Dead island riptide review. Review of the game Dead Island: Riptide. Plot twists and drama? You are not here, and why

DeadIsland: Riptide picks up where the first part ended. The four survivors take off in a helicopter from the island of Banoi and land on a military ship, hoping to finally be safe. Dreams are shattered in a moment: the heroes find themselves in handcuffs, listen to the unintelligible speech of the new main villain about biological weapons and end up in prison.

Flesh Eaters

The continuation of 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, locals who are somewhat remote from civilization fight off the infection. Unfortunately, it is impossible to draw a parallel further: the developers did not radically change the surroundings, therefore, in Riptide, in addition to zombies, the first part climbs out of all the cracks. Here are the dead in breeches and Hawaiians, 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 remained the same and is a kind of strong role-playing bias, in the open world and about the dead.

Dominant role in everyday life Riptide plays crafting. The only way confidently overcome the infected - roam around in the hope of collecting all sorts of rubbish, getting to the workshop and converting, say, a simple shovel into an electric shovel or winding barbed wire on an ordinary wooden stick. Any weapon wears out over time, which means it deals less damage and takes more strength. Therefore, those who do not check the condition of the weapons run the risk of being 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 the wrench, the player must find the appropriate drawing. It would seem that ideal conditions for pumping inventory: a huge world with objects scattered all over the place, you know, look for it and modify it right and left. However, the authors of the game killed all interest: the steeper the piece of reinforcement in the hand, the stronger the dead man, waiting for prey behind the neighboring bush. The same applies to pumping. By increasing your own level, you will only achieve that the dead will hunt you more ferocious and strong, and in this case there is no point in wasting your time on secondary tasks and searching for drawings.

Such a 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, inspired the authors that they did everything right the first time. Perhaps the constantly rising level of zombies would not annoy so much if they changed, including externally, but only the numbers in the parameters change. Before completion story quest the level of enemies is the tenth, after - the twelfth.

“But there is no change in them, everything in them is on the old model”

Riptide in general, it is completely based on the principles laid down in the original, and the question very quickly arises: “What is new here?”. There are exactly two innovations. The first is the so-called base protection. The survivors have occupied certain territories that are safe for most of the game time, but sometimes they are attacked by the dead. The protection of the complex looks simple: 80% of the space surrounded by insurmountable obstacles has several gaps that need to be barricaded. This will not hold 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 test 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 the rivers now meet. This is the second innovation: not only land, but also water transport is used to move around the island. Motor boats are controlled in the same way as cars - with the only difference that on the water at the key moment (when a flock of dead people rose from the bottom in front of you) you can step on the gas, accelerate and chop the enemies to pieces. Zombies regularly rise from the depths of the water, cling to the side and try to climb; you can throw off the dead man with the help of the same acceleration or by giving him a kick when he gets very close. In case of failure, 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 more slowly than usual, and there is a risk to saving land simply not get.

***

The player can find temporary solace in the cooperative mode, which would be even more addictive if this game could be played by four people in front of one TV. When you break the limbs of the dead in the company of friends, you perceive all the farce that is happening on the screen properly - that is, as a farce. A good mood will last, probably, for an hour and a half - this time will be enough to study the game in all its details, get tired of the monotony and get bored. Until that happens, fun is almost guaranteed, but in general Riptide very uniform. The same tasks offer to run from one point to another for an important item and bring it back, although the dead are divided into several types, basically they still repeat the assortment of the first part, the types of weapons have not changed. It looks like someone in Techland also understands the dubiousness of the idea with this sequel, and therefore main character keeps repeating: “I shouldn’t have been here at all.” Agree, it shouldn't.

An attempt to cash in on fans almost never ends well, both for the authors of the fake and for the circle of devoted fans who are not averse to venting their indignation on the Internet. In case of Dead Island: Riptide this is doubly true.

Developments Riptide starts immediately after the end of the first part. The main characters, who barely escaped from the cursed island, according to the laws of the most mediocre scenario, are captured by the military in order to find themselves again in the company of zombies in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Polynesia. The logic of the authors follows the laws of low-grade horror films, where the heroes make mistake after mistake, leaving behind rivers of blood and mountains of corpses in order to save humanity at the very end. In addition to the four survivors known from the first part, a fifth member, John Morgan, an Australian soldier who went AWOL, joins the team. Events on the new island are developing according to a proven scenario: the heroes are trying to save groups of survivors, destroy thousands of enemies and try to escape from another nightmare.

