So I picked up a copy of Dead Island over the weekend. Managed to get it for $29.99 so it gives the game a lot more leeway in my book. Nothing irks me more than paying $60 for a game and having it suck or be just mediocre (*cough* Duke Nukem Forever *cough*). I can say I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it but it is definitely worth $30. It's like playing The Walking Dead the game, well if the show was full of characters with bad Australian accents and never ending fetch quests maybe...

But as for smashing the undead over the head with wooden planks, boat oars, hammers, machetes or pretty much anything else blunt or sharp you can pick up it doesn't really get old. It's surprising how much fun you can have dealing out damage on the unsuspecting shambling hordes. It sort of works out your frustrations to pick up a 2x4 and proceed to punish the face of a nameless zombie who wants nothing more than his 3 squares. Forget that just yesterday these were people too. Now they're the walking undead and they don't need your love or caring, just a timely thrashing about the limbs and torso from the nearest heavy object you can find.

It's not the best game I've ever played and it certainly has it's flaws. The bad voice acting I've already mentioned,one dimensional characters who only havea certain fetch quest goal in mind for you, a few BS quirks of the game mechanics that you can tell the designers intended to give you a scare but only irritate you because they just aren't realisitic (such as zombies going from prone at your feet to holding you in a standing choke hold in less than 1 second),a little too much retreading of the same areas, getting stuck on sharp edges making the world seem blocky. There are other frustrations but the game is still fun. Makes me kind of wish I was playing some right now. I haven't had the chance to try out the co-op feature yet but I'm betting getting some teamwork involved will help add to the realism factor if nothing else.