Humble opinion. Dead Island: Riptide
DeadIsland: Riptide picks up where the first part ended. The four survivors fly off by helicopter from Banoi Island and land on a warship, hoping to finally be safe. Dreams are crushed in a moment: the heroes find themselves in handcuffs, listening to an unintelligible speech from the new main villain about biological weapons and ending up in prison.
| System Requirements |
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Windows XP 32 Dual Core CPU 2.70GHz GeForce 8600 GT 512MB/Radeon HD 2600 XT 7 GB HDD |
| Recommended Requirements |
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Windows 7 64 Dual Core CPU 2.70GHz GeForce 9600 GT/Radeon HD 5670 4 GB RAM 7 GB HDD |
Flesh Eaters
The sequel to the action movie about the zombie apocalypse at first resembles an Italian film zombie. The first meeting with the infected happens at sea, further action takes place in the tropical jungle, and along with civilized people, the locals, somewhat distant from civilization, fight off the infection. Unfortunately, it is impossible to draw a parallel further: the developers did not radically change the surroundings, so in Riptide, besides the zombies, the first part comes out of all the cracks. Here are the dead in breeches and Hawaiian jackets, here are the same wrenches, sticks and baseball bats, apples and chocolates, first aid kits and painkillers. The gameplay of the sequel, by and large, also remains the same and is unique with a strong role-playing bias, in open world and about the dead.
The dominant role in everyday life Riptide crafting plays. The only way confidently overcome the infected - scour the area in the hope of collecting all sorts of rubbish, getting to the workshop and transforming, say, a simple shovel into an electric shovel or winding barbed wire around an ordinary wooden stick. Any weapon wears out over time, which means it causes less damage and takes more strength. Therefore, those who do not check the condition of their weapons risk ending up in a crowd of zombies with a broken baseball bat, and this is certain death.
There are really a lot of modifications, but before attaching a circular saw to a wrench, the player must find the corresponding drawing. It would seem that these are ideal conditions for upgrading your inventory: a huge world with objects scattered everywhere, you know, look for it and modify it left and right. However, the authors of the game killed all the interest: the stronger the piece of reinforcement in your hand, the stronger the dead man waiting for prey behind the neighboring bush. The same applies to leveling. By raising your own level, you will only achieve that the dead will hunt you more fiercely and powerfully, and in this case there is no point in wasting your time on secondary tasks and searching for drawings.
This rather stupid approach to the role model raised questions even in the first part, but several million copies sold and 80 points on Metacritic apparently convinced the authors that they did everything right the first time. Perhaps the constantly increasing level of zombies would not be so annoying if they also changed in appearance, but only the numbers in the parameters change. Before execution story quest The level of enemies is tenth, after that - twelfth.
“But no change is visible in them, everything in them is the same as before”
Riptide in general, it is completely based on the principles laid down in the original, and the question very quickly arises: “What’s new here?” There are exactly two innovations. The first is the so-called base protection. The survivors have occupied certain territories, which are safe most of the game time, but sometimes they are attacked by the dead. The defense of the complex looks simple: 80% of the space is surrounded by insurmountable barriers and has several cracks that need to be barricaded. This will not deter the dead, but it will slow down, and you will have time to group. Attacks come in waves, giving you the opportunity to rest between battles, patch up your health and check your weapons.
The defense of the camp does not last long, and most of the time you will have to run around huge maps, where there are now also rivers. This is the second innovation: to move around the island, not only ground, but also water transport. Motor boats are controlled in the same way as cars - the only difference is that on the water in key point(when a flock of dead people rises from the bottom in front of you) you can step on the gas, accelerate and chop your enemies into pieces. Zombies regularly rise from the watery depths, cling to the side and try to climb up; You can throw off the dead man using the same acceleration or by giving him a kick when he gets very close. If you fail, the creature will throw you into the water, and this is the worst thing that can happen: whether you are on a boat or not, the dead will still rise from the bottom in large quantities, in the water the character moves slower than usual, and there is a risk that it is simply not possible to reach the saving land get there.
