies die as soon as they can swing their bony paws; something funny happens every now and then. There’s almost no time to be bored—one minute you were laughing at how you fell into an abyss in a car, and the next minute you’re running to the base, grabbing an armful of tasks and setting off to complete them. Along the way, you should definitely search half a dozen abandoned bungalows and at the same time take a walk along the picturesque beach. Well, then the immune ones will receive a reward in the form of money and good weapons, with which it would be a sin not to fiddle around with the workbench. You understand, after such fun, returning to the “single” is a real torment.

In the context of a local zombie apocalypse, ingenuity begins to work to its fullest. Whatever you can think of to keep your dear brain in place!

Zombie with Foulbrood

Alas, even in co-op Dead Island not always happy. Apparently, in pursuit of variety, one day the authors send us into a stinking sewer, which manages to get pretty boring and spoil the impression a little. Also, some missions to accompany epileptic NPCs are drawn out and therefore annoying. But most often, fortunately, the sense of proportion does not leave the creators.

The main flaw of the project, oddly enough, is the combat system. No, it doesn’t infuriate you at all and works quite adequately. However, for an action movie in which the number of victims is in the hundreds, the execution process is too simple. Hand-to-hand techniques – the cat cried, and “Dead Island” will be called spectacular only by those who have not heard of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and The Chronicles of Riddick.

It is worth mentioning annoying technical problems. Gather in D.I four of us with friends is still a test. Today everything may work perfectly, but there is no guarantee that tomorrow the game will not start to get hectic. In this case, disconnecting from the server every ten minutes and other “joys” are guaranteed.

Ivan Susanin himself would be jealous of this guy in blue – probably not even our famous compatriot knew how to guide his companions in circles so deftly..

But if regular “disconnects” bypass you, D.I will give at least twenty hours of pleasure. When you have three faithful comrades nearby, all the shortcomings seem so insignificant that you instantly forget about them. In other words, fans of cooperative action films should skip Dead Island strongly not recommended.

Pros: fun co-op; the Diablo concept works well; various weapons; beautiful scenery.
Cons: dreary single player mode; some episodes are drawn out; slight class imbalance; the combat system and leveling up are simple; technical problems.