General Gaming Dead Island 2 (The Most Miraculously Technically Competent Game of 2023) - Information Thread, update: Steam release set for April 22, released on Xbox (not PC) Game Pass today

[Phaseknox]

13 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Also playable female protagonist. Phase is super down now!

There’s actually three playable female protagonists which has been known since they first announced this iteration of the game. I even mentioned in this thread that it was a sign that one of the female protagonists is a below the knee amputee.

 

I watched PS4 gameplay videos and while it looks and runs pretty good, it definitely has that downgraded from current gen look that a lot of third party cross-gen games have. The current gen console and PC versions look so good that it almost makes me not even want to play it on PS4 since I know that it’s visually inferior beyond just resolution and framerate.

 

The fact that they’re charging the same price for the last gen versions of the game which are much more inferior in terms of graphics and performance is bullshit. I’ll still get it for PS4 since I don’t plan on getting a PS5 anytime soon, but when it’s $20-$40.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Phaseknox said:

There’s actually three playable female protagonists which has been known since they first announced this iteration of the game. I even mentioned in this thread that it was a sign that one of the female protagonists is a below the knee amputee.

 

Well the only thing I've payed attention to in this thread is that the game came out

I just happened to be watching someone who was playing the game so I came in with that tidbit of info. He got the game free from Deep Silver just for being a fan of the other Dead Island games so I guess git good at getting games from Deep Silver if you don't want to pay $70 for this game.

[skillzdadirecta]

Dead Island 2 Sells More Than 1 Million Units in Three Days - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Within the first three days of its release, Dead Island 2 has sold over 1 million copies.

Guess we're getting Dead Island 3.

[stepee]

Good! It’s a lot of fun. It reminds me of Dead Rising 2 the most. A silly zombie romp through fun locals that encourages you to play around and just have fun killing shit.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

From the press release:

 

Quote

Dead Island 2 in numbers
 

• More than 1 million – copies of Dead Island 2 sold in first weekend
• 11 million – total hours played
• 28 million – total number of player deaths (over twice the population of Los Angeles)
• 45 million – zombies sliced in half
• 756 million – zombie limbs hacked off
• 1.1 billion – total number of zombies slayed

 

[stepee]

What can I say, I’m someone in the market for these 7.5/10’s these days. I’m just loving this a lot. I’m half way through now and this is going to at least be like 20 hours for me which is more than fine for length. But I’m doing all side missions and collecting a lot.

 

Thats the thing though if you play it like that it’s not that linear. Each zone is a hub you roam around and there are side missions and some have you returning to hubs. I can see how that just sectioned off the parts that were working and that’s how they made the game happen…but it works.

 

There is very little out there that has more satisfying combat than this. The way you deform the zombies as you hit them is extremely cathartic. Worth full price imo.

[Keyser_Soze]

33 minutes ago, stepee said:

What can I say, I’m someone in the market for these 7.5/10’s these days. I’m just loving this a lot. I’m half way through now and this is going to at least be like 20 hours for me which is more than fine for length. But I’m doing all side missions and collecting a lot.

 

How was the Alexa implementation? Did you use it?

[stepee]

2 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

How was the Alexa implementation? Did you use it?

 

I haven’t tried it, I don’t usually play with a mic, I do have an echo in my room but idk how it works and don’t really want to talk while playing it :P

[stepee]

Who would have thought that this of all games would be the most polished release of 2023 so far?!

 

What’s next Vampire The Masquerade 2 the most polished release of 2028???

 

Also since it just has no real issues beyond being this simple kind of game I can’t even really call it a 7.5/10 it’s a legit 8/10, I think it’s worth full price if you feel like this type of action beat ‘em up game.

[stepee]

There’s a lot of content here too. The side missions are actually good and you’ll want to do them and exploring/collecting feels rewarding and sexual so really it’s a lot longer than 15 hours unless you simply want it to be that short. 
 