***
The player can find temporary solace in the cooperative mode, which would be even more addictive if this game could be played by four players in front of one TV. When you break the limbs of the dead in the company of friends, everything that happens on the screen is a farce and you perceive it properly - that is, as a farce. A good mood will probably last for an hour and a half - this time will be enough to study the game in all details, get tired of the monotony and get bored. Until that happens, fun is almost guaranteed, but overall Riptide very monotonous. The same tasks suggest running from one point to another for an important item and bringing it back, although the dead are divided into several types, they basically still repeat the assortment of the first part, the types of weapons have not changed. It looks like someone is Techland also understands the dubiousness of the idea with this sequel, and that’s why main character keeps repeating: “I shouldn’t have been here at all.” We agree, it shouldn't.
It seems that games about zombies have always been popular, and that games and films with the living dead have appeared in countless numbers. It turned out to be a lot of projects, some of them were good, others were frankly useless, and others remained in the memory and forced me to spend hundreds of hours on them. The Polish studio Techland tried its hand at creating a zombie hit. Debut video Dead Island, shown in 2007, made a great impression and attracted attention to the project.
The events of the game took place on fictional islands near Papua New Guinea, where unknown reason residents began to turn into zombies. We were given the opportunity to play as one of four survivors who were immune to a mysterious virus and who were trying to get off the island to escape this madness. The final product was quite controversial and had its advantages and disadvantages.
Call it Dead Island perfect game Of course, it’s impossible to talk about zombies, but it gave the player new gameplay and impressions, which won its supporters. That is why the developers from Techland decided to offer fans a sequel called Dead Island Riptide.
What happened in the end? But what came out was rather a fairly wide addon rather than a full-fledged continuation. Let's start with the fact that minimal new ideas were introduced into the next part; the existing advantages of the game were preserved, but the disadvantages did not disappear.
The plot picks up from where it left off in the first part. No “six months later” or “in the near future.” The survivors were unable to escape and another accident throws them onto a neighboring island, where the virus is also rampant and hordes of zombies are walking. The player is faced with a rather familiar task - to get out of there and save his own life, and throughout the entire playthrough you will not be left with a feeling of déjà vu.
Dead Island is still not a shooter, although it is positioned as such. Feel free to choose your melee skills throughout the game. You will have to shoot somewhere around sixty percent of the campaign, and in all sorts of closed, corridor locations, while the need to upgrade firearms disappears immediately if you aim at the enemies’ heads, but you will need to chop off the limbs of the dead with an electric katana at the beginning of the game.
It is this kind of unique gameplay that attracts the player’s attention and forces him to complete the game, since reptide cannot offer anything else. All quests are very similar and are divided into two types. The first of which is to find and bring, the other is to prevent zombies from breaking into the territory.
In some places the main quest is quite difficult to distinguish from a side quest, and, unfortunately, not because side quests are unique and interesting. You can notice the progress of the main campaign only by changing locations and the designation of the next chapter on the loading screen. Returning to melee combat, it is worth noting that at first it arouses interest, then gets a little boring, but as soon as we have the opportunity to discover several new skills, interest returns again.
Later, instead of protracted and heavy crushing of a zombie's head with his foot, the player can knock him down by pressing one button, and the protagonist will instantly jump on the dead man's head and crush it like a ripe watermelon. By killing zombies, the player gains a rage scale and when it fills, you can activate a mode in which you can scatter all the carrion into different sides, and feel like Rambaud in the tropics.
IN general weapon divided into 4 classes: firearms (pistols, rifles and shotguns), blunt ( various kinds hammers, clubs, bats), cutting (knives, swords), and melee (brass knuckles and quite interesting homemade devices). A range of homemade and military mines, grenades, and Molotov cocktails are also available. Depending on what weapon you use when killing zombies, that class is upgraded. It is better to combine different types and use them according to the situation.
Although the quests are of the same type, there are still very rare moments when the game surprises, but such cases can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Wandering through the nooks and crannies of the new island, you can come across various schemes that will allow you to upgrade your weapons in a rather interesting way. For example, on spanner, which in itself quite effectively smears brains on the walls, you can place a welding machine, and in addition to the usual damage, evil spirits will be set on fire.
