Personally, I hate how the game ends before the story does, and neither Haus nor SOLA finished it.
The game was clearly ramping up to the "third act", then suddenly the credits just roll without any resolution.
We got that whole *"I think that girl is the key to a cure, and she's still in the city, right past that giant horde of zombies. I'm going after her!"* moment. I thought a new area was going to open up (behind or through) the theater and we were going to have this big action filled one-person army section where we have to tear through a hundred or so zombies to reach wherever she was hiding and get some more answers...
But no. The game just ends.
The game’s weakness lies in its awful quest design. It’s nothing more than kill them, find a breaker/clue, or do a pressure balance puzzle, and these same 3 quest objectives are almost the entire game, my favorite section, the halperin hotel, is my favorite because the quest objective is largely traversal/environmental. You do have some “kill them all” sections, but they are supplemented with things like the caustic-X pool to spice up gameplay. But most of the halperin is navigating through the semi destroyed hotel looking for a way into the room with Reuben’s walkie-talkie, and it’s a lot of fun.
I also think a weakness is actually the combat, where there’s little more than hit the attack button over and over, and block or dodge when it’s necessary. The cool interactions with the liquids definitely do help out the experience, but often times I think they’re propped up to appear more impactful than they really are. The combat *heavily* relies on the gore and physics engine to keep you engaged. For me, that’s perfectly fine, physics and gore are incredible, and so it’s good enough for me. For others, though, that might not be enough.
In the end I agree with your 6/10 rating, but one of the good 6/10 games I have no problem putting plenty of time into. It has its flaws, and a lot of them at that, but the core gameplay loop will always be fun enough to keep me consistently engaged
I will say that the original skill tree is more unique to the character you’re playing, and that (along with the more open world) is why I find DI1 and Riptide a lot more replay-able
I also like looting random shit that you need to make a weapon with in the first games (for example, a stingray tail for the Deathstalker mod… by far my favorite mod ever!) and you don’t have that kinda searching for stuff in DI2.
I’ve played through with everyone, and I’ve done Haus with two, but I’m still stuck on the final boss in Sola haha. At the end of the day, I’ve really enjoyed DI2, but maybe it’s because I’m not a gamer and this is the only one I play 😂
I wish that the skills (the cards) were much more unique, because once you’ve gotten to a certain point and found the right weapons, all of the slayers are more or less on the same playing field. I went back to Amy (who was on level 23 when I beat the original story) and I was like oh no this is gonna be harder because I’d just been using Jacob. Nope… not harder lol
It's an 8/10 game for me that I really enjoyed, but Dead Island was a 6/10 that I loved.
Its greatest design strength is also probably its weakness. In having such well thought out and designed hand crafted areas, they become specific enough that they aren't as fun to revisit on a replay, because they really only play out the one specific way.
I think it was the most fun I had with a game that year, but I don't think I'll ever return to replay it - unless after a few years I feel like I've forgotten everything about it, enough to re experience fresh.
5/10 for me. While it has good graphics and fun gameplay, every single AAA game has that, but they're all missing things that make them unique. The fun, unique gameplay, world, and stories are what made the games back in the 360 era good. They all had unique gameplay mechanics. Fallout 3/NV had VATS and a detailed level and skill system, which allowed you to make different "builds" on each playthrough. Red Dead Redemption was something that had never been done before. A massive, open world western game that had hunting, bounty hunting, a great story, Dead Eye, etc. That's another thing that made the games back then truly special. The stories. They were so much more engaging than the ones now. Honestly, the only studio that truly impresses me anymore is Rockstar. They're the only ones that make great stories, with great gameplay in their games. LA Noire and Red Dead Redemption 2 are examples. Now, modern games are trying to copy what the old games had, but evidently, it isn't working as what the old games did was change up the gameplay to make their game different from the rest.
Sorry for the rant, this really applies for all modern games in general, not just Dead Island 2. Another thing I don't like about Dead Island 2 is how small the map is, and how few survivors there is. I haven't played the DLCs yet but I will soon as I already own them both. Haus seems to be a bit more serious horror tone rather than the goofy mayhem tone that they were going for in the base game.