Unfortunately, the change of scenery does not affect game mechanics. Riptide, like its predecessor, is built on hand-to-hand combat, boring tasks and rather sluggish narrative development. Role system remained the same, and those who passed the original can export the character with all the bonuses and special abilities, which, in the presence of a well-pumped rage (time-limited bersek mode, which gives temporary invulnerability and maximum damage) allows you to destroy even mini-bosses and large concentrations of zombies in a few seconds of real time. Another change for beginners is that the weapons are less brittle compared to the original, and the amount of money dropped from opponents has increased. As a result, with a well-pumped hero, you become practically invulnerable, and the game, especially in single player mode, is very simple.

The plot of the continuation is devoid of any intrigue, and flat characters and plot clichés reduce ten hours of leisurely narration to a stupid and ruthless meat grinder. However, the game tries to increase the degree of difficulty by constantly respawning dead enemies and two new types of opponents. Screamers and fast zombies should cause problems for players, but given the fast rage cooldown and general stupidity artificial intelligence, which skillfully gets stuck here and there - this can hardly be called a serious test. The suddenly appeared “Horde” mode with the defense of the shelter of survivors against an army of zombies should add variety, but the crooked-handed creators turn a tactical insert with closing up a holey fence and placing mines into running around in circles, mowing down crowds of infected and rescuing settlers frozen in place. It seems that each of the survivors on this island only dreams of how to become a zombie as soon as possible. This applies to both defense and rescue missions, as well as regular tasks. All the NPCs in this game are sluggish, flat and stupid chumps who, in terms of the level of interaction with the player, are stuck in the late 90s.

Luckily, you don't have to suffer alone - you can do it with friends! Here you will find more breakups, more anal experiences. The multiplayer mode reduces the degree of despondency, but instead, numerous errors and shortcomings of programmers come to the fore. Unfinished quests and broken game scripts are just the softest rewards for zombie slayers. Often the game hangs one of the participants' consoles or throws out a random participant during the task. And that's not counting the periodic frame drops and tearing, which you will enjoy with great pleasure in the single player mode of the game, especially during a very fast and useless change in weather.

Dead Island: Riptide- this is an absolutely brazen attempt to take money from loyal fans in the wake of the success of the original. Boring, buggy, with flat characters and dull tasks - the game does not even pull on the title of a fun trash, not to mention a full-fledged continuation of such a popular original. If you love zombies, action and blood so much, try something like a Japanese game series. Onechanbara and Lollipop Chainsaw.

Game completed on Xbox 360

“Whether you choose a weapon, a simple machete or a semi-automatic rifle, it should be 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, experience and confidence will come to you - two qualities that you will need to develop in yourself in order to successfully fight the living dead. History has proven that a well-trained man, armed with only a stone, has a better chance of surviving than a novice with the latest marvel of technology.

"From the Zombie Survival Guide"

Popular Mechanics

Like the original one, the game is more about weapons than zombies. This is not a survival simulator at all - you don’t have to carefully examine houses in search of food and medicine (unless at the behest of the scriptwriters, in story missions). How to shy away from every rustle. There are a lot of zombies, they are fast, feel you from afar and pursue you to the last. You can't hide from them, but you don't have to. There is no point in running away from enemies, because they exist only in order to have someone to try out the richest arsenal.

The ghouls seem to have missed us so much since the release of the first part that the emotions in them are overflowing.

If you missed it and you don’t have experience in dealing with animated corpses, you will have to die at least as often as in. However, you will simply respawn nearby, having lost some of the money, and rush into battle again. And over time, learn to dodge and aim at vulnerable points (“tactical dismemberment” is implemented no worse than in), and monitor the fatigue scale. You die here all the same very often, but it will only affect your wallet.

Shooting here is extremely uninteresting, which is surprising, given the "shooter" experience of the developers.

In addition to the general features of combat, you need to take into account the many parameters of each specific weapon. Once you get used to the ax, it's 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 in each type of weapon. It grows like in - the more you swing the sword, the better you do it.

There is a full-fledged skill tree, but most of the abilities are passive and do not change combat 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 issued as a reward for a task) and the necessary components (electrical tape, boards, bolts and other rubbish are scattered around the island). The list of improvements is extensive: from a simple “decoration” of a baton with nails to a current supply to a katana blade. Electrocuting zombies and smashing them apart 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 can’t do without them at all.

