Dead Island had everyone’s attention since their amazing cinematic trailer that came out of the blue and stunned us with it’s reverse girl zombie family story. After an announcement stated that such event would not actually occur in the game, claims arose to whether the game would actually be decent.

A different Dead Island slowly emerged from the chunks of gameplay released every now and then until a full picture of how the game would actually play came alive (20 mins of gameplay). An open world zombie game of epic proportions, consciously or unconsciously combining elements from successful games like Fallout, Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising and making something unique, huge and (hopefully) a lot of fun.

Issues that I see that might hold the game back from GOTY?

From gameplay we’ve seen the faces of characters in the game look good, but aren’t super realistic, they are stylised. As long as other elements of the game bring you into the game that shouldn’t be a problem.

The voice acting seen in the demo leaves a little to be desired, but to be honest Techland is a Polish developer and I respect the fact that it may have been difficult to understand the nooks and crannies of writing in English for an English-speaking audience.

Comparing a game like Dead Island with Fallout 3 or NV might become commonplace when the game launches and people figure out more about the goals of the game and how it plays in detail. The thing that kept me going back to Bethesda FO games was there were no randomly generated dungeons or houses. Everything had something to discover or a story to unravel, completely optional and engrossing usually created using a combination of voice logs, images, text or physical evidence. Hopefully Techland employs such elements in their game instead of feeding people quest lists and focusing on voice acting to tell you where to go or what to do. It’s the little details that count, and variety.

As a PS3 gamer, the co-op aspect of Dead Island is not necessarily a main draw card for my purchase of the game. So hopefully it has a co-op experience similar to Borderlands where you won’t be penalised for playing on your own. The words co-op and immersive story don’t usually go hand-in-hand, but as far as the gameplay footage shows, playing on your own should be a completely unique experience compared to playing with another.

If Dead Island is to be truly successful then it will aspire and achieve an endless gameplay experience or at the least, playability after the main campaign has finished

That’s pretty much all, I’ll leave full reservations until the game releases next week. Hopefully I’ll get it and have a full review! You can listen to three tracks from the Dead Island soundtrack at this link.

Dead Island (Pub. Deep Silver) releases on the 6th of September 2011 in North America and the 9th of September Globally

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

Thought I might share my 2011 (or as I like to call it ‘year of the games I really want’) list I want to place in my permanent ‘care’ this year, share a bit of my fanboy love of serieses (or is it serii?) and brand new innovations that really caught my eye.

Quick note: Some of these are PS3 exclusive, but the majority will please everyone

Resistance 3
Resistance 3 Trailer

Welcome back to Insomniac Games’ alternative history WWII game that introduced me personally, with a handshake and a Hedgehog Grenade, to online multiplayer. Slightly disappointing that they would decide to make their teaser trailers in live action (like the Halo franchise did once I believe), but the idea of this game is fresh. At the end of Resistance 2, something major happens which I shouldn’t really disclose that basically ends this World War, and Resistance 3 is essentially the aftermath of the battle. Judging by what it looks like, you are following the story of Joseph Capelli from Resistance 2 (my description of him if you don’t know who I’m talking about is “the guy who you don’t really care about but comes up and does something pretty badass at the end of R2″) something happens to his wife and he’s sad. He’s joined by the strange little Russian scientist Dr Malikov, and they do something that involves somehow killing Chimera even though you’ve already rendered them harmless by killing their leader in R2. Anyway, even if the “Half-Life 2″ inspired campaign bites, I’m still looking forward to the multiplayer with it because Resistance games are pretty much the best you can get for PS3 exclusives at the moment

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus Cinematic Trailer

I’ve not played any of the previous games but from what I’ve read/watched/heard, it looks to be a graphically stunning, non-buggy version of Fallout 3/New Vegas

Portal 2
Portal 2 Gameplay Trailer

The puzzler and tech demo turned amazingly successful game finally returns with new puzzles and ways of solving them. The best way I can describe what I think Portal 2 will be like is the way LBP2 took away the child-achievable level of puzzles of LBP by complicating them. Since it’s not a kids game it should add up to being the hardest and most rewarding puzzle game you’ll gain access to this year, that’s why it’s a must-get for me. Well, that and PS3s are getting SteamCloud support and PC/PS3 crossplatform multiplayer

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath
Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath Original 2005 Trailer

I didn’t have an original Xbox so I missed the follow up games of Abe’s Exoddus and Abe’s Oddysee set in the Oddworld universe. Those games would be Munch’s Oddysee and Stranger’s Wrath. The latter would have to be one of the games I really wished I had the original Xbox for, but luckily for me Just Add Water are rejiggering and rereleasing on the PSN and maybe XBLA if Microsoft raise their size limit above 2GB. Also, Abe’s Exoddus is also being rereleased as a HD side-scroller copy of the original

Dead Island
Dead Island Trailer

The trailer was shown to me recently, and it was so emotive that if you think you wont want to buy this game after seeing it, then you are truly mad. Very pretty looking game originally set to be released in 2008, is now arriving this year. It apparently is a solely melee zombie game