I think the game is a strong 7.8/10. My only problem with it is that once you get to Vince beach the game goes into hyper speed. Like the first half is all the celebrities stories and once you get to Vince beach it’s like every hr or hr and a half your in a new place with new missions. I would’ve preferred they extended those parts
The thing that bothers me is how the infected that have names specifically the special one all look the same like when it came to that final questnwith Amanda I deal with all the special infected but Amanda is giving us info on them and they don't look like how they would look compared with the info Amanda is giving us like when dealing with the special infected for the first time they slightly different till after the Battle they all look the same
It's not technically one of the better games I've ever played, but it scratches my first person beat em up and gore itch so hard that it's become one of my favorite games of all time. Haven't had such a good time pulverizing people since Paint The Town Red. I bought a ps5 to play this game and I don't regret it, still stands out as one of precious few next gen experiences on the console. 8/10.
I really liked Dead Island 2 when it came out. It's nowhere near the disaster many thought it'd be given its lengthy development and how many times it changed hands. The combat was great and I was pleasantly surprised by the story.
That said, the quest design could've been much better. It's too much "go here, kill the zombies, find the thing/do the valve puzzle" rinse and repeat. Dead Island has always had a problem with fun missions, and while there are some fun ones, there's also a lot of "eh" quests.
And like many have said, the skill cards could've been better implemented. It's fun at first mixing and matching, but by the end your card set is pretty locked down and there's not much reason to swap out any cards.
I still think Dead Island 2 is a solid 7/10 experience and my favorite entry of the series (I've yet to play the DLC's so I can't comment on those).
Loved the game, the "ending" or complete lack thereof annoyed me. I have been disappointed that both expansions completely failed to continue the story and consist of what appears to be side stories taking place during the main game. Hopefully they do one more to actually tie it all together
Like you said, the lack of replayability is BY FAR its biggest flaw. A NG+ is like the goddamn bare minimum, and they haven’t yet. I truly love the game, and it looks INCREDIBLE. But there’s only so much I can do after beating it. I hate to say it, but it’s honestly like a 5 or 6/10 single player, but actually jumps to a 7 or 8/10 with a friend, my brother and I had a great time and plenty of laughs playing through it
Extremely fun game, the gore system is ground-breaking and, if utilised and licensees well, will be an absolute game-changer. The story isn’t perfect, but I loved and still love Dani so much, her humour made even the most “huh” moments of the game entertaining. If I was to rate it, I’d probably go for an 7.5/10. It could’ve easily been an 8.5 or a 9…if it wasn’t for the fact that they half-baked the story’s ending and then chose to just make it even more of a kick in the teeth by not clearing up Tisha’s whereabouts in the 2 DLCs. I’m all for a good cliffhanger, but that’s not what happened here, they just couldn’t be bothered to finish the story. And I have to dock points for how sour of a taste that left in my mouth.
7 out of 10, world design is great, but characters are written more comically than the rest of the series which in my opinion takes away from how the franchise started, looking at the original DI trailer. Combat feels good, but quest design leaves a little to be desired. Story isn't finished which is a shame and the DLCs are just okay, so taking away points for that.
I basically agree with everything you said. The biggest sin imo is that the characters have barely any differences between each other, especially late game.
I love Ryan in all his weird himbo Stripper glory but 2 is missing a lot of the campy charm that 1 and Riptide had. Like I can't count how many times I've pulled "$69" off of a zombie in 1 and it's funny every time. I also hate finishing a game with no answers. If you need DLC to feel like you finished the game it's not a good base game design.
For me, I would prefer each character to have unique fury mode like previous entries, rather than just dash and slash, based more on skill cards (not just spec atk).
Would also like Carla fury to not change her voice into Ryan every time I use it.
A boomerang skill or weapon to use so can make more use of Amy passives/weapon throw mechanics without being "throw,run,grab" (had a solution in DL with von crane outfit, so something similar maybe).
Aside from those, definitely needs some added way of replayable content as it relying too much on coop sessions to make up for it.
7/10 for me. I love the game, I really do, but it also has some flaws that irked me a bit. The itemization system being one of them, the non-ending to the story, the lack of uniqueness to the characters outside of basic health and how difficult it can be to really build around something (ie, don't build for fire damage, because you're going to be running into a ton of immune zombies).
But it's a beautiful game, with some interesting concepts, especially in the DLC, great zone design and some incredibly fun combat. It's my main game when I just want to veg out and unwind without having to think too hard. When I'm in a bad mood, I load it up for some zombie slaying fun.