Entertaining physics

Actually, that's the beauty of Riptide, that waving all this drecollet in an attempt to get more frags is a lot of fun. The character feels no worse than in or: you feel every stroke, every blow with your whole body.

If a weapon breaks in the midst of a battle, the enemy can simply be stammered. Sometimes it's even faster than shredding him 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, like ghosts, pass through buildings and trees. And if you sit behind the wheel, the picture becomes quite gloomy. It's like driving a plastic model on a polished surface. No potholes, no bumps, not even zombies hanging on the hood! And you won’t travel at all: you can ride only on rare straight sections, fenced with low fences, which for some reason you can’t hit by a car. Probably, the developers are deliberately forcing us to roam the huge island on foot so that we do not shirk the fights.

Endless story

The plot is also annoying. It's so clichéd that by changing character names and shuffling events, you could build a dozen more zombie games. Although fans of the original will probably be happy to see the familiar four heroes and find out the continuation of their story. True, nothing interesting can be gleaned there: 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 ghouls jumping out from around the corner.

Princess is in another castle

Story missions are a separate song. They contain all the stamps of role-playing tasks known to mankind.

We are sent to the village to get information. Having made our way there with a fight, we learn that the inhabitants do not know a damn thing, but they suggest where to look for someone who is in the know. We find the right person surrounded by ghouls, save them and hear the classic “first help me one more time, and only then I, maybe, will split.” Nowhere to go, help. As a reward, we get a new surprise: information must be sought in a certain hut. We are looking for a hut, for a long time and stubbornly we make our way to it with a fight. And we meet at the entrance of a person who does not want to let us in. You see, his brother is inside, and he got sick. And until we figure out how to cure it by blowing poppies on us...

Absolutely all the tasks in the game are built according to the same scheme. Although there is something in them: they evoke memories of role playing eight and sixteen bit era.

In short, the game can offer only constantly respawning zombies, trophy hunting and boring quests "bring it, give it." However, if you have a couple of friends, it comes to the fore cooperative mode. In the company to deal with crowds of the undead is much more interesting. And if there are no friends, you can rely on the automatic selection of partners, although there is a high risk of running into someone who will enthusiastically beat up partners and ignore walking corpses.

The cooperative looks so beautiful only on promo screenshots. In fact, everything quickly turns into a bunch of small zombies, entrails and partners swearing in the chat. Tactical interaction remained in Left 4 Dead.

IT IS INTERESTING: there is an indecent amount of alcohol on the island, bottles of fiery water are lying around at every turn, and there is simply nowhere to put them. You have to drink. After a couple of bottles, the hero staggers so that you 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 describe the original. Although technically it is a pure continuation, the changes in the game will only be typed in the DLC.

Even new island indistinguishable from Banoi from the first part, adjusted for the fact that some kind of town appeared here. But the gameplay in it does not change: we shred zombies, perform typical tasks, collect trash.

Borrowing from other games has become an order of magnitude greater. Riptide manages to look like both Left 4 Dead and resident evil, and sometimes even on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The only noticeable innovation is missions in the spirit tower defense. We are locked in a small area and set off by a crowd of zombies. We repel one wave after another, sometimes placing heavy weapons, barricading the entrances. Not new, but exciting at first. True, by the fifth time the enthusiasm dries up.

According to the good tradition of Eastern European games, the game is full of bugs. A machine gun, for example, can just stop firing.

You won’t go far in battles alone, and besides, in the fifteen to twenty hours it takes to complete, you manage to get tired even of them. BUT more game nothing to offer.

It seems that zombie games have always been popular, and that there are games, films with the living dead appeared in myriad. It turned out a lot of projects, some of them were good, others frankly useless, while others remained in the memory and forced to spend hundreds of hours in them. To try their hand at creating some kind of zombie hit, the Polish studio Techland tried. The debut video Dead Island, shown in 2007, made a big impression, and attracted attention to the project.

The events of the game took place on fictional islands near Papua New Guinea, where unknown reason the inhabitants began to turn into zombies. We were given to play as one of the four survivors who were immune to the mysterious virus, and who were trying to get off the island to escape this madness. The final product was quite controversial, had its advantages and disadvantages.

