'Dead Island' (upcoming PC, XBox 360 game)

I misread the title and thought you'd discovered where all of our 360's go when they die. Glad to hear it's a game, yet sad that we still haven't a clue where our 360's have went.

Bumping this thread (from 2007!) because this game has a pretty great trailer out.

 

That's a terrible trailer. What does it tell us about the story or the game besides "Being attacked by zombies SUCKS!"? No gameplay footage either, which is always suspicious.

 

I can't believe people are calling this a great trailer

Not a gamer at all (the last game system I owned was a hand-me-down PS2, and I only kept it cuz my kids are totally addicted to DDR), but I'm loving the shit out of this trailer.  2nd time's even better, knowing who's who in that hotel room melee.  Love the tragic score.

You're insane, Cameron. It's a teaser trailer, and easily the most effective one I've seen in years. No one knew about this game a day ago, now it's EVERYWHERE. It did exactly what it was supposed to do.

 

Anyway, my article (along with the original trailer from 2007, which is pretty horrible)- http://www.chud.com/37812/dead-islands-stunning-affecting-trailer/

As teaser trailers go, that's pretty fucking great, and very effective, in my humble. And I'm sick to death of zombies.

Wow, that was so sad! Awesome. 

 

Yeah, we don't know a thing about the game, but now I'm actually going to pay attention to it instead of the fifty other zombie games coming out this year. Great trailer.

As a 3 minute CG short film / zombified re-imagining of an old Coldplay music video, its neat.  But if the game isn't going to look or play like this, I have a hard time caring.  

 

But Alex is right - in terms of generating buzz, this thing really did its job and then some.

Everything about the trailer and Alex's post makes me want to play this game, hopefully it comes out before that warm and fuzzy wears off... no release date doesn't give me high hopes.

Terrible parenting.

Just when I thought zombies couldn't make me well up inside...

 

That trailer really worked. I hope to see some gameplay footage soon, but as of right now I'm sold. 

 

I'm hoping that if you get far enough away from the park, it'll be like "Zombi 2." 

 

"Zombi 2: The Game." Holy shit, I just gave myself an erection. 

I can't believe people are actually falling for this cheap bullshit. Terrible things happening to a little girl while SAD music plays? What's next? Here's some slo-mo footage of a burning puppy, please buy our game?

 

Also, the character and facial animation looks like shit. When the zombies look more healthy and alive than your survivors, you're doing it wrong. Speaking of which, 5+ years of development time doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the developer's ability to deliver something worth looking forward to. And to top it all of, it's another. fucking. zombie game - why am I supposed to be excited for this again?

Nobody said you're supposed to be falling for anything, for chrissakes. Some people find the fucking teaser to be effective. Some don't. Your mileage may fucking vary. Jesus.

And I don't mean to belabour this point, but there's been this weird fanboy-ish backlash all over the internet of people that are actually upset that OTHER people find this teaser effective, and I find that absolutely hilarious. We're told that the teaser is manipulative, that it pushes our buttons, that it's not indicative of what the game is going to be, that we'll surely be disappointed when we see actual gameplay, etc., etc.. Apparently those of us who just thought it was a damn good teaser are easily duped stooges who aren't capable of discerning marketing from magic and won't we feel silly when the game is released and it sucks.

 

 It's remarkable sometimes to see the internet feeding on itself like this.

Some of the level of detail in that trailer is quite amazing.

 

 

Well, it kind of IS manipulative. If this were a film trailer no-one would be doing backflips over it. But everyone's mileage varies, I guess. People find it effective - good for them.

 

Why the backlash to the positive reception is fanboyish and the hyperbole that's greeted the trailer isn't, I don't know.

Same teaser trailer but in normal chronological order:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwtr_-4vz6g

You read Devin's take on it, didn't you?

 

 

 

I like the trailer.  I think it's kinda cool.  I doubt the game will be anything like it.  I am...surprised, let's say, at how many people LOVE THE ABSOLUTE SHIT out of it, but whatever, right?

 

Also, I've been seeing some people talking about your online buddies dying and coming back as zombies and then having trouble pulling the trigger on them.  To that I say: fucking really?  It's a goddamn video game where you've been telling stupid jokes and killing zombies for God knows how long.  You're gonna laugh and shoot Jonesy in the face, stop bullshitting me with your naval gazing twaddle.

Devin's take is retarded. Does this trailer fail as a narrative? Maybe. Maybe not. Personally, I kind of liked it.

 

But he argues that it also fails as an advertisement. Which is ri-fucking-diculous. Thanks to this damn trailer, everyone is talking about a game that no one had even heard of a week ago. That's the very definition of great advertising.

All I can think of when I hear the name "Dead Island" is the box-office smash hit "BLOOD OCEAN" starring Dethklok. 

Precisely. It absolutely succeeds as an advertisement. Devin doesn't like that most advertising is a manipulative lie, and that this trailer falls right in line. 

