Escape Dead Island is a spin-off that is based in the Dead Island universe, the same one where we saw the exotic island of Banoi go to ruins. This time we follow a man named Cliff and his two friends who want to prove themselves as great reporters, after Cliff’s sister is promoted instead of him. To make their mark, they try to uncover the mystery surrounding Geopharm and their illegal practices, however little do they know they are in for a rocky surprise.
When Escape Dead Island ( I will call it EDI for short) was first announced, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for it or much interest whatsoever. In fact, the game looked quite unremarkable with its messy cell-shaded art style and general lack of direction. After playing it, I can now say that EDI is a very peculiar game, one that even though has one too many problems, does have quite a few merits in all fairness. Merits that kept me playing the game for long enough.
The main story although a bit unpolished and messy, excels in quite a few things that perhaps a lot of game’s don’t. One of the strongest aspect that it surrounds itself well in is its mystery. From the beginning of the game, we are told that there is this massive and uber scary creature haunting the destroyed island. However, it is never really properly revealed at the beginning. It is good old fashioned suspense like this that is missing in most games in the modern era. Movies do it well, but games… not so well.
Another mystery related to the plot of the game deals with Cliff, our protagonist, as he tries to figure out what has happened to him. Reveals are usually done through phone calls and hallucinations that Cliff experiences. I am not going to spoil the ending, but it isn’t as bad as most reviews are writing it up to be in my opinion. Just that, it isn’t anything special. Overall though, the story is quite interesting in my opinion. The voice acting is very on and off, sometimes outrageous and sometimes spot on. Some lines feel forced while others are quite good, so it’s a mixed bag of tricks in that respect.
The character models and their design however are quite imaginative and I personally liked them, especially Cliff’s flamboyant attire and style. Where it fails unfortunately is in the gameplay and overall polishing. When it was revealed that EDI was going to be a hack and slash game, I was quite interested as this genre tends to be quite fun at least. I remember when Space Marine was announced to be hack and slash, I was just as interested and it turned out the game was extremely fun that mixed third-person shooting and slashing quite well.
Unfortunately, the fun is short-lived in this particular title due to its repetitive nature. In the beginning chapter we are given control of this badass corporate espionage ninja, whose section is perhaps the most entertaining scenario the game has to offer, as with broken hit boxes, no innovation whatsoever and clumsy weapon controls, you soon get tired. So, the only thing that got me to play as far as I did was the suspense in the story and the psychological horror, as the highlight of the game is Cliff’s inner struggle, which gets really bombastic at times. The highlight scenario were the dropping containers on the beach.
Another factor that I liked in this game is the stealth kill mechanic, which is quite satisfying. Come to think of it, they should have focused more on stealth more in this game than they have. The pickup items are identical to the last games, where you see a white hand icon over items that you can take. One of the game’s original features is the photo mechanic, which is essentially a collectible mechanic that has you take photos of peculiar items. Too bad you aren’t rewarded with anything special if you decide to pursue them. In regards to EDI’s polish, the game has quite a few of bugs that were actually game-breaking. For some I had to actually restart my game by quitting to the menu, other times I had to turn off the console completely, it even froze my PS3 at times and forcing me to reboot.
Lastly, even though the world design was pretty good, it felt so messy due to the games low resolution. The game does look better on the PC for obvious reasons, as you can turn up the resolution to what you want. However, it is lacking on the last gen consoles and in finer detail. I was also hoping that Napapela would be open to explore to some extent, but unlike previous games, EDI it is quite linear. If only they had polished the game more, and focused on adding more to the story and the stealth mechanic, they would’ve had quite a good spin-off on their hands. They should also have added more puzzle mechanics to add spice to the game. Too bad the game overall is a mess, and it feels like they had no heart to make this. It just feels like a game that wants to cash-in on the Dead Island brand.
Have the developers failed design 101? Shame though as the story and cutscenes are genuinely interesting and I would like to see more psychological action in a zombie game. The game at the moment is too expensive to even consider purchasing for what it offers. This would make for a great bargain bin rental. You know, they should’ve made this into an animated movie in the veins of Dead Space! That would’ve been very good actually. In a nutshell rather than escaping from the games fictional location, the game itself is something that perhaps needs escaping from.