Name Dead Island perfect game about zombies, of course, it’s impossible, but he gave the player new gameplay and impressions, which won his fate of supporters. That is why the developers from Techland decided to offer fans a sequel called Dead Island Riptide.

What happened in the end? And rather a wide enough addon came out than a full-fledged continuation. Let's start with the fact that new ideas were introduced to the next part at a minimum, the existing pluses of the game were preserved, but the shortcomings did not disappear anywhere.

The plot starts from where it left off in the first part. No "six months later" or "not too distant future". The survivors failed 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 passage you will not leave the feeling of deja vu.

Dead Island is still not a shooter, although it is positioned as such. You can safely choose melee skills throughout the game. You will have to shoot somewhere at sixty percent of the passage of the campaign, and in all kinds of closed, corridor locations, while the need to pump firearms disappears immediately if you aim at the enemies in the head, but you will need to chop off limbs with an electric katana of the dead already at the beginning of the game.

It is this kind of unique gameplay that attracts the attention of the player and makes him pass the game, since there is nothing else the reptide can offer. All quests are very similar and are divided into two types. The first of which - find and bring, the other - do not let the zombies break into the territory.

In some places, the main quest is quite difficult to distinguish from the side quest, and, unfortunately, not because side quests are unique and interesting. The only way to notice the progress of the main campaign is to change the locations and designate the next chapter on the loading screen. Returning to close combat, it is worth noting that at first it causes interest, then it gets a little boring, but as soon as we have the opportunity to open a few new skills, interest returns again.

Later, instead of a prolonged and heavy crushing of the head of a zombie with a 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 scale of rage and when it is filled, you can activate a mode in which you can scatter all the carrion in different directions, and feel like Rimbaud in the tropics.

AT general weapon is divided into 4 classes: firearms (pistols, rifles and shotguns), blunt ( different kind hammers, sticks, bats), cutting (knives, swords), and close combat (brass knuckles and quite interesting home-made devices). Also available are a range of both homemade and military mines, grenades, Molotov cocktails. Depending on what weapon you use when killing zombies, that class is pumped. 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 few moments when the game surprises, but such cases can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Wandering around the back streets of the new island, you can find various schemes that will allow you to pump weapons in a rather interesting way. For example, a wrench, which in itself quite effectively smears brains on the walls, can be placed on a welding machine, and in addition to the usual damage, evil spirits will be set on fire.

It should be noted that this whole construction looks quite plausible, and inspires the idea of ​​​​the reality of such a weapon in that the improvement does not occur with the help of some conventions or magic runes. But this is not a unique feature of the sequel, but Riptide inherited from its predecessor. Only a few skins have been updated and new designs have appeared.

Energy is still used for every hit, jumping and running, so it’s worth planning your actions and quickly assessing the situation, because you won’t be able to manually repel a dozen zombies 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". So for example, for quite a long time you don’t understand why we are given signal lights in such a large number and in general what they are for. But only later, when you get into 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 throw away the previous portion.

The game still has co-op for four people. And as you know, not even too much good game adorns the joint passage in the company of friends. It does not differ in anything special, four characters can walk side by side and complete quests, which only simplifies the task of destroying zombies and does not provide any unique gameplay. During 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 with zombies shoulder to shoulder. The option can of course be turned off.

There is also an exchange of created weapons in the game, both with the same players online and with NPS. This aspect is intended to make it easier and more comfortable to play. A skilled player can safely go past this system.

Dead Island Riptide is still plagued by bugs and strange features. And if the fabric, which cannot be bypassed and which is more associated with a concrete wall, can be forgiven, then the NPS, which will stand at the door like a ram and under no circumstances move without letting it pass, is very annoying. And the only way out of this situation is to restart from the last saved point. The car feels like a tank in general.

As for the enemies, the situation 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 that cause trouble only when they are crushed by quantity, 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, though not agile, but causes a lot of trouble, and takes a relatively long time to destroy.

Suicider - A bony zombie covered in growths that explodes when it gets close. Ram is a battering ram, a large 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 that vomits toxins. Butcher, or butcher, can be described as a very annoying version of Thug, he does the same amount of damage, he is also difficult to kill, but he is very, very fast. There are also ordinary people With firearms. This group of infected people is known to us from the first part.

