Last time, I left off with the terrifying prospect of being annihilated by an enemy way tougher than me.
This time, I’m beating him upside the head with a gas canister.
What, you thought I was gonna die this early into the proceedings? I throw the gas canister at him so damned hard that numbers come out of his head. Numbers, guys:
Being an undeniable winner when it comes to playing Dead Island, I finish him off and clear the Life Station of any other undead threats, as instructed by the survivors back at the pool house. Speaking of which, with the coast clear they should be arriving any minute now and in desperate need of medicine, food and weaponry. This means I’ve got less than a minute to stock up on all the medicine, food and weaponry I can get my hands on before that bunch of freeloaders turn up.
Just as I’m stuffing a medkit down my pants, a pretty large plane flies over the compound in a trajectory somewhere between ‘dang, that plane’s probably gonna crash’ and simply ‘daaaang‘. It flies so low that I can even hear the pilot’s panicked voice! Or maybe I’m picking it up on the radio next to me, but whatever. The point is that they’re about to touch down and require help. Let me just say for the record that there’s no way I’ll be going out of my way to help out someone who sucks at life so much that not only do they fail at flying a plane, but manages to crash land it on the one island infested by zombies. Way to go, losers.
I honestly couldn't care less. Honestly.
The survivors show up and seem happy enough with the new base which I risked my life to secure for them. They show their appreciation of me completing this perilous mission by giving me an even more perilous mission. Right, thanks. Cash would have been fine.
I kinda want to just kick back at the new base, but I guess the whole point of this is to give me something interesting to write about, so I do a whole bunch of quests and after an hour of playing it gives me absolutely nothing interesting to write about. The tasks range from the mundane - collecting fuel, helping the injured, gaining access to the medical room - to the even more unremarkable, such as assisting in burning a pile of corpses. What else do you guys want me to do, huh? The laundry? No, I draw the line at that. I’m not a monster.
One guy does at least offer an interesting incentive to completing mindless chores… if I give him five spark plugs, he’ll give me a pickup truck. Um… really? I mean, it’s broken, but that’s why we need the spark plugs which should fix her right up. But what does he want on top of the plugs? What about labour costs? What does he want in recompense for the working truck I get out of this arrangement?
Um… nothing, apparently. I’m about to become the recipient of a working vehicle given to me by the guy who presumably ran a very unprofitable garage before all this zombie business kicked off.
This is a picture of a spark plug. No real reason why it's here, I just got concerned that there hasn't been an image to break up the text in a while. There was an awful lot of words back there.
Don’t have to ask me twice. Let’s go get some spark pl… oh, hello?
Wolvesmaster23 is nearby. The game’s asking if I want to turn this into a multiplayer session with him. Are you kidding me? Do I want to join forces with a guy called Wolves Master? I practically want to marry the guy. What’s even better is that when I connect to him, it turns out he’s just this second finished up with his own spark plug jocularities and from my perspective the car is instantly unlocked.
What’s even better than all of this is that he’s actually a she, which helps with the wedding thing.
Mate, your new bird is really nice and I'm really happy for you guys. But do you not think she occasionally looks a little... murderous?
As with any new marriage, we both stand around baffled for a while until I take stock and sell all my possessions to fund our joint adventures. While she’s stunned at finding herself suddenly in union with me - a logical reaction - I spend a bit of our cash inside the life station and equip myself with a hammer. This should make combat a little bit easier as I’m playing as Sam B, the rapper famous for only one song (Who Do You Voodoo, which just reminds me of David Bowie in Labyrinth) and also renowned for his ability to hit things with blunt objects.
Proud of my new hammer, I take it outside to show the wife.
She’s in the process of stealing the car and leaving me in squalor.
Well, not on my watch, sweety. When we made our vows to stick together (about one minute ago) in sickness and in health until death do us part (probably in one minute’s time), I for one was taking it seriously. As she’s struggling to get the truck through the compound gates, I jump on the flatbed and we’re off on our adventures!
We drive across the dirt roads between the life station and the lighthouse, a more established base where some other survivors have holed up. Zombies who don’t end up getting crushed under our wheels sprint after the truck, but there’s no way of them catching up and they quickly vanish as we twist and turn through the island roads. We pause at one point to loot through some luggage by the side of a coach; logic and teamwork would dictate that one of us should stand watch while the other goes through the bazillion cases, but naturally we both fight over them and try to independently grab as much cash as possible.
When we’re done, the missus gestures toward the truck, indicating that I should drive. I decline, sliding myself into the passenger seat.
And I smile to myself. Sitting on the back of the flatbed and being able to relinquish control for a minute is rather fun. I stare out of the window and watch the scenery whizz by, almost forgetting that we’re in a post-zombie event nightmare.
I’m not sure what our plan is here, but at the same time I’m happy just to woah okay this woman is in no fit state to drive a truck.
As you can see, we just drove off a concrete embankment, onto the forecourt of a zombie-infested hotel and into a palm tree at around 50mph. She gets out of the car straight away, probably to swap insurance details with the palm tree, while I sit in the car and rub my neck. I’m pretty sure I have whiplash, guys. Whiplash. That’s me off questing work for at least a month.
Injured in an accident that wasn't your fault?
I can hear a load of trouble outside, so despite my debilitating and really bad whiplashiness, I get out of the car to see what’s up. The situation isn’t ideal - there’s a large crowd of zombies killing my wife. Not what I’d call an ideal situation at all (or at least it’s difficult to put a positive spin on that). I dive straight into the fray, and we’re both smashing zombie skulls in perfect unison with our blunt weapons - our first joint foray together would have been heartbreakingly adorable if it wasn’t for the fact that we take a lot of damage, both to our precious weapons as well as our fleshy, delicate bodies.
There are zombies everywhere. Because she’s a genius, my wife decides to run around the forecourt in a disorganised fashion and attract every single one of them. I have no idea where we are or what we’re doing, but I’m putting my foot down with both hands: woman, when you’re playing in Iron Man Mode you can do any damn thing you please. Right now, we are leaving this area immediately.
I drag her away. Just as I’m about to allow myself the smug satisfaction of taking charge, she wanders off again. This time, she’s heading to a set of stairs leading down from street level into a subterranean restroom. Y’know, I’d be fine with her taking a toilet break if it weren’t for the fact that there’s an awful lot of blood splattered down the stairs.
Oh, and a groaning sound rising up from the darkness beneath.
She edges down the steps tentatively. I guess I have no other option but to become a part of her fanciful and, frankly idiotic, decision-making skills. We reach the bottom of the stairs and turn the corner…
No, no, no, no. I cannot hang around with this woman any more. This has been a disaster from the off, and she’s clearly going to get me killed if I keep following her.
I mean, I’m seriously asking you guys - is this the kind of place it looks like we should remotely be hanging out in?
Gaahhh. The second time in a single blog post that I've had to call Lionel Hutz' law firm.