When Dead Island was released in 2011, it quickly became a sleeper hit and enjoyed much success on the sales and critical fronts as one of the most refreshing zombie games that combined an open world coop experience with meaty melee combat. Almost two years later Techland and Deep Silver once again teamed up to bring us Dead Island Riptide which is a direct follow-up to the original game that was set on the tropical island of Banoi.
Riptide picks up the plot where Dead Island had left off, the four original survivors Sam B, Xian Mei, Logan Carter and Purna are once again stranded on a tropical island after a series of events early in the game. The new locale is called Palanai where the Sam B and Co are joined by a new hand to hand focused character called John Morgan. Morgan adds some truly brutal hand to hand combat to the cast’s already violent abilities.
Dead Island Riptide is not a true numbered sequel to the original and that becomes obvious pretty soon after players start the game. Riptide’s combat is very familiar to Dead Island players as the FPS style melee formula will have us dismembering, kicking and slashing zombies left and right – just like the original. The combat is still fun and brings a smile to my face every time I break a zombies’ bone, cut off an arm or chop the walking dead’s heads off as numbers spray from the victims’ bodies. If you enjoyed Dead Island’s combat than you will feel right at home.
While most of Riptide’s mission and story beats are a lot like those of Dead Island, which had us go on fetch quests and looting runs, the new installment does add a fresh element to the equation. Dead Island Riptide has what I call ‘hub defense’ combat arenas. Here players will have to build fences or barricades as well as man turrets to fight off the approaching zombie horde. During these missions I truly felt the oppressive force of the undead as tons of zombies made their way to the points of entry or even broke in before they met their final demise at the blade of one the great weapons in the game.
Riptide brings back all of the weapon upgrade, repair and deterioration concepts as well as blue prints that we became so used to two years ago. Also back is the upgrade tree which allows players to customize and specialize. If you have a Dead Island character, there is an option to import him or her at the start of the game if you wish. The other option is to start a new character and simply distribute 15 skill points from the get go. As in the previous game, Riptide’s enemies scale to the character skill level to keep the game interesting and challenging.
Of course the coop mode is back in Techland’s latest zombie slayer and friends as well as randoms can be joined or join your game on a ‘drop in / drop out’ basis. Playing Riptide with a friend will make the game even more enjoyable and since the story isn’t too intrusive to a coop experience, it doesn’t really matter if you happen to miss some voice-over. This isn’t to say that the narrative in Riptide is bad or forgettable, but it lends itself to coop chatter.
I really enjoyed Dead Island Riptide, maybe even more than the original, but there are a few things that hold the game back. There really hasn’t been much of an evolution to the game apart from a new character, the hub defense missions and the addition of boats. A lot of times players will be running from fetch quest to fetch quest before moving to a new area. Riptide also still can be bug-ridden at times which shows in enemy AI being rather silly or the frame rate dropping to noticeable levels. I wish at least some of the technical issues had been addressed given that almost two years have passed since I fell in love with this franchise.
Even though I have these gripes with the game, Dead Island Riptide had me hooked again. I love the open world gameplay, the weird but ironically charming characters and the first person zombie slashing, using the weapons I crafted or got from beating a massive zombie berserker. Techland has managed to rope me back in and take a deep dive into a beautiful zombie infested tropical island that I couldn’t stop looting. If you loved Dead Island then Riptide is a game you will want to jump into as it feels just as fun, addicting and rewarding as its predecessor.
Score: 8 / 10
Dead Island was developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on April 23rd. A copy of the game was provided to us by Deep Silver for reviewing purposes.