Riptide, on the other hand, offered several new types of enemies, among which: Drowner - a very annoying zombie that is found near water bodies, and every time it throws itself out of the water at an unexpected moment. Grenadier - Another copy of the Charger, but this time visual, has a mutated hand that tries to hit the head well, but is relatively slow. Screamer- interesting option zombies, but could be implemented much better.

As for the graphics, it is worth noting that the game engine has remained the same. Riptide uses the same Chrome Engine 5, and there is simply no point in expecting something new from it. The picture leaves mixed feelings, on the one hand, the landscapes of the tropics look very, very good, on the other hand, you come across some very terrible texture, and the characters resemble mannequins, and there is a feeling that they have something plastic. The animation of the battle from the first person pleases, but it is not clear why the raising of the canister, or some specific movements in the missions, their "Teleportation" is implemented.

The locations are really new, but again they look more like an addon setting - the style is the same, only their number has increased. What really shines in the game is the sound. The characters are beautifully written, even John Morgan's British accent sounds natural, and his jokes make you smile from time to time.

Another declared characteristic feature of the engine is the dynamic change of day and night, and the weather effects system. In fact, you don’t notice a dynamic change, and you simply don’t pay attention, but as for the weather effects, the downpour looks pretty good, but there is another side to the coin. It seems that this downpour is tied to specific places in the location, so passing by a small settlement you get caught in the rain, and after passing it, the sun shines brightly in the sky.

Opinion: Dead Island game of one idea. It's good 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. Not that the game was bad or not interesting, just 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 taken and all the features of the assassins were improved, improved, and used in the game itself.

With Riptide, the situation 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 everything the same only on a slightly larger scale.

It's up to you to play Dead Island: Riptide. What should be taken into account is that Riptide will not offer anything radically new, and it is not worth expecting that the next part took into account all the mistakes of its predecessor and grew according to the corresponding parameters. But, if you are not familiar with the universe yet, this game can be a good option to get acquainted, 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 cooperative with friends and pass a few evenings in a friendly company.

To make money on the gaming industry, it is enough to follow successful trends and experiment a little. Take the now popular zombie theme, spice it up with an equally trendy 4-player co-op, and ship it all to free swimming Or rather, the open world. And for the sake of increased replay value, peep Gearbox's idea with weapons generated on the go.

This is how Dead Island came out - an untidy, slightly primitive, but still a solid action movie on the theme of survival in a zombie reserve. Even after the controversial “Call of Juarez: Cartel”, the creation of the Poles from Techland was received with a bang, so the announcement of the continuation was only a matter of time. And it doesn’t matter how the creators themselves positioned Riptide - many expected bug fixes from it in the first place.

“Did you sell a charring scatter specifier to a cephalopoid without a license?”
“He seemed decent…
film "People in Black" (1997)

Repetition of the past

The weak link of the original was the plot. Those responsible for the narrative did not come up with either evil corporations with biological weapons, as was the case in Resident Evil, or charismatic characters, as in the series. The Walking Dead. In the world of Dead Island, a tragedy just happened: no one knows how, no one knows why.

The Apocalypse descended on the island of Banoi, located near Papua New Guinea, where future heroes were attracted by a resort for the rich. Beaches, swimwear, parties and alcohol - nothing foreshadowed trouble, when suddenly a loud party turned into an awakening in a hotel filled with zombies. It is “suddenly”, because history does not give either explicit or hidden references to the events preceding the tragedy.

To make a normal one out of a living corpse, it is enough to crush his head. The classic.

According to the canons of the genre, the infected infect people with bites, and they turn into the same corpse eaters, and our four are immune to the virus ... for some reason. This is used by the remnants of the survivors, throwing bundles of courier orders to the heroes, but the global goal is simple, like the whole plot: to escape from the damn paradise, which suddenly became a home for the living dead.

From abandoned bungalows and beach houses on the coast, the “brotherhood” moves inland, to the town of Moresby, and then into the stuffy jungle, where the epidemic also dominates. The change of scenery was good for the game: three voluminous locations with different landscapes, architecture, monsters and even climate stood out positively against the backdrop of toothless dialogues and faded characters.

Skirmishes with marauders remained, but now they meet by force in a couple of missions.

It all ended on an island with a prison, where our quartet was tricked by the military. A drop of drama, battles with zombies, the final "boss" - and now a company of immune survivors is copying the ending of Resident Evil, flying away to distant places in a helicopter with the hope that their nightmare is over, and we are left with a bunch of questions, even without a hint of any answers.

