Dead Island Riptide Review

Dead Island Riptide Review | May 7, 2013
Xbox, Windows, PlayStation

Dead Island Riptide is a first person zombie survival horror RPG that is rated M for Mature and is in the same style as Dead Island. You can play single player or with others and there is some third person shooting but Riptide is mostly a melee game. The survivors thought they had escaped the zombie hordes on one island only to end up on another island filled zombies hordes. The infection has spread and now once again you must battle zombies, save survivors and find a way to escape. We say once again because Dead Island Riptide is pretty much the same game as Dead Island. The first Dead Island got mix reviews. You will love it or hate it there is no in between. You start off right where Dead Island ended. You are in the helicopter and you land on a military ship where you are suddenly taken into custody, separated from your group, drugged and experimented on to find out why you are immune to the virus. Whoever you choose to play (or you can import you character from Dead Island if you want) wakes up on the ship where the outbreak has spread to most of the crew. Eventually the ship sinks and that is how you get stuck on island number two with others trying to survive.

Some of the major problems were addressed and fix in Riptide. The most important is that you do not die as often and the punishment for dying and continuing is not as severe, meaning you don’t lose as much money. You can save your money and buy weapons but we discover better weapons all over the place inside buildings, on the ground and in metal crates that were free. Your stamina bar got increased and recovers faster so you have a better chance against multiple zombies and you take less damage. The weapon upgrade system is the same which is good because we like it but we did want to have some new stuff to try out and there was not anything really that different from the first game. Stronger weapons that you can throw from a distance are a lot more prevalent and easier to make. That means the super tough zombies are easier to take down and there are more of them in this game than in the first. Leveling up is a lot easier and updating the skill tree happens a lot faster.

The same first person combat problems still show up. Aiming is almost impossible, the camera is unstable when you are being attacked and you just mostly flail your weapon around and hope to hit something that is trying to eat you. The combat is harder when you have your allies on screen (sometimes seven or more) as your group tries to defend a position (you do this a lot). It is hard to tell apart your friends from the zombies during the frantic crazy combat. A least you can’t hit your allies by accident. The game is open world but traveling around is cumbersome for many sections and where you go all looks the same plus most of the quests are repetitive and lack imagination. Someone is stuck on a roof, investigate an area and see if it is safe to move the group there go into dead zone and kill a super zombie and retrieve something and bring it back. 90% of the game has you do one of these four things in both the main missions and in the side quests.

If you like the first Dead Island you will like this, if you did not like the first game then don't spend your money here. Dead Island Riptide is 25 to 30 hours long including side missions and that is much less than the first game. Riptide does have some replay value but not as much as the first game. In some ways it is better, in some ways it is worse and in some ways it is the same as the first Dead Island. Keep your buying price under $35.00.

7.5 out of 10
OK Game