Dead Island (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

Dead Island (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) :-

Yet more zombie carnage in this FPS....well, I say FPS, but really you'll be doing more smacking than shooting...smacking and hacking and thwacking and splatting! And shooting too, but it's more melee based and uses all manner of upgrades for you to create new weapons to cut the zombies up with! A FPM then...First Person Melee...

You take control of one of four characters as they find themselves trapped on an exotic holiday island that has become over-run with the undead flesh eaters that are being far too overused in games these days. This one keeps it interesting though, by letting you use the aforementioned weapons to bash their brains in, and takes a leaf from Left 4 Dead's book and introduces a few different zombies to keep you on your toes!

The Walkers wander around being all slow like traditional zombies, and sort of huddle together to make it tricky to get round corners and things...the Infected sprint towards you like the more modern zombies in stuff like 28 Days Later, spitting and shrieking and getting all up in your face to try and eat it off.....the Thugs are super-zombies that take a lot of damage before they pop their clogs, so it's best to save the bigger, more powerful weapons for them....Suiciders plead with you to kill them, then explode in a mess of blood and guts when you get close to them, ruining your favourite shirt...

Then there's the Rams, straight-jacketed loonies who charges at you and try to smash you against walls and is also very tough...Butchers, who have their hands chewed off into bony knives which they'll use to try and carve themselves a slice of you...and finally, Floaters...zombies who have become bloated after lying around in water and now have the ability to spew projectile acid vomit at you like Left 4 Dead's Boomers.....

You also get to wander or drive around a huge open world, exploring the various hotels, bars and beaches and later city streets and sewers...and you'll find other survivors who'll wnat you to complete various quests for them such as gathering supplies, finding their relatives or helping to hold off an onslaught. You can hook up with another 3 players online too, making it a bit more fun to go on a zombie slaying spree, although they can sometimes wander off and start other missions which can get confusing, so it's best to stick to playing with people you know will stay together as a team. If you can find the right players it really helps add to the game as you work together to get things done!

It isn't just zombies you have to deal with though. Later you'll find other humans who are trying to survive in their own way, and are using the undead uprising as a means to getting what they want. So far I've found that this is where the guns come in handy, as the humans tend to be a bit more savvy than the brain munchers...

In conclusion then, it's a great game that's a lot of fun to play, especially if you can get a couple of online buddies involved to help you out. There's extra arenas available in the Game Of The Year edition or as DLC, where you can bash away at zombies to your hearts content too, and an extra mission set where you get to see the action form the side of one of your human enemies..

It has plenty of faults too though...the game can glitch pretty bad, with you ending up stuck in scenery, have items disappear or just freeze the game up...but it's enough fun for you to ignore these bits and just get on with the mayhem. So again, it's another one I recommend...

One last thing before moving on...the trailer for the game caused quite a bit of upset, but not for the controversy of showing a little kid get bitten and flung from a window that you'd expect would upset people. What got people moaning was the fact that such an arty trailer suggested that this would be a game where you would have to really think about the fact zombies were human, and deal with the emotional effects of having to end their existence again...Too bad for the people who were expecting that then, that it ended up being a violent gore-fest that revels in the fact you can bash zombies brains in with a customised oar or flatten loads of them in an instant with your car!!