Comments on: Diablog: Dead Island.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:09:33 +0000

One might even say… you missed the boat. AHAHAHAHAHA wait was that the joke

By: innokenti

innokenti — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:02:38 +0000

I’ve been tangentially interested in giving Dead Island a go for a while. But looks like the ferry has sailed back to the mainland on this one.

Shame. But yeah, aubergine-whacking also does have its limits and I’m not sure how many more yams I’d be interested in battering.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 07:41:05 +0000

Diablo. Diablo has a lot to answer for. Also loot is now a simple and proven way to keep a player playing, whether it comes in the form of unlocks like Call of Duty’s multiplayer or actual drops as in Diablo-likes. To be fair, Borderlands and Dead Island are variants on a particular strain of RPG — the roguelike — which is and has forever been all about the loot, and I’d argue that these games are actually weaker for trying to include a story at all. Why risk actively insulting the player with a story that’s nonsensically piss poor? Either make a real effort or — if you want to fall back on the excuse that games are about gameplay and the story is an afterthought — just don’t bother.

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:18:51 +0000

I attribute a lot of this to the Endgame mentality that has become so prevalent. For me, a (story-driven) game is over when I’ve finished the story (sidequests may or may not figure into this metric, depending on the game) or when I’ve reached the level cap. I don’t give a damn about getting better equipment for its own sake, but so many games seem to think that I do and that finding more stuff will keep me occupied and engaged and that the story is just filler.

I’ve always viewed RPGs as being defined by character progression as a player-controlled mechanic (versus something like God of War, which very carefully doles out equipment and has very limited upgrade possibilities, or Metroid, which is open but has no player control whatsoever regarding Samus’ capabilities). When did developers start thinking that RPGs are about loot? And when did players start accepting that?

By: hentzau

hentzau — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:15:56 +0000

Borderlands was a far more polished game, but yes; they rely on the same random loot and co-op open world gameplay. Also like Dead Island, actually playing Borderlands was pretty fun. Getting to the end of the game *sucked* because it made you realise how meaningless what you’d just done was.

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:38:11 +0000

Isn’t this game basically just Borderlands with zombies? (Which in turn would be the Island of Dr. Ned DLC stretched to full-game-length).

Speaking of: Borderlands is awesome. That is all.

By: aosher

aosher — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:03:13 +0000

You two should frankly merge your blogs. You have very complementary styles.