It should be noted that this whole design looks quite plausible, and suggests the reality of such weapons is that improvement does not occur with the help of some conventions or magical runes. But this is not a unique feature of the sequel, but rather inherited from Riptide from its predecessor. Only a few skins have been updated and new designs have appeared.
As before, energy is used for every blow, jumping and running, so it’s worth planning your actions and quickly assessing the situation, because you won’t be able to fend off a dozen zombies manually yourself, and only a grenade thrown forward or a Molotov cocktail will correct the situation.
Sometimes the game does not tell you which item you can “throw away”. For example, for quite a long time you don’t understand why they throw signal lights at us in such a large quantities and generally what they are for. But only then, when you find yourself in the dark corridors, you understand all their value, but you don’t have to complain about their absence in the dungeons themselves, they are scattered generously and the next portion appears even when you still don’t have time to unwisely throw away the previous portion.
The game still features four-person co-op. And as you know, not even too much good game decorates a joint passage in the company of friends. It doesn’t differ in anything special, four characters can go side by side and complete quests, which only simplifies the task of destroying zombies and does not provide any unique gameplay. Throughout the entire passage, the game displays a message that such and such a player is next to you and when you press one button, you will soon be fighting zombies shoulder to shoulder. Of course, the option can be turned off.
The game also features an exchange of created weapons, both with the same players online and NPS. This aspect is intended to make playing easier and more comfortable. A skilled player can safely walk past this system.
Dead Island Riptide still suffers from bugs and strange features. And if the fabric, which cannot be bypassed and which is more likely associated with a concrete wall, can be forgiven, then the NPS, which stands in the door like a ram and under no circumstances moves, not allowing you to pass, is very annoying. And the only way out of this situation is to reboot from the last saved point. The car actually feels like a tank.
Regarding the enemies, the situation here is the same as in the end of the game - the old ones are left, and a few new ones are added. On our way there are ordinary zombies who cause trouble only when they are overpowered by numbers, among them there will be both slow ones and quite fast ones, which are not so easy to knock down. Thug is a tall, slow zombie that kills in a few hits, although he is not agile, he causes a lot of trouble, and takes a relatively long time to be destroyed.
Suicider - a bony zombie covered in growths that explodes when it comes close. Ram is a battering ram, a big zombie wrapped in a straitjacket. Because he chooses a target and runs towards it, knocking down everything in his path until he reaches it or crashes into some kind of obstacle.
Floater is another parallel to L4D, a fat zombie who vomits toxins. Butcher, or butcher, can be described as a very annoying version of Thug, he deals the same amount of damage, he is also difficult to kill, but he is very, very fast. There are also ordinary people present firearms. This group of infected people is known to us from the first part.
Riptide also offered several new types of enemies, including: Drowner - a very annoying zombie that is found near bodies of water, and every time it rushes out from under the water at an unexpected moment. Grenadier is another copy of the Charger, but this time it is visual, has a mutated hand that tries to hit the head well, but is relatively slow. Screamer is an interesting take on zombies, but could have been executed much better.
Regarding graphics, it is worth noting that the game engine remains the same. Riptide uses the same Chrome Engine 5, and there’s simply no point in expecting anything new from it. The picture leaves mixed feelings, on the one hand, the tropical landscapes look very, very good, on the other, you come across some very terrible texture, and the characters resemble mannequins, and you get the feeling that they have something plastic. The animation of the first-person combat is pleasing, but it is unclear why lifting a canister, or some specific movements in missions are implemented with “Teleportation”.
The locations are really new, but again they are more reminiscent of an add-on setting - the style is the same, only their number has increased. What's really great about the game is the sound. The characters are written beautifully, even John Morgan's British accent sounds natural, and his jokes make you smile from time to time.