 

I tend to agree with him on this as a narrative, though. I think it's sloppy and cheap. Slick visuals with trite "emotion" and horrible editing. It's actually the commercial equivalent of a Michael Bay movie. 

 

As an advertisement, it capitalizes on the earned human emotion of The Walking Dead while knowing damn well that the game itself won't be much more than a common splatterfest devoid of real human drama, and that bugs me. I can't separate that fact from the ad itself, and it alters my viewing of it. Sorry.

The hyperbole that's greeted the trailer is coming from all over the place, from The New York Times to  Facebook to political blogs that never even mention games normally. I think that gets under the skin of some internet people.

 

Again, I simply found it to be an effective trailer, and a successful advertisement. I find it hilarious that liking it seems to mark one as a mindless consumer of marketing in some critics' eyes.

Finally got around to seeing this. My only complaint about any of it is what we know about the game so far doesn't suggest that the rest will be as great as that trailer.

 

And you know what? Whatever. It's effective as a 3 minute short film. Some people disagree. Also fine. It's the same with any piece of art. But the outright vitriol about it and anyone who actually was affected by or at least appreciated it is unwarranted and just makes a lot of otherwise smart people look like a bunch of colicky fucking babies.

I pretty much agree with everything in this post.  I dug the trailer.  I'm not sad I spent 3 minutes watching it.  It won't make me buy the game, but at least it's on my radar now, and I'll probably watch some gameplay footage when it comes out instead of thinking "zombies again?"  So it's effective as far as that goes.

So far initial impressions. Nothing special about it. Tutorials systems drag on too long before you even get to zombie smashing. Graphically, on the pc it looks kind of ugly even with settings maxed out. Screen tearing occurs often with no menu option for vsync and the field of view makes me feel like an alien in the characters body. Overall, there's this ugly processing effect that I just find grating (overexposed sun hdrness) - compared to pre-release trailers (not that pre-rendered shit but actual gameplay). Yeah, those side screen prompts telling you so and so player x is in the same area as you, do you want to play with them? I fucking chose solo offline mode so I didn't need to deal with randoms, no thank you.

Gameplay itself is serviceable. There's a clumsy wobble feeling as you walk around the environment that I'm not fond of. RPS indicated there's a day 1 patch on the way that Steam hasn't applied yet. Currently it's unstable to just leave it idling. I power through a batch of zombies and find a quiet corner, paused the game to go help the wife with work, and come back to a crash message. Maybe it'll get better but right now I think I'll just go play some Space Marine, fuck yeah.

(edited to add) Just started warming up to looting, spending money on upgrades, but this fucker still crashes to desktop too often.

(edited to add even more) Steam folk suspect the Dev Build has been released to the public and not intended shipping release. Maybe explains all the issues I've been seeing. And hey, pressing Y does let me fly around in noclip mode...pre-order bonus? Just hope they fix this fucking shit soon.
Edited by mongycore - 9/6/11 at 5:18am

So I think the stream of patches has resolved the garbage build I played at launch. No crashes, no stuttering. Following a random tip on the internet of playing it in Lan mode has stopped those annoying on screen prompts of joining other random people online. Due to the janky launch and spate of corrupted save files I think I've restarted my playthrough of the game three times. So I'm not all keen on having made no progress in the game despite traversing large areas of the game world...it's not so new or fresh anymore. On top of that - when you do start a new game sessions it does, by design, revert itself to a fresh state taking no account of the progress you made or zombies you've killed. Everything respawns as it did on your first playthrough - zombies, items, weapons. I'm not a fan of that mechanic in particular, nor am I of zombies level scaling either. I want to feel like I'm making progress on zombie island, not playing fucking Ground Hog day...speaking of which, I accidently killed myself going too deep into the water. I was exploring around. I get to a little inlet and decide to take a shortcut to get to the shore. My character submerges in what would be knee high water. The underwater effect is fucking garbage...a weird haze of blue goo on the screen. No transpency, no sense of what directions your going in. I thought I could turn around but my character derped out dying in a knee deep pool of water.

The zombie combat is alright, but weapons degrade too quickly. Graphically it runs well now at a decent clip. But restarting in an instanced state and the botched launch have soured me on the game.
Edited by mongycore - 9/8/11 at 5:48am

What is that? A game? You called it a game? For that matter I'll let my son play that game for he will be the one to say I'll quit, it's a boring.

Mario Game Critic?

I'm enjoying it quite a bit on the 360. It's a fun mix of Borderlands and Dead Rising. The story is trash and actually hurts the game more than no story would, as it turns the open world into a linear path. But the gameplay is fun and the item collecting/building is addictive. I imagine it would be insanely great co-op.

Anyone want to team up tonight in the 360? I want to work towards that play with 11 players for at least 15 minutes each plus actually play with someone who's not a random.