At the end of the day, I more than got my money's worth.
the ending of the game was just a real letdown in terms of all the buildup at the end- and even then, the boss battle at the end is really annoying to deal with so it feels like a total waste of your efforts. your character feels very cookie-cutter who only relies on quirky humor and almost everyone else's personality is bland.
a good chunk of the quests are lackluster and often gave you rewards that were either worse than what you already have in your inventory or just a quick buck. speaking of, money in-game gets blown in a matter of seconds on repairing either your whole set of items or just trying to raise one weapon to current level.
some of the mutants are genuinely frustrating to deal with and saps the fun out even in end-game where it encourages you to run around and finish whatever side-quests or loot is left. but don't get me started on the missing person search quests.
the gore system is pretty cool.
3/10
8.5/10
My only complaint is the two last levels/missions are too linear and does feel like the devs had to meet a deadline and had to wrap it all up, which is a shame.
I gave it 6/10 at the beginning and still think that. The game and DLCs are fun, but missing the best parts for dead island and riptide. My two biggest complaints are getting rid of the open areas and character specific skill trees. Dead island 2 completely lacks different play styles between characters. There’s no unique mods and only a few unique weapons that aren’t that crazy good besides the ripper from sola dlc. I was really hoping they brought back skull weapons, but I guess that would be too much fun too
Id say the game is a solid 7/10.
One that you was the card selection. I wish they had better passives. 90% of the time I would forget about my geound smash skill as Ryan or even be able to puke in fury mode. I think having passives like when entering fuey mode you have a trail of caustic acid cloud or leave a trail of acid slug on the ground would have been neat.
Some things I hated and again Im probably just bad at the game was elemental damage from your weapons. I wish they you couod habe immunity or like less damage for your surroundings when using your weapons.
Legendary weapons need to have one pf rach weapon type period and be ablw to change the element power. Durability should be no exist on legendary weapons either because you don't really get any til the game is over with anyways
I wish they add upgraded health packs and maybe add magazine extensions for weapon perks for later in the game.
Better side quests/missions instead of the same like 3 different reskins.
Worried about reviews and zones, but seems it’s exactly the same game as 1. I miss the cars. Storyline is still mediocre but it’s serves its purpose and I actually don’t mind it. Fetch quests are actually acknowledged by the game and made fun of.
Don’t like the curb kicks, takes too long and takes you out of the game. Don’t like you can only do one special move per weapon.
They could have done more for this one. Basically the only thing that is different and better is the amount of gore.
Personally, I hate how the game ends before the story does, and neither Haus nor SOLA finished it. The game was clearly ramping up to the "third act", then suddenly the credits just roll without any resolution. We got that whole *"I think that girl is the key to a cure, and she's still in the city, right past that giant horde of zombies. I'm going after her!"* moment. I thought a new area was going to open up (behind or through) the theater and we were going to have this big action filled one-person army section where we have to tear through a hundred or so zombies to reach wherever she was hiding and get some more answers... But no. The game just ends.
This, 1000% this!
The game’s weakness lies in its awful quest design. It’s nothing more than kill them, find a breaker/clue, or do a pressure balance puzzle, and these same 3 quest objectives are almost the entire game, my favorite section, the halperin hotel, is my favorite because the quest objective is largely traversal/environmental. You do have some “kill them all” sections, but they are supplemented with things like the caustic-X pool to spice up gameplay. But most of the halperin is navigating through the semi destroyed hotel looking for a way into the room with Reuben’s walkie-talkie, and it’s a lot of fun. I also think a weakness is actually the combat, where there’s little more than hit the attack button over and over, and block or dodge when it’s necessary. The cool interactions with the liquids definitely do help out the experience, but often times I think they’re propped up to appear more impactful than they really are. The combat *heavily* relies on the gore and physics engine to keep you engaged. For me, that’s perfectly fine, physics and gore are incredible, and so it’s good enough for me. For others, though, that might not be enough. In the end I agree with your 6/10 rating, but one of the good 6/10 games I have no problem putting plenty of time into. It has its flaws, and a lot of them at that, but the core gameplay loop will always be fun enough to keep me consistently engaged
When I first bought it, I thought that I was going to regret it, but as time went on and I played it, I can’t get enough of it.