One other thing I think this does really well is keeping the hubs active with zombies to play with. It can spawn them randomly out of various places like grates, or vents, or opening a truck door, etc. It does a good job of respawning them without making it super obvious. It works well because it keeps the areas fun to just play around in and collect loot without having to just spawn hundreds of zombies everywhere which wouldn’t work as well here where the combat is focused on brutally tearing zombies apart piece by piece one at a time.

[skillzdadirecta]

I'll be starting this shortly after I get through the opening chapters of Jedi. Gonna tag team these two games.

[stepee]

12 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I'll be starting this shortly after I get through the opening chapters of Jedi. Gonna tag team these two games.

 

You can beat a zombie copse with your fists until all of flesh tears off and only a skeleton is left, chops it to bits with a sword, and then burn it to ashes. There are also zombies in cop outfits so these two things go really well together.

[stepee]

Oh yeah and this game is even AMD sponsored and it still runs this good! Gonna have to watch what the team that took this over does next that’s for sure.

[skillzdadirecta]

Who did you pick @stepee? I'm using Jacob.

[stepee]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Who did you pick @stepee? I'm using Jacob.

 

I picked Carla and I’m pretty happy with that choice because she has a fun personality and the perks for blocking and parry actually work well for how I play this one. I’m curious what it’s like playing as the other characters because it’s seemed so well geared towards her.

[skillzdadirecta]

Definitely pays to explore... I found a really cool sword by exploring a mansion early on in the game. Digging this a lot.

[stepee]

On 4/29/2023 at 7:22 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

Definitely pays to explore... I found a really cool sword by exploring a mansion early on in the game. Digging this a lot.

 

Play anymore? Curious for impressions!

[Brian]

GameFly shipped a copy to me. I will probably dig into it this weekend instead of Jedi Survivor. 

[stepee]

2 minutes ago, Brian said:

GameFly shipped a copy to me. I will probably dig into it this weekend instead of Jedi Survivor. 

 

You sir are a smart man. I’m still only like 3/4th through the main story but I have a lot of side missions left too which are just as good as story missions. Pretty happy it ended up being much longer than I thought so I can let Jedi bake a bit.

[stepee]

@Commissar SFLUFAN please adjust the topic to reflect the miracle of this games polish in the year 2023

 

Also I’ve had three bugs so far and two of them were funny so not too bad. No crashes. One bug I hit a zombie and my character randomly flew high up in the air and landed out of bounds and then another similar bug but the enemy flew up in the air and landed who knows where.

 

Then one I think was a bug where the thing to make the zombie horde end wouldn’t spawn so I fought zombies for like 20 minutes straight. I died and came back and it was over in about 5 minutes, I’m assuming it was never going to stop spawning enemy’s if I didn’t die. But I got lots of exp so.

Also when you die the loading is essentially instantaneous. Like if there is a load time at all it’s 1 second. Loading into the game is like 3 seconds.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Dead Island 2 subverts its genre to make horror fun again | GamesRadar+

WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM

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Opinion | Now THAT'S what I call atmosphere

 

Quote

 

Dead Island 2 stands out from the shambling hordes as being a horror game that actually wants me to have the time of my sick little life while playing it. Horror is all about atmosphere, but this isn't your run-of-the-mill terror train á la Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's extremely action-focused, with fast-paced melee combat being your only means of survival as you slice and dice your way through zombified Hell-A.

 

Whether you're chucking caustic bombs at groups of bikini-clad corpses or drop-kicking a Burster straight into them, the game is straight-up sadistic fun – and unabashedly so. It's inspired by the goriest, most ridiculous 80s horror movies, but what makes Dead Island 2 a true win for the horror genre is how it subverts all expectations of how horror should make us feel. It uses our knowledge of similar titles against us, this time encouraging us to have fun with it while steadily finessing the ebb and flow of emotion. All of this is down to one crucial atmospheric element: music.

 

 

[stepee]

36 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Dead Island 2 subverts its genre to make horror fun again | GamesRadar+

WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM

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Opinion | Now THAT'S what I call atmosphere

 

 

 

Very good points! This is indeed the Dead Rising fun I’ve been missing.

[skillzdadirecta]

2 hours ago, stepee said:

 

Play anymore? Curious for impressions!

