Back from the dead, with a face lift.
When IGN first reviewed Dead Island back in 2011 we gave it a score of 8.0, for "great." We had this to say about it:
"Dead Island probably won't win any game of the year awards. It's got visual bugs, the controls take a bit to feel normal, and the presentation in general isn't up to snuff. But the game gets a lot right. There is a huge world to explore, thousands of zombies to kill, and tons of side quests to take. Here on the other side of a 25-hour playthrough – where I skipped a lot of side quests after Act 1 – I'm anxious to get back into Dead Island, and despite the game's flaws, that's not something I say often."
Two years later, we were less kind to the quasi-sequel Dead Island: Riptide in our review. "It’s a fun time, but there are no surprises or killer new features to make it an impressive package." It scored a 7.2, for "good."
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The sunshine ray effect alone sometimes caused me to pause in wonder.
And now we have the remastered Dead Island Definitive Collection, and the tale's much the same. The big difference is that it (generally) looks a lot better, thanks to the help of the Chrome Engine 6 that developer Techland used for its spiritual successor, Dying Light, last year. This is more than a simple touch-up – comparing the old and new versions side by side, I was sometimes stunned to realize how many new environmental objects and new textures were stuffed into almost every square yard of this re-release. The sunshine ray effect alone sometimes caused me to pause in wonder at how well it captured the humid midday haze, or the brief shock of blindness as one leaves the sunny outdoors and enters a darkened room. The character models and associated facial animations didn't receive quite the same attention and still look like 2011 holdovers, but play of the light on their faces sometimes grants them a vitality they didn't have before.
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I'm not one to obsess over framerates, but it’s not up to par.
Such loving work comes with some heavy costs that sometimes manifest in unexpected ways. The biggest one is that neither Dead Island nor Riptide can exceed their 30-frames-per-second cap, which is extremely disappointing for an updated version of a last-generation game. I'm not one to obsess over framerates, but when the PS4 and Xbox One struggle to even maintain that rate in Riptide, it’s not up to par. And these problems crop up even with some concessions: no longer, for instance, can I idly kick about the beach balls on the tragedy-stricken beaches. And while I'm sure on some technical level the water effects have improved, but they look less impressive than the original.
These concerns rarely dampened the fun I had with both games. The bugs, too, while not totally extinct, usually only bothered me when some zombie got stuck on a beach chair or something. This is certainly the best version of Dead Island for newcomers to jump into, and it certainly doesn't hurt that the base game enjoys many of the interface improvements that came with Riptide.
When I did start to get bored, it was more from the unchanging design of it all. The stories and acting in Dead Island and its quasi-sequel Riptide have ever been the stuff of 1:00 AM B-movies, and the quests never really amount to much more than kill this, fetch that.
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First few-person games have had such satisfying melee combat.
But there’s always fun, too, whether it’s in the brutal thwacks of the rapper Sam B as he smashes the skull of another bikini-clad zombie with a oar, or in the way Xian Mei slices and dices the competition. First few-person games have had such satisfying melee combat. (The Definitive Collection even comes with the popular and cathartic PC mod that destroys enemies in one or two hits. Caveats: it's only available in single-player, and the appeal of being overpowered doesn't last long.) Like nearly all co-op games, Dead Island is always best playing with other people, and in the goofiness going on in voice chat it was possible to overlook the deficiencies of characterization and storytelling.
As a returning player looking for new content, I had the most fun with the 16-bit sidescrolling beat 'em up that comes with the collection. It's called Dead Island Retro Revenge, and it features a Jack Black-soundalike trying to save his cat by rushing down what looks like Venice Beach with zombies. (It sounds a hell of a lot like the setting for the AWOL Dead Island 2, at least judging from its trailer from E3 2014.) Retro Revenge itself is fun enough, although its combat and settings are highly repetitive. (In other words, it's a lot like Dead Island.) It's a lane-brawler that automatically shuttles faux-Jack along as he taps out the proper kicks and punches for this or that type of zombie, all while hitting them at the right time for multipliers. In practice, it feels a little more like playing Guitar Hero than Double Dragon. It's simple stuff, but it was the best time I had with the whole package.
The Verdict
With the Dead Island Definitive Edition, Dead Island and Dead Island Riptide have never looked so good. The use of Dying Light's graphics engine means almost every setting looks better and more realistic than it did at the start of the decade, but it unfortunately doesn’t run any better now than it did then. With around 35 hours of gameplay packed in and a fun little retro beat 'em up to complement it all, though, it's the best way to play if you missed these zombie-smashers.
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