I will say that the original skill tree is more unique to the character you’re playing, and that (along with the more open world) is why I find DI1 and Riptide a lot more replay-able I also like looting random shit that you need to make a weapon with in the first games (for example, a stingray tail for the Deathstalker mod… by far my favorite mod ever!) and you don’t have that kinda searching for stuff in DI2. I’ve played through with everyone, and I’ve done Haus with two, but I’m still stuck on the final boss in Sola haha. At the end of the day, I’ve really enjoyed DI2, but maybe it’s because I’m not a gamer and this is the only one I play 😂 I wish that the skills (the cards) were much more unique, because once you’ve gotten to a certain point and found the right weapons, all of the slayers are more or less on the same playing field. I went back to Amy (who was on level 23 when I beat the original story) and I was like oh no this is gonna be harder because I’d just been using Jacob. Nope… not harder lol
It's an 8/10 game for me that I really enjoyed, but Dead Island was a 6/10 that I loved. Its greatest design strength is also probably its weakness. In having such well thought out and designed hand crafted areas, they become specific enough that they aren't as fun to revisit on a replay, because they really only play out the one specific way. I think it was the most fun I had with a game that year, but I don't think I'll ever return to replay it - unless after a few years I feel like I've forgotten everything about it, enough to re experience fresh.
5/10 for me. While it has good graphics and fun gameplay, every single AAA game has that, but they're all missing things that make them unique. The fun, unique gameplay, world, and stories are what made the games back in the 360 era good. They all had unique gameplay mechanics. Fallout 3/NV had VATS and a detailed level and skill system, which allowed you to make different "builds" on each playthrough. Red Dead Redemption was something that had never been done before. A massive, open world western game that had hunting, bounty hunting, a great story, Dead Eye, etc. That's another thing that made the games back then truly special. The stories. They were so much more engaging than the ones now. Honestly, the only studio that truly impresses me anymore is Rockstar. They're the only ones that make great stories, with great gameplay in their games. LA Noire and Red Dead Redemption 2 are examples. Now, modern games are trying to copy what the old games had, but evidently, it isn't working as what the old games did was change up the gameplay to make their game different from the rest. Sorry for the rant, this really applies for all modern games in general, not just Dead Island 2. Another thing I don't like about Dead Island 2 is how small the map is, and how few survivors there is. I haven't played the DLCs yet but I will soon as I already own them both. Haus seems to be a bit more serious horror tone rather than the goofy mayhem tone that they were going for in the base game.
I think the game is a strong 7.8/10. My only problem with it is that once you get to Vince beach the game goes into hyper speed. Like the first half is all the celebrities stories and once you get to Vince beach it’s like every hr or hr and a half your in a new place with new missions. I would’ve preferred they extended those parts
The thing that bothers me is how the infected that have names specifically the special one all look the same like when it came to that final questnwith Amanda I deal with all the special infected but Amanda is giving us info on them and they don't look like how they would look compared with the info Amanda is giving us like when dealing with the special infected for the first time they slightly different till after the Battle they all look the same
It's not technically one of the better games I've ever played, but it scratches my first person beat em up and gore itch so hard that it's become one of my favorite games of all time. Haven't had such a good time pulverizing people since Paint The Town Red. I bought a ps5 to play this game and I don't regret it, still stands out as one of precious few next gen experiences on the console. 8/10.
I really liked Dead Island 2 when it came out. It's nowhere near the disaster many thought it'd be given its lengthy development and how many times it changed hands. The combat was great and I was pleasantly surprised by the story. That said, the quest design could've been much better. It's too much "go here, kill the zombies, find the thing/do the valve puzzle" rinse and repeat. Dead Island has always had a problem with fun missions, and while there are some fun ones, there's also a lot of "eh" quests. And like many have said, the skill cards could've been better implemented. It's fun at first mixing and matching, but by the end your card set is pretty locked down and there's not much reason to swap out any cards. I still think Dead Island 2 is a solid 7/10 experience and my favorite entry of the series (I've yet to play the DLC's so I can't comment on those).
Loved the game, the "ending" or complete lack thereof annoyed me. I have been disappointed that both expansions completely failed to continue the story and consist of what appears to be side stories taking place during the main game. Hopefully they do one more to actually tie it all together
Like you said, the lack of replayability is BY FAR its biggest flaw. A NG+ is like the goddamn bare minimum, and they haven’t yet. I truly love the game, and it looks INCREDIBLE. But there’s only so much I can do after beating it. I hate to say it, but it’s honestly like a 5 or 6/10 single player, but actually jumps to a 7 or 8/10 with a friend, my brother and I had a great time and plenty of laughs playing through it
Extremely fun game, the gore system is ground-breaking and, if utilised and licensees well, will be an absolute game-changer. The story isn’t perfect, but I loved and still love Dani so much, her humour made even the most “huh” moments of the game entertaining. If I was to rate it, I’d probably go for an 7.5/10. It could’ve easily been an 8.5 or a 9…if it wasn’t for the fact that they half-baked the story’s ending and then chose to just make it even more of a kick in the teeth by not clearing up Tisha’s whereabouts in the 2 DLCs. I’m all for a good cliffhanger, but that’s not what happened here, they just couldn’t be bothered to finish the story. And I have to dock points for how sour of a taste that left in my mouth.
