REVIEW: Dead Island: Definitive Collection

As you all know, Dead Island: Definitive Collection released on Xbox One recently. The title contains all the previous Dead Island games along with a brawler named Dead Island: Retro Revenge. It’s an alluring package but how good is it? Who does it appeal to? Well, you’ve come to the right place to find out. The long and short of it is that Dead Island: Definitive Collection is a lot of fun and if you haven’t played the games before—especially with a friend—be sure to pick this bundle up.

For those of you who don’t know, Dead Island is the first game of the franchise. It takes place on the fictional island of Banoi close to Papua New Guinea. It’s a tropical resort destination which caters to many famous individuals. After a high-profile party, you awaken to an island infested with the undead. The player can choose one of five characters such as rapper Sam, spy Xian, footballer Logan, police officer Purna and solider Ryder. Dead Island: Definitive Edition contains all add-ons so Ryder can be played right off the bat. I’ll be honest, Ryder’s campaign was by far the most interesting because he actually faces difficult moral choices. The others felt like stereotypical individuals who were quite over-the-top when it came to their personalities.

Ryder is definitely the strongest and most well-rounded of them all but others offer perks too. For example, Purna is skilled with firearms and that’s the style of gameplay you adopt if you chose her character. Xian is amazing with blades so you become more of a melee character. If you’re into bludgeoning zombies, then Sam is your pick. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter who you pick because I never had any issues using Xian to shoot zombies or Purna to cut them up. The story plays out in the same way too unless you choose Ryder.

The missions consist of your standard side quests of finding people and locating supplies. The main campaign revolves around you trying to get off the island. If you haven’t played Dead Island already, there is a great reason for why you aren’t affected by the outbreak. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t die. Zombies can still eat you and cause other physical damage. While the missions aren’t deep and meaningful, they’re still a lot of fun as I had a blast playing them. They’re fun on your own and even better in co-op. It’s quite satisfying murdering zombies with your friends.

You explore the entire island through an open-world setup but it can feel rather limited at times because you have to follow certain paths throughout the missions. The ability to drive vehicles is a great touch and definitely makes up for that claustrophobic feeling. Despite that, the ability to roam around the island at will and explore the varying locales is great. My personal favorite has to be the rural area where the indigenous tribes reside. It’s terrifying and mystifying at the same time.

While Dead Island is great, Dead Island: Riptide isn’t that good. Don’t get me wrong, the gameplay is just as fun as the original, maybe even more so but I have major concerns with the story. The game takes place immediately after the ending of Dead Island, with the four survivors being taken hostage by the Australian government. The ship they’re on crashes and they team up with terrorists and other individuals to escape this new prison island and reach civilization. Why Techland couldn’t have kept the story simple is beyond me. Adding a convoluted plot isn’t going to make Dead Island: Riptide a more intriguing experience, especially when it involves government conspiracies and other bizarre scenarios. They should’ve kept the plot simple and given us as many opportunities to kill zombies without a second thought. The first game felt like a campy movie—which I happen to quite enjoy because I’ve seen films like Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark and whatnot. This feels like the developers were trying way too hard to make it into a daring escape from an evil government. You can see similar themes in Dying Light, which perfected the story to some degree, but I still say that campy movies are more fun because they don’t take themselves too seriously. The same applies to video games.

The best feature of the game has to be the ability to create dangerous and truly insane weapons. You can combine a machete with a battery to create an electrified weapon. It gets better than that though. You can make an almost unlimited amount of implements by experimenting with the materials you scavenge throughout the island. I wish I had experimented with more of them during my first playthrough because I mostly relied on drops. Watching other people play it on Twitch made me realize that I could become an indestructible zombie-killing machine had I gone the crafting route. I’m definitely going to do that when I play through it again.

Dead Island: Definitive Collection looks absolutely stunning on Xbox One. The game models and textures have undergone significant upgrades and the title now runs at 1080p as opposed to the 720p or lower presentation found on Xbox 360. It also looks better than the original Windows version because I believe there were a lot of graphics card compatibility issues which didn’t allow for it to utilize all the bells and whistles inherent to the engine. At least that’s the impression I got when I viewed YouTube videos when the game first came out. All of those concerns aren’t valid anymore because Dead Island: Definitive Collection is definitely a looker on new hardware. You’ll be blown away by the visuals, especially the photorealistic lighting, water and sand. It’s one of the best-looking games on Xbox One at the moment in my opinion. The frame rate is another issue though.