Haven't played since that post... been working and finishing up moving my parents into their new house. Gonna play some more today though.

[best3444]

@stepee Easy Allies gave this an 8 and loved it. I'm now on the fence if I should but this. 

[skillzdadirecta]

It's pretty damn good. Not groundbreaking at all but a very fun, solid action game with great systems.

[stepee]

yeah the game gives as much basic structure as needed and nothing more and spends the rest of its energy on making killing zombies super fun and I love that about it

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

6 minutes ago, stepee said:

yeah the game gives as much basic structure as needed and nothing more and spends the rest of its energy on making killing zombies super fun and I love that about it

 

How Dead Island 2 Was Brought Back From the Dead | IGN Inside Stories - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Nine years, three developers, one sequel. This is the Inside Story of Dead Island 2.

 

Quote

 

“Obviously, some of those builds were quite old by the time we got them”, adds Duckett. “And in order to do the IP justice, and to put out a Dead Island 2 that I think the fans will appreciate, it was important for us to just do a fresh start and just kind of wipe the slate clean.”

 

Worrall was eager to avoid past mistakes. “It wasn't necessarily the content or the tone or the stuff like that,” he says. “A lot of it was perhaps they took a too complex approach, maybe. It was something that we focused on and I think this is a problem that's facing games, in general, is just blossoming complexity and it comes back to bite the studio when they're trying to get that game out the door. And so, early on when we just decided, ‘Right. No, [it’s] just going to be people versus zombies, we got a gore engine, we're going to make the combat really, really visceral and tactile and in your face."

 

Evans-Lawes also had the past on his mind. “On Homefront I spent a long time working on dynamic day/night cycle, dynamic weather systems, all this kind of stuff,” he recalls. “And it took ages and we got it to a pretty good place, but it made no difference to the game really. It didn't make any difference to what you were playing minute to minute. And so I was really keen to put my efforts into something that I felt was absolutely a core part of the game.”

 

 

 

[best3444]

21 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

It's pretty damn good. Not groundbreaking at all but a very fun, solid action game with great systems.

 

12 minutes ago, stepee said:

yeah the game gives as much basic structure as needed and nothing more and spends the rest of its energy on making killing zombies super fun and I love that about it

 

Fuck you guys. I'm buying it today. 

[skillzdadirecta]

16 minutes ago, stepee said:

yeah the game gives as much basic structure as needed and nothing more and spends the rest of its energy on making killing zombies super fun and I love that about it

I put another couple of hours into it last night and these guys really do the best first person melee combat in gaming. I really wish they could put this kind of combat in and Elder Scrolls game or Cyberpunk. 

[best3444]

Downloading now...

 

Spoiler

 

[stepee]

10 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I put another couple of hours into it last night and these guys really do the best first person melee combat in gaming. I really wish they could put this kind of combat in and Elder Scrolls game or Cyberpunk. 

 

I wish Dying Light 2 had combo like this too! There’s lots of destructible items around too which makes it more fun as well as the environmental traps that are are layed up for you to just have fun with. The feel and momentum of swings here is so good and it’s balanced well with being actually fun and responsive still despite the weight of your swings. Just even the timing of that second back hand swing after a zombie ducks the first one, it feels so good.

[stepee]

3 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Downloading now...

 

  Hide contents

 

 

I have no idea if it will hold your interest or not as the story is super basic but I think at the very least you’ll get some hours of fun here before you move on!

[stepee]

18 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

I have no idea if it will hold your interest or not as the story is super basic but I think at the very least you’ll get some hours of fun here before you move on!

 

oh and it’s actually VERY pretty and runs fantastic 

[best3444]

57 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

oh and it’s actually VERY pretty and runs fantastic 

 

Nice. I'm playing Jedi now and there is about 20 minutes left until the download is finished. I have no regrets buying it and if it looks pretty and is fun to play it’s all good. It's not a long game so I hope to beat it and Jedi before Zelda next week. BTW, even though your impressions entice me by no means did I buy this because of your enjoyment. So don't feel guilty if I don't like it. 

[stepee]

Also is it just me or would this game be fucking amazing in VR?