NicolasHunter500 Review of Dead Island Riptide

Dead Island Riptide (2013 Video Game)

A half baked sequel to a half baked original.

[29 June 2013]

After having seeing the score for this game on meta critic, I was skeptical about playing this one. I had played a little bit of the first one and it left a very sour taste in my mouth and I thought it could have been so much better, especially considering its innovative concept. This one, however, doesn't improve on the original in the slightest. It is almost as if the developer completely ignored all the criticisms aimed at the first. The combat here is dreadful, you can perform light attacks, but you can't block or even counter enemy attacks, which becomes incredibly frustrating, considering you'll face massive hordes of enemies occasionally. Killing the zombies feels very unsatisfying as well. The damage modelling is well done, you can remove limbs and heads depending on the weapon you use, but unfortunately the attack animations are appalling. The kick animation is so poorly textured it shouldn't have even been implemented. Fist fighting is useless and all of the guns are amazingly underpowered. The voice acting of the Australian characters is absolutely atrocious. I don't know, if the developers tried to make them sound as irritating, grating and moronic as possible then I guess in that respect they've succeeded, but seriously, it is utterly embarrassing and cringe worthy to listen to and during the cut scenes you'll be wanting to reach for the mute button. There is also this really stupid and unnecessary RPG element to the game. You receive "experience" for neutralizing zombies or accomplishing quests but it really didn't have to be included, in fact, this game would have worked better as a straight up survival horror game where it doesn't reward you for what you do. The island itself looks very pretty but that is the only positive thing about this game.