Another one announced characteristic feature the engine is a dynamic change of day and night, and a system of weather effects. In fact, you don’t notice the dynamic change, and you simply don’t pay attention, and as for the weather effects, the rain looks pretty good, but there is another side to the coin. It seems that this shower is tied to specific places in the location, so driving past small settlement you get caught in the rain, and after driving through it the sun is shining brightly in the sky.
Opinion: Dead Island game one idea. The good thing is that this one idea was unique gameplay. Having implemented an interesting gameplay feature, the Poles forgot about the game. This was once the first Assassins creed. It’s not that the game was bad or uninteresting, it’s just that at that time it was a technology, a new engine. The game was largely repetitive. In the next part, having a foundation, a giant step forward was made and all the features of the assassins were refined, improved, and used in the game itself.
The situation with Riptide is quite similar, but instead of taking into account their own mistakes and improving, and releasing a worthy sequel, Techleds decided to make money quickly and did the same thing only on a slightly larger scale.
It's up to you to play Dead Island: Riptide. What should be taken into account is that nothing radically new Riptide will not offer, and one should not expect that the next part took into account all the mistakes of its predecessor and grew according to the appropriate parameters. But, if you are not yet familiar with the universe, this game can be a good option for introduction, so if you skip the first part, you will not lose anything for yourself. In the absence of high-profile releases, you can safely launch a co-op with friends and while away a few evenings in friendly company.
The main characters escaped and successfully landed on the military ship, but there they were met by the most unpleasant person - Frank Serpo. As it turned out, the disaster on Banoi was his doing. He somehow found out that the survivors were immune to the disease and ordered his men to take them prisoner. After this, Serpo began experimenting on them.Some time later, the main characters come to their senses because an alarm has risen on the ship. The reason for this is that someone did not control something and now the infection is raging on the ship. Having reached the military Sam Hardy from the cabin, the survivors on the ship are wrecked. When they come to their senses, they see that they were on the neighboring island of Palanai, where the infected were already waiting for them.
There have been changes to the playing lineup - added new character. John Morgan is a military man who was dragged onto the ship because he is also immune. He is a specialist in hand-to-hand combat, that is, brass knuckles or bare hands are the best option for him to fight. In a state of rage, he attacks the enemy with his staff.
In terms of opponents, the game has also undergone changes:
- Grenadiers are mutated scientists who attack people by throwing pieces of their own bodies at them, causing enormous damage.
-Drowned - pretend to be dead while in the water, but they are very fast and agile.
- The Living Dead is a mutant who has one gigantic arm and the other normal. With his huge limb, he can hit the ground - this will cause a force wave that can knock him down.
- The Screamer is the most unpleasant and dangerous mutant, who with his scream can stun and immobilize, and at the same time cause considerable damage simply by attacking.
The game does not start from the first level, as usual, but from the fifteenth, and the player is given the opportunity to distribute skill points as he sees fit. In terms of creating weapons, everything remains the same - you need to look for drawings and create deadly weapons on a machine using raw materials.
Banoi was just the beginning, and the main characters will have to relive all this horror, but they are already prepared and full of experience. There are more of these infected people on Palanai, they are more aggressive and deadly than they were on Banoi, and there are many more of them here.
The game has a co-op mode available, so if it’s too scary to go alone, you can invite up to three friends to the game, and co-op mode you can exchange things and it will be much more fun.
It should be noted that the game is full of all sorts of surprises. It is able to attract the attention of not only beginners eager to kill monsters, but also quite experienced players.
KONSTANTIN ‘BOBIK’ FOMIN
Four in a boat
Adventures in the open world don't help either. You won’t explore it for your own pleasure—there’s nothing to see. Side quests even dumber than in - continuous “go and fetch”. Fortunately, there are some minor improvements. For example, the weather now changes dynamically, and enemies are not so brazenly revived in “cleared” zones.
You have to travel around Palanai not only on foot and by car, but also by boat. It’s hard to ignore this type of transport, because the heroes walk waist-deep in water at a snail’s pace, and it doesn’t bother the undead. However, there are not very many flooded areas, and the river fleet here, contrary to advertising, is not at all in the forefront.
