Approximately half way through the story, and Dead Island 2 isn't really showing much in terms of changing up the mission design to keep it interesting; so I'll wrap up my time with it now.
To be fair; it's a very fun zombie-mashing simulator. In the spirit of a cool-but-flawed PS2 game, it has a gnarly gimmick but doesn't design an interesting enough game around it.
The gore and zombie mutilation tech on show here is genuinely impressive. Rather than having preset deform points (decapitate, chop arms off at the shoulder etc), every single enemy has a highly responsive, highly specific damage model based on how and where you attack. Blunt items hitting jaws will cause them to unhinged, blades will chop off hands at the exact place you strike, individual organs can be seen wobbling about after you explode a torso. It's a giddy thrill for any old school zombie film nerd, and a super impressive technical feat -- which are getting rarer and rarer in the modern graphical arms race.
There isn't enough of a game stitching it all together though. You walk, you smash enemies, you pick up mcguffins, you get stilted unfunny cutscenes, you repeat the process. The gore and weapon customisation (fire damage butcher knife!) keep you interested for a few hours, but not much beyond that.
Bonus points for having an Irish character who says actual Irish people things like bure, feen, gom, and so on.
Steam Deck notes: can play at a rock solid 30fps on a mix of medium and low settings. Can get to a locked 40 if you want to mess with the settings more, but I never bothered. Will chew through battery, obviously.
To be fair; it's a very fun zombie-mashing simulator. In the spirit of a cool-but-flawed PS2 game, it has a gnarly gimmick but doesn't design an interesting enough game around it.
The gore and zombie mutilation tech on show here is genuinely impressive. Rather than having preset deform points (decapitate, chop arms off at the shoulder etc), every single enemy has a highly responsive, highly specific damage model based on how and where you attack. Blunt items hitting jaws will cause them to unhinged, blades will chop off hands at the exact place you strike, individual organs can be seen wobbling about after you explode a torso. It's a giddy thrill for any old school zombie film nerd, and a super impressive technical feat -- which are getting rarer and rarer in the modern graphical arms race.
There isn't enough of a game stitching it all together though. You walk, you smash enemies, you pick up mcguffins, you get stilted unfunny cutscenes, you repeat the process. The gore and weapon customisation (fire damage butcher knife!) keep you interested for a few hours, but not much beyond that.
Bonus points for having an Irish character who says actual Irish people things like bure, feen, gom, and so on.
Steam Deck notes: can play at a rock solid 30fps on a mix of medium and low settings. Can get to a locked 40 if you want to mess with the settings more, but I never bothered. Will chew through battery, obviously.