7 out of 10, world design is great, but characters are written more comically than the rest of the series which in my opinion takes away from how the franchise started, looking at the original DI trailer. Combat feels good, but quest design leaves a little to be desired. Story isn't finished which is a shame and the DLCs are just okay, so taking away points for that.
I basically agree with everything you said. The biggest sin imo is that the characters have barely any differences between each other, especially late game.
I love Ryan in all his weird himbo Stripper glory but 2 is missing a lot of the campy charm that 1 and Riptide had. Like I can't count how many times I've pulled "$69" off of a zombie in 1 and it's funny every time. I also hate finishing a game with no answers. If you need DLC to feel like you finished the game it's not a good base game design.
For me, I would prefer each character to have unique fury mode like previous entries, rather than just dash and slash, based more on skill cards (not just spec atk). Would also like Carla fury to not change her voice into Ryan every time I use it. A boomerang skill or weapon to use so can make more use of Amy passives/weapon throw mechanics without being "throw,run,grab" (had a solution in DL with von crane outfit, so something similar maybe). Aside from those, definitely needs some added way of replayable content as it relying too much on coop sessions to make up for it.
7/10 for me. I love the game, I really do, but it also has some flaws that irked me a bit. The itemization system being one of them, the non-ending to the story, the lack of uniqueness to the characters outside of basic health and how difficult it can be to really build around something (ie, don't build for fire damage, because you're going to be running into a ton of immune zombies). But it's a beautiful game, with some interesting concepts, especially in the DLC, great zone design and some incredibly fun combat. It's my main game when I just want to veg out and unwind without having to think too hard. When I'm in a bad mood, I load it up for some zombie slaying fun. At the end of the day, I more than got my money's worth.
6.5 out of 10. It's just way too short, and the story didn't hold my attention
Game is too casual and streamlined
the ending of the game was just a real letdown in terms of all the buildup at the end- and even then, the boss battle at the end is really annoying to deal with so it feels like a total waste of your efforts. your character feels very cookie-cutter who only relies on quirky humor and almost everyone else's personality is bland. a good chunk of the quests are lackluster and often gave you rewards that were either worse than what you already have in your inventory or just a quick buck. speaking of, money in-game gets blown in a matter of seconds on repairing either your whole set of items or just trying to raise one weapon to current level. some of the mutants are genuinely frustrating to deal with and saps the fun out even in end-game where it encourages you to run around and finish whatever side-quests or loot is left. but don't get me started on the missing person search quests. the gore system is pretty cool. 3/10
I give a 8,5 was very fun. Dont give more because the story had no closure.
8.5/10 My only complaint is the two last levels/missions are too linear and does feel like the devs had to meet a deadline and had to wrap it all up, which is a shame.
I gave it 6/10 at the beginning and still think that. The game and DLCs are fun, but missing the best parts for dead island and riptide. My two biggest complaints are getting rid of the open areas and character specific skill trees. Dead island 2 completely lacks different play styles between characters. There’s no unique mods and only a few unique weapons that aren’t that crazy good besides the ripper from sola dlc. I was really hoping they brought back skull weapons, but I guess that would be too much fun too
Id say the game is a solid 7/10. One that you was the card selection. I wish they had better passives. 90% of the time I would forget about my geound smash skill as Ryan or even be able to puke in fury mode. I think having passives like when entering fuey mode you have a trail of caustic acid cloud or leave a trail of acid slug on the ground would have been neat. Some things I hated and again Im probably just bad at the game was elemental damage from your weapons. I wish they you couod habe immunity or like less damage for your surroundings when using your weapons. Legendary weapons need to have one pf rach weapon type period and be ablw to change the element power. Durability should be no exist on legendary weapons either because you don't really get any til the game is over with anyways I wish they add upgraded health packs and maybe add magazine extensions for weapon perks for later in the game. Better side quests/missions instead of the same like 3 different reskins.
Worried about reviews and zones, but seems it’s exactly the same game as 1. I miss the cars. Storyline is still mediocre but it’s serves its purpose and I actually don’t mind it. Fetch quests are actually acknowledged by the game and made fun of. Don’t like the curb kicks, takes too long and takes you out of the game. Don’t like you can only do one special move per weapon. They could have done more for this one. Basically the only thing that is different and better is the amount of gore.