It makes for a lot of Game Overs that feel cheap and unfair. And on the flip side, you might still take damage even when you’re beyond a zombie’s range. Sometimes, your nailbat might connect with the enemy, but the game won’t register the attack. Melee combat itself feels unpolished and random, with inconsistent hitboxes that render most encounters frustrating. Melee weapons like crowbars, bats, and swords each have their defining characteristics and encourage experimentation, particularly since they degrade as you use them (not unlike Breath of the Wild). Deep Silverĭead Island 2’s main gameplay loop requires players to visit different areas of LA (or as the game calls it, “HELL-A”) where they have to scavenge for supplies to combat the zombie hordes. Inconsistent CombatĬlunky melee combat hampers the gameplay experience. Predictably, the characters embark on a quest to find a cure for the zombie infection while swearing and smashing their way through the gory hordes. At the start, a group of survivors attempts to escape the Los Angeles zombie outbreak via plane that’s quickly shot down by the army. As players explore famous areas of Los Angeles, California, everything feels like more subtropical mayhem too similar to the original. While technically a sequel to 2011’s Dead Island, it feels more like a step back rather than forward. It looks pretty, but it’s a phoned-in first-person action zombie adventure with oddly unpolished combat, horrendous writing, and overly linear stages that lack depth. How is a game that feels this janky the product of a 10-year development cycle?ĭead Island 2 is very much so a blast from the past. It speaks to the game’s restrictive and oftentimes unfair design that punishes all but the most precise (and lucky) gamers out there. Sure, laying into a horde of zombies with an assault rifle is classic gaming fodder, but Dead Island 2’s clunky melee combat is frustrating enough to soil the entire experience. Even the barbaric way that zombie limbs explode into pulpy buckets of gore in Dead Island 2 isn’t enough to make it fun to play.

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