When I leveled up, I chose in which skill tree to invest my new point in - so even if you joined my game as the same knives expert I play as, we wouldn't necessarily have the same abilities. I chose the weapons, the enemies to attack, and the side quests to take. Weapons degrade as you use them, so finding a 'legendary' weapon was exciting, but not as exciting as finding a workbench to keep weapons in tip-top shape. Med kits were few and far between in my experience, so scavenging for energy drinks and fruit - which have to be used at that moment and can't be stored - became part of the experience. You have a limited stamina bar, so you can't run or swing your weapon forever.

I didn't think 'Oh, I'll just let him get me and restart back there.' You rarely feel safe in Dead Island, and that's how a zombie game should be. When I sprinted away from a zombie and heard its growls directly behind me, my heart pounded in my chest. Any damage you inflicted before heading to the great beyond remains. If you croak, you wait five seconds and respawn with less money. Dead Island doesn't really punish you for dying.

Objectively speaking - like, right now from my keyboard and not playing the actual game - that's a stupid thing to say. No longer was I playing a game - I was focusing on survival as if I were the one running from Point A to Point B. In the beginning, I'd slaughter every zombie I saw, but by the time I got to the city and found tight alleyways overrun with monsters, I began to just run from objective to objective. I listened for the screams of the infected or the roar of a damage sponge known as a 'Thug.' From that perspective, I was on the island not my character. I crept into and through each environment I came to, from beaches to sewers to jail cells. Dead Island's strength is in the world it creates. But Dead Island doesn't succeed because of its gore (though I liked the dismemberment). When you sit down to play, you'll choose one of four characters and for the next 20 to 30-some hours roam massive maps, take on interesting side quests, and chop the heads off hundreds of ghouls. The story didn't set my hair on fire, but everything else makes up for it. On a small island off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the dead walk.

Dead island 2 review ign