Earlier this week at PAX East, I got a chance to spend a short amount of time with Dead Island: Riptide, the follow up to 2011’s Dead Island. Although the amount of time I spent with the game, I feel that I was able to get a good feel on the game. I came to understand that it was very much a sequel.
From what I saw, Dead Island: Riptide is doing absolutely nothing to bring in new players to the series. It is basically shot-for-shot the same game as the original, with different surroundings. That said, I found the game to be incredibly fun. It turns out that running through the jungle with your zombie team, cutting off heads is a ton of fun, still.
I played as Xian, the bladed weapons expert. And after switching the controls to analog fighting (the real way to play), I was off and removing arms like no time had passed. In the demo, we were tasked with barricading a town, and when that went to shit, we had to blow up a bridge using a flare gun. Because it was a demo, I thought little of my safety and sprinted toward the oncoming zombies just to pop off a shot at an explosive barrel.
Dead Island was a very fun game in 2011, and Dead Island: Riptide is a very fun game in 2013. With a little bit of a self-aware nudge, Techland seems to be pulling off the same game again, and doing it well. As long as the game gets a little bit of last minute polish before the game ships on April 23rd, it will turn out fine. If you loved Dead Island through and through, there is no reason for you to skip on this game.
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