If you were hoping to hear the solution to the zombie virus in Riptide, then you were wrong, the developers are just continuing storyline heroes, throwing them new tests. The helicopter could not take the fugitives far: due to lack of fuel, they make an emergency landing on the ship of the main antagonist, let's say, the franchise, where they are taken prisoner.

Having found out about the immunity of intruders, the villain clings to the idea of ​​​​investigating a virus worse than Weyland-Yutani from Aliens, and who knows how much longer the heroes would be kept under lock and key, if a storm did not break out ... and zombies. Somehow, the infected get onto the decks (!) and the captives escape under the guise, and the ship, having run into the reefs, urgently unloads the survivors on the coast.

Diamonds always appear behind the counter in the cinema. Accumulate them, and then exchange them for money and experience with one of the characters you meet.

From this moment, self-copying begins, if not to say, plagiarism of ourselves. There was Banoy, became Palanay - an island of the same archipelago, and it was also occupied by living corpses. The goal is the same: to leave the danger zone. The methods are the same: hit, shoot, smash. The same jungle and city as in the original, the same passage through the catacombs as in the original, the same "boss" in the finale and the ending as ... well, you understand where.

There are now five protagonists: the Australian John Morgan, a specialist in hand-to-hand combat, has crowded into the company of Sam B, Logan, Xian and Parn. In addition, there is nothing to say about the character: he appears occasionally in commercials, does not participate in key scenes - you have to think out his personality and character on your own, because the game will throw only a couple of lines from his biography at the very beginning.

I wonder if this guy has a knife in his neck? Is there a special fashion for jewelry in Palanay?

If the study of key persons was not given importance, is it worth talking about secondary ones? Saved on almost everything: texts, quests, voice acting, facial animation, textures. In one of the missions, a crazy black citizen will set fire to your shelter, in another person with the same face will ask for help. Not to mention that the same types are found throughout the game in the form of zombies.

By the way: we did localization " New disk' and did it conscientiously. While maintaining the continuity of the names of the characters, the translators corrected the errors of the original. "Akell's" "tramps" did become "walkers", although it was not without embarrassment: instead of the "open" button, the inscription "speak" flaunts, which in places looks funny. Soon, users are even promised voice acting in the form of a free patch.

Hello, computer system unit. How are you?

A good plot in a zombie slasher is a rarity, but the creators of Riptide managed to drop the bar of quality even lower than in the original. This is not to say that the story is bad - it's just not good, and that's it. Not a single memorable character, not a single truly impressive scene. Of the seventeen hours of a complete passage of the game, it is impossible to single out categorically nothing, except perhaps the passage through the catacombs, where in pitch darkness you had to highlight your path with flares.

Ten hundredth innovations

Riptide is not a full-fledged sequel, but only an independent addition, so it’s a sin to expect some revolutionary changes from the game. And so it happened: a modified interface, debugging the engine and network code, otherwise - the same Dead Island as in 2011. The developers were even modest in the versions of the game: if the original ended with 1.3.0, then the addon number is 1.4.0.

The main change to the game is the new island itself. Expensive hotels, mansions and resort villages are a thing of the past - the game meets us with a flooded jungle, where rare roads intertwined with mountain serpentine and viscous swamp. There are very few sights in Palanay, and rare survivors build barricades in their villages.

While at the ferry, do not forget to climb the tower and pick up an old sniper rifle.

Later, circumstances will take us to Henderson - The largest city districts. This is a clone of Moresby from the original, only there are even fewer living ones in it, and its outskirts are bogged down in sea silt, as if the settlement was abandoned several years ago. There is nowhere to turn around in the cramped streets: there is no working transport, and the dead population asks for a passage at the price of life.

This is where the developers' fantasy ends: we have two large zones (in the original there were three, not counting the prison from the last act), and several adjacent territories: catacombs, a research complex and residential buildings. As before, we can return to the passed locations both on our own and with the help of fast travel points.

In addition to cars, in the flooded jungle you will find motor boats - an indispensable means of transportation through the swamps from one village to another. Water travel is not as safe as pickup truck rides: the sound of the engine attracts drowned people and they run towards you in droves - if you don’t want to be thrown into the water and pecked by the crowd, use acceleration in time.

Local equivalent of Devil Trigger from Devil May Cry, a state of anger, can now be activated for the entire squad at once.