Another “promoted” new feature is the episodes in which the team must defend the camp. By themselves, they are primitive and boring: blocking the passages with wire mesh, placing mines and sitting at machine guns (if found) - that’s all the “tactics”. In , of course, everything was much more tense: there death is irreversible, but here they just write off a little money from the account. But all squad members and NPCs participate in defense, which helps to better understand when playing together. The authors clearly took into account the experience where comrades appeared exclusively in cutscenes. 
View the gallery of Dead Island: Riptide screenshots
Infection from the resort
By the way, there are five heroes. A certain John Morgan, a native of these places, was added to the familiar quartet. You can’t call him a very interesting person, although remarks like “and in this area my former lived, to find out what’s wrong with her” and sound alive.
As a specialist in hand-to-hand combat, he prefers brass knuckles as a weapon, but his most useful technique is a running kick, which throws the enemy back and allows him not to waste time. There is no need to get involved in a fight for the sake of “leveling up” anyway - the level of the enemies increases along with yours.
Those who don't like the newcomer can import old characters. If there are no “saves” left, the game will immediately offer 15 skill points. You can distribute them yourself or use one of three ready-made templates.
However, no matter what you choose, the gameplay will not fundamentally change. The battles are still impressive in their “dismemberment”, but quickly tire of monotony. The balance, of course, has been improved: edged weapons break more slowly, “firearms” are issued earlier and they don’t skimp on ammunition.
* * *
The few differences from the original are usually unsuccessful. The only good thing is the final video, which builds a bridge to the sequel, which, apparently, will become. Although I am afraid for its quality - it seems that everything is happy with the current formula.
| Minimum Requirements | Recommended system |
|---|---|
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Core 2 Duo/Athlon X2 2.66 GHz |
“No matter what weapon you choose, a simple machete or a semi-automatic rifle, it should become an extension of your hand.
If the weapon can be taken apart, do it. In the light and in complete darkness. Until you know every bolt, every spring, every bend and every corner of this all-important device. With practice, you will gain experience and confidence - two qualities that you will have to develop in yourself in order to successfully fight the living dead. History has proven that a well-trained man armed with just a stone has a better chance of survival than a novice with the latest technological marvel.”
"From the Zombie Survival Guide"
Popular mechanics
Like the original one, the game is more about weapons than about zombies. This is not a survival simulator at all - you won’t have to carefully examine houses in search of food and medicine (unless by the will of the scriptwriters, in story missions). As well as shying away from every rustle. There are a lot of zombies, they are fast, they sense you from afar and pursue you to the last. You won't be able to hide from them, but you don't need to. There is no point in running away from enemies, because they exist only to have someone to test their rich arsenal on.
The dead seem to have missed us so much since the release of the first part that their emotions are overflowing.
If you missed it and have no experience fighting living corpses, you will have to die no less often than in . However, you will simply be reborn nearby, having lost some of the money, and rush into battle again. And over time, you will learn to dodge, and aim at vulnerable points (“tactical dismemberment” is implemented here no worse than in), and monitor the fatigue scale. You still die here very often, but it only affects your wallet.
The shooting here is extremely uninteresting, which is surprising given the “shooter” experience of the developers.
Besides common features conducting combat, you need to take into account many parameters of each specific weapon. Once accustomed to an axe, it is very difficult to switch to something cutting. There are also differences within the same type - the difference between a short hammer and a long sledgehammer is felt instantly. The character himself has a set of parameters that reflects the level of proficiency with each type of weapon. It grows like - the more you swing the sword, the better you get at it.
There is a full tree of skills, but most of the abilities are passive and do not change battle tactics. In addition, opponents, again like in Oblivion, grow in levels along with the character.
Any weapon can be modified. To do this, you will have to find a drawing (most often given as a reward for a task) and the necessary components (duct tape, boards, bolts and other rubbish are scattered around the island). The list of improvements is extensive: from simply “decorating” the baton with nails to supplying current to the katana blade. Frying zombies with electric currents and smashing them to pieces with weighted sledgehammers is terribly fun, but, most importantly, the benefits of the modification are instantly felt in battle, and towards the end of the game you cannot do without them at all.
