I'm writing this for people who have a gist what kind of a game Dead Island is. Maybe your on the fence about giving it a try or not.
Some games are great, some games are not and some are just okay. Dead Island could be any one of those depending on how you take it. Dead Island is one of the most broken, glitchy games I have ever played. The story is pretty terrible and predictable. Most of the voice acting as well as the cut scene animations are terrible. Texture pops are all over the place ant there is a lot of slow down where too much things are going on at once. The game freezes randomly (PS3 for sure) causing you to reset the console. The saving system randomly forgets where your last checkpoint really was. Some glitches caused me to start over quests because zombies would disappear or be stuck in walls making me unable to finish certain quests. Sometimes even joining a friends game that was less progressed then mine, erased my own progress and kept my single player progression to where I left off with my friend.
Negatives aside. Dead Island is best played with a buddy or three. Its always fun killing zombies with friends. The multiplayer is pretty seamless, aside from glitches. You can join a friends game or a friend can join your game anytime. One really odd game play choice, was having to make you exit all the way out to the menu to change the online options. Money always goes to everyone and items go to whomever picks them up. I think this promotes a better form of teamwork. You don't have to worry about splitting money or someone hording money, but it still has you having to trade items if need be.
Guns are fairly prominent later in the game but they don't do kind of damage you would expect and clearly they were not the focus of this game. But the melee weapons are where its at. The craft system is decent. I just wish there was more crazy mods to use. The characters are quite different as well. Some skills all characters have but some are unique to one another. Logan is the throwing expert, he is best at long ranges. Xian is the sharp weapons expert and the damage dealer. Purna is the guns expert and is a great support character. Sam B is the blunt weapons expert and the tank character. All characters have 3 skill trees that you can level up. Fury, Combat, and Survival. Fury is a special "berserk" mode your character can enter to deal some quick damage to enemies. Combat is a skill tree for fighting. Survival can be anything from lock picking, extra inventory slots, to some more combat skill buffs.
The game takes around 20 hours if you didn't do side quests. Doing all side quests adds 10+ more hours of gameplay. And theres a "New Game +" mode after you beat it. You can start the game again with your level, items, weapons, and mods in tact and further better you character. Dead Island has a lot of replay ability. There are a lot of nods to other games and lots of hidden items to find.
With all its glitches and how much frustration this game has caused me, Dead Island is an amazingly fun game, and I love it.
