Previews// Dead Island: Riptide

Dead Island became something of a cult hit when it was released in 2011, and if you ignore the controversial teaser trailer it was for good reason. Set on a deserted isle, you played as one of a number of survivors in a zombie apocalypse, smacking hordes of the undead with paddles and all kinds of weird and wonderful melee objects.

Of course, that was what drew people to the game. Sheer curiosity and instant zombie-beating satisfaction. What it wasn’t particularly well known for was... well, everything else. Dead Island wasn’t a game that was particularly engaging after you realised that a clunky, repetitive melee combat system was your best chance of survival in a rather uninteresting tropical locale.

But that was always the point. Dumb, honest fun for a few moments before you went to the pub. Deep Silver made no bones about its intent post-release, and thankfully it’s doing the same with Riptide - only this time around, it’s trying to tighten up some of those gameplay niggles and improve the overall experience somewhat.

A few things have changed, but largely the game is the same - you’re still controlling a survivor trapped on a tropical island, battering zombies round the head with any blunt instrument you come across. But Techland is promising a more dramatic time. The atmosphere on the island has changed.

There’s more of a military emphasis as guerilla soldiers hold fast against the undead, building makeshift outposts and bases. There’s a heavier focus on gunplay, off-road action and base defence missions. And things are much more cinematic - in short, the developer is going for more of an action movie flavour.

Does it work? Well, not in the opening segment of the game at the very least. The set pieces aren’t too exciting, and the bits inbetween zones can be a bit of a drag. When you begin, you have to protect a human outpost from falling under a zombie horde. The still-slow and clunky melee controls make it quite difficult to batter enemies when you’re at a low level, and the mission itself gets a tad tedious after too long.

After protecting the outpost, you and your co-op survivors have to travel through the jungle and by the beach. The experience here is almost the same as the original Dead Island, with not an awful lot to admire between constant melee attacks besides the environments (which are much more interesting than in the original, it has to be said). You do get the chance to mow down some zombies in a jeep, though, which is loads of fun (as you’d expect). Seeing zombies bounce off the windscreen and get crushed under your tyres is extremely cathartic, even when you’re not in the driving seat.

Water is a key new element in the game, surprisingly enough. In the opening sequence that I played, the benefits of this new feature weren’t really demonstrated too much beyond the weather system, which can kick up fog and impede your vision when journeying in the middle of a storm. There’s promise of there being more gameplay and story-based uses for water - from locations to underwater areas in outposts - later on in the game.

In addition to the water are more options for weapon customisation, as well as technical tweaks to improve things like damage zones and balancing. You can build mods for your guns to improve them over time, but you’ll still find that ammo is scarce on the island, so there’s a heavy focus on melee attacks. As previously stated, it gets a bit stale too quickly, like the last game.

But this is all based on the first 30 minutes or so of gameplay, which doesn’t necessarily explore all of the new features and elements that Techland have apparently implemented in the game. And for those who just wanted a continuation of the same throwaway gameplay that they found in Dead Island, then Riptide could be worth a look as it doesn’t necessarily put a foot wrong in that regard at this stage.

Instead, it just puts the foot in a print made some two years ago. I get the impression that Riptide is the game that Dead Island originally aspired to be - it would explain a lot, given that this really does feel more like an expansion pack than a full-blown sequel. Not that Deep Silver has tried to hide that fact at all, but as a result you might find that there are no real leaps and bounds over the 2011 game.