Input lag is either the delay between the television or monitor receiving a signal and it being displayed on-screen, or the delay between pressing a button and seeing the game react. Nowadays televisions do an excellent job of eliminating the former due to dedicated game settings. However, input lag is still one of the biggest issues that affects games on consoles and other devices. You might ask why. A console sends out a new frame once it has finished performing the necessary calculations to create it. The rate at which this is achieved is measured with the frame rate. You can calculate the theoretical input lag by taking a thousand milliseconds and dividing it by the frame rate of any game. For example, a game that runs at sixty will have a theoretical input lag of around seventeen and a game that runs at thirty will have a theoretical input lag of around thirty. Of course the number is actually higher because there are other factors you have to consider but the fact that the input lag doubles when you have a game locked at thirty as opposed to sixty is quite troublesome for many gamers.

Usually this isn’t such an issue because titles give the player a lot of latitude when it comes to selecting certain objects in the environment. You don’t need precise targeting to pick up items. However, in a game like Dead Island which emphasizes realistic movement in the first-person perspective, it can be quite a hindrance especially when it comes to looting. The overall controls feel imprecise and slightly clunky. Shooting is clunky, selecting is clunky…Dead Island: Definitive Collection would’ve really benefited from the upgrade to sixty frames per second.

When you hear the words “definitive edition”, you think of the ultimate experience. Unfortunately, Dead Island: Definitive Edition isn’t that on consoles. Maybe it is on Windows where the title is also available and supports a frame rate of sixty, but definitely not on Xbox One. It’s a shame that the developers just upgraded the graphics and not the entire engine to support higher frame rates on consoles. I would’ve preferred a less visually-impressive title for a faster frame rate. I’ve recently been playing Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and the developers prioritized sixty frames per second over absolutely stunning visuals. That was the right decision because gameplay is much more important as it changes the experience altogether.

A lot of people I know complained about a lot of bugs when the games first came out. I played Dead Island on Xbox 360 years later and it seemed fine to me. Sure it’s still a little odd and rough around the edges but the fact that it’s so addictive and enjoyable trumps it all. This is one game which is more than the sum of its parts and without its existence we would’ve never received the excellent Dying Light. If you’re worried about any game-breaking issues, all of them were ironed out in the original build even though it took many months. I’m also positive I finished every mission and every side quest in Dead Island and encountered no broken missions. Sure, I was annoyed by some of the levels, especially when you have to go explore the obligatory sewers, but it was still playable and enjoyable.

Summary

Overall, Dead Island: Definitive Collection represents tremendous value more than an amalgamation of stellar gameplay. While it’s interesting to see the origins of Dying Light, playing Dead Island: Definitive Collection made me want to go back to the other title. Dead Island: Definitive Edition is fantastic and a lot of fun, especially in co-op mode. Dead Island: Riptide: Definitive Edition is a good continuation of the main story but the fact that it ventures too much into the realm of government conspiracy and ends on one of the oddest notes ever detracts from the package. Lastly, Dead Island: Retro Revenge is included in the bundle at no additional cost. It seems to be an excellent brawler but the game will unlock in July so I haven’t been able to test it out as of now. It might be good or it might be terrible, I just have no way of knowing if it adds to the package or not.

If you’re like me and loved Dead Island back on Xbox 360—it was free through Games with Gold many months ago—you will love this package because you get to experience one of the most enjoyable titles out there when it comes to the zombie survival genre. While the story might be unintentionally hilarious and filled with clichés, the fact that the gameplay is so much fun overshadows it all. If you haven’t picked up Dead Island on last-generation hardware, I recommend that you give it a shot on Xbox One with your friends. It looks absolutely amazing. Returning players might find it a bit dated so buying it again might not be worth it for many especially if you’ve purchased all the add-ons. At the end of the day, it’s for you to decide which category you fall under. For me it was worth it because I only experienced the base game on Xbox 360 and wanted to play the add-ons, especially Ryder’s campaign, which provides a new perspective to the events happening on the island. I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to newcomers but not so much to returning players. It’s a lot of fun no matter what but Dead Island is much more enjoyable the first time around. Just take that into account when making a purchasing decision.