L.A. Noire
L.A. Noire Facial Tech Demonstration

Seriously, when the facial recognition tech is put into operation in May with this game, I’d find it hard to believe many developers would be able to go without it. Gameplay-wise it sounds like Blue Toad Murder Files but not a piece of absolute scat

Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Final Fantasy Versus XIII Extended Trailer

Almost definitely not coming out this year, but it probably should if Square knows what’s good for them. It’s Final Fantasy, but not as you’ve ever known it

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

Its been rumored for a while (almost as long as the PSP 2, from what I understand), but Endgadget has shots of what they’re saying is Sony’s Playstation Phone prototype. Here’s the specs:

Android 3.0 OS
Touch screen
512 Megs of RAM, 1GB ROM
Screen to be 3.7 to 4.1 inches
Games accessed through digital download via a Sony Marketplace specifically for the phone
Micro SD card support

I have some questions, though. Instead of releasing that overpriced marketing disaster known as the PSP Go, why not wait ’till this was ready? Especially when the PSP-3000 was to continue in production. I mean–its obvious this is a PSP Go with phone functions; did Sony think they had to do a marketing proof of concept with the PSP Go? Why waste the money? I’m a Sony fanboy to the core, but I don’t understand their business decisions a lot of the time.

I’ll pass on this one. I switched to iMac for my computer needs earlier this year, so I’ve got an iPhone4 in my future. ‘Droid fans might want to look into this when more info is available.

Image from Endgadget.com

Siliconera has posted schematics submitted by Sony to the Japanese Patent Office that details a device that will allow Playstation 2 games to run on Playstation 3. According to Siliconera who translated the documents, the device–if released to market as described–will be a single unit device consisting of the following:

▪ Processor
▪ DVD decoder/emulator
▪ Sound processor
▪ Graphics processor

I highly suggest you read Gamespot.com’s reporting on Siliconera’s article for additional info of the proposed device. Now, I’m no electronics engineer by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I a gaming industry expert–but allow me to play industry pro for a second:

This device kind of sounds like a Playstation 2 minus the DVD drive, power brick, and memory card ports. I think this device might possibly be a final skew of the Playstation 2 before the console is finally put out to pasture. PS2 sales according to August NPDs were under 105K (which is still kind of impressive when you take into consideration how long the system has been in production), and there really isn’t much coming out for it as we move into the Christmas shopping season. It could be a good way to send that tech out on a high note, satisfy the Sony hardcore who have been clamoring for a long time for PS2 functionality to return to PS3–and, in my case–without having to re-purchase my favorite games via digital download (*cough* Nintendo *cough).

I’d love to be able to play my copies of Godhand, and Viewtiful Joe on PS3, but I can’t help but ask the question–Why did Sony cut PS2 computability out of the PS3 in the first place?

As if anyone should be surprised, Bungie is trying to get more of your money. A lot more. Most of you will remember watching the “Keep it Clean” trailer a few weeks ago that was a teaser for a Halo 3 campaign add-on. It looks like the stinker news is that it is not going to be an add-on, but rather a whole separate game. A direct quote from a Bungie press release states that, “Halo 3: Recon is a standalone expansion”. This means that it is not DLC for Halo 3, but will be sold on disc in the stores. So for anyone who was saving up 1200 MS Points (space bucks), go ahead and spend them on that Hannah Montana theme that you’ve been wanting for your dashboard. The good news about this whole thing is that there is multiplayer involved. Let the teabagging commence. You can read more details about this here and here.

Microsoft can’t keep a secret. Sometimes it seems that maybe they want secrets such as price price cuts to get out. the official un-official image of an inventory system showing the price cuts have surfaced on Kotaku courtesy of VG Chartz. The arcade sku will be $199.99, the new 60 gig sku will be $299.99, and the Elite will be $399.99 This pre-emptive blow from Microsoft could spurn a price war between the three main consoles.

Well, according to Target, the 360 price drop that has been rumored is true. They have the price of the Xbox 360 Premium listed at 299.99 in stores only. I checked some other sites and no one else is listing it at this price so this is not yet 100% confirmed but it still seems interesting. I guess E3 is so close that the rumor mill will be dead for a while after that so I have to get the rumoring in while I can.

I said last week on our show that the PS3 needed to be aggressive and do a price cut without announcing it and it looks like Microsoft might be doing just that. According to an article from Joystiq, there is a rumor floating around (with supporting images) stating that a pricecut for the 360 is coming. Supposedly, the image came from a K-Mart ad due out sometime and considering Civilization Revolution is on the ad I would say the ad is somewhat close. Civ Rev comes out July 8th so we could see a price cut as soon as that day. This is still speculation at the moment but maybe Microsoft is pulling the kind of trick I said Sony needed to pull in order to stay ahead of the game. If you don’t know what I am talking about then listen to Episode 21 and you will hear me talking about it. I think this would be a great move for either system to bring a mid-year price cut but I would rather see Sony be the ones to step up and do it rather than play catchup with Microsoft.

Do you think that this ad is accurate or just another hoax?

Link to Joystiq story