The rest of the innovations came out at least ambiguous. A certain analog of tower defense has appeared with the protection of the camp of survivors from the horde of the dead. You have the right to block passages with nets, place mines around the perimeter, and even drag a couple of heavy machine guns to then reflect waves of zombies. It is not necessary to protect any buildings - it is enough to protect the survivors so that the infected do not get them.

The problem with the mode is that this fun is exclusively forced and occurs several times in the story, while in Assassin's Creed: Revelations something similar was taken out in side quests, and there was only one story mission. This means, whether you like such entertainment or not, you will have to go through them, good checkpoints there is after each wave, and in the event of the death of a survivor, you will not be thrown back far. Fans of the genre, on the contrary, should rein in their desire, because no one will let us go through the arena again.

Defending the camp won't be a problem if you control the direction the zombies come from.

So that the survivors do not die after each sneeze of the dead, we were allowed to upgrade them by completing personal quests. Do not rely on full-fledged missions of satellites - the developers have not reached the level to copy mass effect 2, and all tasks come down to finding items: someone will ask you to bring a pile of scrap metal, someone - a few batteries.

By the way: each member of the team (be it your companion or native) will offer three tasks. The first two are easy to complete - everyone asks for "white" (widespread) things and only in the final mission they want rare parts. In order not to fail several of these tasks, complete Wayne's instructions before going to the catacombs, and the colonel's request before the battle on the roof of the cinema.

Small changes have been made to the structure of the quests, and again they are straight from the Borderlands: now the marker will less often indicate where the plot item is hidden or the entrance to the closed territory - only the area is highlighted. More realism, yes, but searching for a needle in a haystack is an extremely boring and tedious task, and there are almost half of such assignments in the game.

This boat, hidden in a huge village, had to be searched for a good twenty minutes. Have you already imagined what awaits you next?

Straight out of the Gearbox hit came weapon class upgrades. The longer you swing knives or axes, the more effective cutting weapons become. The gains are by no means cosmetic: attack speed increases, the chance for a critical hit, and stamina penalties decrease. At the final tenth level, + 35% damage is waiting for you at all.

director's cut

If we analyze all the innovations brought by the addition, then Riptide seems like a small but sure step forward. The creators really wanted to make the game more comfortable, get rid of unnecessary details, and the result, as they say, is obvious: the game menu has a magazine with a description of all the monsters encountered, consumable items (first-aid kits, grenades) no longer take up space in the inventory.

But not all things the authors identified and cured. The mini-map still does not show the topography of the terrain, and the marker now shows the exact route only at a very close distance to the target. During long transitions through the entire zone, you will often stray in search of a passage and keep looking at the general map all the time so as not to wander into a dead end or turn the wrong way.

These zombies are somehow lost. At first he lost his arm, in a moment he will lose his head ...

Alas, it was not the little things that ruined Riptide. On the pedestal of problems, the third place is occupied by the design of locations - wander through the flooded jungle for an hour or two, and you will recognize typical corridors in an illusory open world. You can't, as in The Elder Scrolls, cross the entire map at an angle of 45 degrees - all locations, like a termite mansion, are dotted with intricate labyrinths, limited by insurmountable obstacles in the form of rocks, reefs and fences.

Disappointing "silver" get quests. In terms of the wretchedness of the main and secondary tasks, Prototype 2 is difficult to beat, but the authors of Riptide succeeded. 95% of all errands are “find and fetch” requests. Someone is looking for a cure, someone is looking for a video camera, it’s not the point: every single task ends with a hobbling to some point on the map and often does not involve mandatory contact with the infected.

The original also could not boast of an abundance of interesting tasks, but the conditions and places of action changed there more often, and the effect of novelty played an important role. Here, in tandem with the "bronze medalist", the missions cause nausea already in the second hour of the game only because of the inconvenient movement around the map.

There is even a danger indicator on the quest screen. It is not known why it is needed, if all the missions without exception are very simple.

The catastrophically low difficulty becomes the champion among all the troubles of the game. You start right away at level fifteen and the character grows in ranks by leaps and bounds: by the middle of the game you will conquer the achievement to the fiftieth level (there are seventy in total), and the skills and class weapon bonuses will make your protégé even stronger. As a result, even at the end of the game, the dead "break" with one or two hits, and "anger" helps to rein in the mini-bosses.