Entertaining physics
Actually, that’s the beauty of Riptide, that swinging all that dagger in an attempt to get more frags is a lot of fun. The character feels no worse than in or: you feel every swing, every blow with your whole body.
If a weapon breaks in the midst of a battle, you can simply kick the enemy. Sometimes it's even faster than cutting it with a machete.
But in all other cases the physics engine behaves strangely. Zombies and the character himself get stuck in every corner and sometimes pass through buildings and trees like ghosts. And if you get behind the wheel, the picture becomes completely gloomy. It’s like controlling a plastic model riding on a polished surface. No bumps, no bumps, not even zombies hanging on the hood! And you won’t be able to drive around at all: you can only ride on rare straight sections, enclosed by low fences, which for some reason cannot be hit by a car. Probably, the developers deliberately force us to wander around the huge island on foot so that we don’t shy away from battles.
Neverending story
The plot is also annoying. It is so clichéd that by changing the names of the characters and shuffling the events, you can put together a dozen more games about zombies. Although fans of the original will probably be glad to see the familiar four heroes and learn the continuation of their story. There's nothing interesting to be found there, however: a string of loosely connected events seen hundreds of times in movies and other games, a set of stupid dialogues and cardboard villains.
According to the plot, we will often be driven into closed locations, trying to scare us with darkness and undead creatures jumping out from around the corner.
Princess is in another castle
Story missions are a different matter. They contain all the cliches of role-playing tasks known to mankind.
We are sent to a village to get information. Having fought our way there, we learn that the residents don’t know a damn thing, but they tell us where to look for someone who knows. We find the right person surrounded by the dead, we save him and hear the classic “first, help me one more time, and then maybe I’ll split.” There is nowhere to go, we help. As a reward we receive a new surprise: you need to look for information in a certain hut. We are looking for a hut, we fight our way to it for a long time and stubbornly. And we meet a man at the entrance who doesn’t want to let us in. You see, his brother is inside and he's sick. And until we figure out how to cure it, blowing poppy seeds at us...
Absolutely all tasks in the game are built according to the same scheme. Although there is something in them: they evoke memories of role playing games eight- and sixteen-bit eras.
In short, the game can only offer constantly respawning zombies, trophy hunting and boring fetch-and-give quests. However, if you have a couple of friends, the cooperative mode comes to the fore. In company, dealing with crowds of the undead is much more fun. And if you have no friends, you can rely on the automatic partner selection system, although there is a high risk of running into someone who will enthusiastically beat up his partners and ignore walking corpses.
The co-op looks so beautiful only in promotional screenshots. In fact, everything quickly turns into a bunch of zombies, entrails and partners swearing in the chat. Tactical interaction remained in Left 4 Dead.
THIS IS INTERESTING: There is an indecent amount of alcohol on the island, bottles of fire water are lying around at every turn, and there is simply nowhere to put them. I have to drink. After a couple of bottles, the hero staggers so much that he can’t get through the doorway, but fights with zombies become especially acute!
Well forgotten old
But the most interesting thing is that almost the same words can be used to describe the original. Although formally this is a pure continuation, the only changes in the game will be in the DLC.
Even the new island is indistinguishable from Banoi from the first part, except for the fact that some kind of town has appeared here. But the gameplay in it does not change: we chop up zombies, perform typical tasks, we collect trash.
There have been an order of magnitude more borrowings from other games. Riptide manages to resemble both Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil, and in some places even on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
The only noticeable innovation is missions in the spirit of tower defense. We are locked in a small area and incited by a crowd of zombies. We repel one wave after another, sometimes placing heavy weapons, barricading entrances. Not new, but exciting at first. True, by the fifth time the enthusiasm dries up.
In keeping with the good tradition of Eastern European games, the game is full of bugs. A machine gun, for example, may simply stop firing.
You won’t get far with battles alone, and besides, in the fifteen to twenty hours it takes to complete, you even manage to get tired of them. A more game nothing to offer.