So, Dead Island! Before I get cracking, allow me to do the cursory reminder that once I die (which is likely to be around four minutes after I come out of the gate) this blog and our session here will come to an abrupt end. And when I say ‘once I die’, I mean in the game although I guess continuation of the blog will also look pretty bleak if I happen to die in real life. Heck, I’m such a whore for charity donations I’ll probably still keep writing from the other side depending on how well Ouija boards stack up against WordPress as a publishing medium.
Heh, medium. Gerrit?
Which reminds me, I’m very sleepy at the time of writing so I’ll probably stoop to making puns using the word ‘dead’. I’ll hand out points to anyone who spots them all… Dead points.
Yeah don’t count that one it doesn’t even make any sense.
What crazy japes are we going to have on the fictional archipelago of ‘Papua New Guinea’ and, more specifically, the isle of Banoi?
Why are zombies so, like, gross?
How many times can one man run away from even minor conflict in a single blog post?
Which other players am I going to run into, and at what point will they inevitably get so annoyed by my ‘help’ that they end up trying to stove my skull in with a claw hammer?
Only one way to find out. Let’s get going!
Obviously what’s great about games is that it’s fun to apply escapism from the reality of our everyday lives and play characters far removed from ourselves. As such, you can imagine my disappointment when Dead Island opens with a cutscene of me staggering around, drinking from a bottle and making unwanted advances towards botched-op transexuals.
Forget Friday nights - this is a typical *Tuesday* for ol' Zeke! A typical Tuesday which ends up in me alone in a motel room, quietly sobbing and masturbating myself to sleep.
So we’re off to a rather mirrored start. I try to get up on stage and sing before getting kicked off - check. I then walk into a women’s restroom by accident - check. There’s a girl trying to help out her friend who’s lying on the floor with a bite out of her neck… yeah, I’m going to go with check again given the town I live in. This is all very familiar stuff, especially on two-for-one pint nights.
I then find myself at a character creation screen. Hmmm. That’s only ever happened a couple of times in my life - one of those times occurred on 20 March 1984, and the other happened twenty years later while in a library in East Hungary. I don’t want to talk about the latter, it was a really confusing incident and I’m not sure I understand it myself.
Let’s just say Hungarians are pretty damn weird.
But we should get down to brass tacks. Which character will be best for our Dead Island romp?
From left to right:
Purna
A firearms expert. That appeals to me as I don’t really want to get within kissing distance of a zombie (ewww), so sniping suits me fine. In addition, her stats are well balanced. On the other hand, I don’t want to choose Purna because her name sounds like some kind of exotic Glade plug-in fragrance.
Sam B
He’s a master of blunt weapons, which puts him on a level of expertise similar to being able to successfully boil Ramen noodles. That said, his health is better than everyone else and having someone with a PhD in ‘being able to hit things to death’ is kinda what I’m after.
Xian
Sharp weapons expert… now that is way more my style. Slicing limbs off with a katana is tres cool, whereas repeatedly twatting something with a crowbar until it stops moving is somewhat lacking in the ‘suave’ department. The only downside is that her health is way lower than everyone else.
Logan
Throwing weapons expert. So let me get this straight - being a survival horror game, useful weapons are presuably in short supply. Once you finally acquire a good weapon and have a bunch of zombies running at you, this guy is the master at throwing the weapon away? What’s the plan when that doesn’t work, chuck the medpacks at them? Screw Logan. Screw him and the horse he rode in on.
Torn between Sam B and Xian, I need a second opinion. Perhaps someone on the Internet has an opinion to share? It’s a long shot, but let’s see here…
… Ah, here we go:
Thanks, Yahoo Answers.
I wake up in a trashed hotel room with an bottle of Jack on the floor. Again, standard. Nobody seems to be around as I wander through the dimly lit corridors. The game suggests that I take this opportunity to help myself to other guests’ belongings, which seems a little off to me given that I don’t really know what happened while I was passed out. Everyone may just be standing outside following a fire drill or something, and I’m here rifling through their wallets. Nothing so far has given me the impression that anything’s amiss yet.
Okay, I suppose that isn’t normal.
But even with the bodies falling from the balconies above, it still seems more pleasant than any holiday I’ve been on in recent years. Check out the eye candy!
Awww. Isn’t that just great? The flight over here wasn’t too bad either - Lovely in-flight service. Although it’s a shame the exchange rate is taking a battering at the moment, what with the recession and all. Pretty sure I could have gotten better than one-fourteen on the dollar, I just didn’t have time to put Mr. Muggins in the cattery and shop around a load of travel agents before…
Huh? Oh right, sorry. Zombie apocalypse.
It doesn’t take them too long to show up. Just after I fall down an elevator shaft (I meant to do that), the dude on the tannoy guiding me through the hotel screams “IT’S THE INFECTED! RUN!”
OKAY! I WILL! I sprint down the corridor towards the safe room up ahead… well, I think that’s what I’m doing but it only takes a few seconds before it dawns on me that I’m running the wrong way. The subtle tip off was the point at which I bumped into a bunch of zeds running the other way, which was a bit awkward. I turn around and leg it back down the corridor.
They remain hot on my heels. Well, two of the three do.
I make it into the safe room and slam the door behind me. What a relief! It would have been even better if one of the zombies hadn’t got into the room before I slammed the door behind the both of us, but thankfully some other survivors jump in save me from my stupidity. Not before I get knocked out in the combat, though - that’s twice I’ve been out cold today and I haven’t even had any breakfast yet.
I come to, bleary eyed.
Well I don’t care much for the zombies in this place, but at least the survivors are very welcoming.
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In next week’s instalment we’ll be clear of all the preamble and into some serious zombie killing action! In the mean time, I’m very proud to say that this one is dedicated to the offensively sexy Jason Lee of Nine Over Ten, a fantastic retro/casual gaming blog. Jason made a kind donation to our charity fundraiser earlier in the week and also helped spread the word.