By tradition, you can replay the game a second time with the same character, with the saved level and inventory, but the game is unlikely to change on this - the level of monsters grows in proportion to ours, and, unlike us, the dead do not receive special tricks. They do not even prohibit importing a hero from original game- this will save all learned skills, but not inventory.

Otherwise, Riptide is not an improved, just a modified version of the original Dead Island. At the heart of the game is the carrion of carrion with an emphasis on melee weapons, and this element has not become better or worse: walkers roam in groups, flop on their backs after a kick, cheerfully lose limbs after an elegant katana strike. If that's your thing, Riptide is made for you.

A pile of shimmering corpses is the result of a weapon charged with electricity.

The composition of the enemies from the original migrated to the addition without changes, but several new individuals appeared. Drowned are a hybrid of walkers and swamp-dwelling infected. Grenadiers throw toxic body parts, screamers stun everyone in a certain radius but are vulnerable in melee, and brutes are physically tough but slow and helpless against firearms.

Each type of monster has a named "boss" - it differs from the ordinary dead in increased damage and health. You will meet such beauties in the course of repelling horde attacks, during side quests or in small locations called "dead zones".

There were no changes to the weapon upgrade system, except for a few new recipes. As before, you use money to repair and improve weapons, and with the help of parts and blueprints, you can supplement equipment with the effect of continuous elemental damage. If you fasten a burner to the blade, in case of critical damage, the enemy will get burned, and a stun gun will come out of the batteries and electrical tape. Modification cannot be done if you do not have blueprints: you find them during your travels, buy them from merchants and receive them as a reward for quests.

The list of modifications has expanded, but there were no recipes with completely new properties among them.

The fifth character did not become a trump card innovation. The hero, "sharpened" for brass knuckles, will please fans, but it is unlikely to cause wide demand - in the war against zombies, the battle distance plays a significant role, so it is safer to fight with long katanas or sledgehammers, not to mention firearms and throwing weapons. The abilities of the rest of the heroes have not undergone major changes.

Remained the same and rewards for the study of the world. In the process of wandering around the island, you will meet distressed survivors - for their salvation, experience and money are given, and some will offer goods for sale. In addition to blueprints, you will come across audio diaries and all sorts of waste paper - these things are considered collectible, and Steam will award commemorative achievements for collecting them.

Even zombies are not alien to feelings. Just look how zealously this infected flew to cuddle with us.

There is not much to say about the network component - this aspect of the game has not changed in two years. Companions for joint passage are selected automatically, based on a similar progression of story quests. There will no longer be an imbalance in levels: a beginner will meet low-level zombies, while for a seasoned player, these same enemies will be of a high rank.

Conclusion

On April 30, 2013, Techland announced the development of Hellraid, a four-player cooperative slasher game. The creators will offer us to fight zombies and other evil spirits again, but this time in the Middle Ages, and already at the end of this year. This explains why the Poles approached the creation of Riptide carelessly, but does not justify the hack that we got as a result.

Descriptions of unique monsters somehow stand out from the rest of the insipid texts.

And here we have a positive example of Borderlands, where for some reason the characters were memorable and even robots could joke and speak with different intonations, where $5 add-ons gave a new seven-eight hour adventure, and the locations were really new, not a compilation of old ones. If the developers were going to make their own Borderlands with blackjack and zombies, they should have better understood the success of this game, and not limited themselves to copying “special signs”.

And yet it cannot be said that the game is not worth the money. Steam offers us an international version at a regional price, and for pre-order you could get the original Dead Island with all the expansions, as well as the Survivor Pack for Riptide. It is a pity that the quality of service this time is so different from the quality of the game itself.

Verdict: the same "Island", with a recognizable soundtrack, but from a different angle. Sometimes better, sometimes not. On the topic of a zombie co-op with open world Nothing better yet.

Rating of the original game: 7.1.
Supplement rating: 6.2.

Between the lines. Many are convinced that games like Dead Island are worth playing. only in a cooperative. The position is interesting, but the statistics categorically disagree with it. At the time of this writing, only 13% of the players completed the game, of which only 0.8% did it in the company of friends. I hope the developers are also aware of this data, and next time more attention will be paid to the development of single-player modes.

Vitaly Krasnovid aka Dezintegration

• Dead Island Riptide: Performance Testing
  Testing of thirteen video cards and forty-one processors in three resolutions and two operating modes.


• at the conference site.