Developer: Techland | Publisher: Deep Silver| Genre: First-Person / Horror / RPG
PS3 | Xbox 360 | Windows PC
Despite its many flaws, Riptide does offer a lot of fun and a mildly interesting narrative, but ultimately too many fetch quests with very little imagination.
Taking place directly after the events of Dead Island, Riptide puts you in the shoes of the original heroes as well as a new character known as Sergeant John Morgan - a soldier part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The game recaps on the original narrative, giving you a sense of what you're in for if you happen to be new to the series.
Initially, the ADF rescue the group - however after awaking from heavy sedation, you'll find yourself aboard a ship full of Zombie threats, as well as a suspicion that these ADF guys aren't exactly who they say they are, giving you subtle hints into the upcoming narrative. After the ship crashes, the group find themselves on an island known as Palanai, which is practically the same as Banoi in the sense there's hundreds, if not thousands of Zombies ready to rip you apart at a moments notice.
You do have the choice to import your characters from the original game, bringing over the stats and equipment, or you can simply start again from scratch. Either option is fine, as the game will adapt the difficulty to suit the current level of your character. Like the original, each character has various advantages - for example the rap star Sam B specialises in blunt weaponry, whereas ex-police officer Purna has a knack for firearms, and even has a revolver with unlimited ammo.
Skills play an important role in how you decide to advance your character, and these are separated into three categories - fury, combat, and survival. Fury is a special skill triggered by certain amounts of rage, which when activated will make you extremely powerful, allowing for the killing of multiple Zombies around you with ease. The combat tree offers multiple upgrades which make your desired character more and more deadly against the enemy, whilst the survival route is designed to increase your health, stamina, and so forth.
Upgrading each of the categories evenly would be a sensible way to play the game, or you could of course constantly increase your combat, allowing yourself to become a powerhouse - its because of this you'll have a lot to think about when you gain skill points. This time around, you can level up certain combat types such as blunt weapons, blades, hand to hand, or firearms - the more you use of each, the quicker that combat type will level up.
When attacking enemies, especially with melee weapons, the hit detection feels very off and "floaty", meaning its difficult to really feel your attacks are doing anything - its more of the on-screen hit points displaying the amount of damage that does the job, but this reduces the full experience of taking on a Zombie horde, as you should feel the satisfaction of bashing a Zombie's head in or slicing through its limbs, and that's a real shame.
Speaking of Zombies, the game does feature a variety of different types, which are actually documented in the notebook you receive at the start of the game, displaying the weaknesses and so forth. There's the typical Walker or Infected, which are the most common Zombies to be found - they offer little challenge and can be disposed of quite easily, its not until later in the game where you'll encounter the Ram or the Wrestler, these can prove very challenging if you don't have the appropriate tactics in mind as well as the right equipment - this encourages different styles of gameplay, and a sense of variation in the enemies you come to face.
Something that played a big part in the original was the ability to upgrade and create your own weapon modications, the same goes for Riptide, and some of the creations can be brilliant, for example there's a wooden pole with a skull's head attached to the end, it comes complete with liquid fire that can be blown through its eye sockets. Another noticeable weapon is the chainsaw, which when used creates a river of blood and guts along with lots of severed limbs - going into a group of Zombies armed with this is extremely entertaining and...bloody.
Later in the game, you'll more than likely rely on firearms as bullets become commonplace - they are extremely powerful, especially when fully upgraded, and they can be fun to use, but there's nothing better than whacking a Zombie in its head with a meat cleaver or a baseball bat. Maybe I'm a little sadistic.
Whilst the game feels the same as the original in terms of gameplay and graphics, there is a new feature known as base/hub defence - this involves securing the perimeters of a holdout so that Zombies cannot enter the location, you can use electrified fences, machine gun turrets, mines, and other explosives to do this. It's a fantastic idea as it truly gives you the sense of surviving in a Zombie apocalypse, and its through these parts of the game where the rest of your group really come in handy as they'll provide their expertise to rid of any incoming Zombies.
In terms of its graphics, they're nothing to boast about in general, however there are some things that stand out as impressive - the Zombies themselves look incredibly detailed, combining that with this imagery of their spilling guts and insides creates a genuinely frightening portrayal of the reality of what's happened on this island. There are also these Zombie groans you can often hear in the distance, and when you're in a situation where you can't actually see anything, it can be very unnerving with the knowledge you could be ambushed at any time, and its through these audio and graphical aids that creates that sense of fear and abandonment.
The game still has a lot of problems - the amount of fetch quests can often lead to boring and stale gameplay, as well as less than imaginative narrative plots to go with them, there are glitches that happen all too often, an example would be Zombies just disappearing, or they'll sink into the ground as if the environment hasn't been rendered properly. You never really feel threatened in the sense of actually dying, the game will restart you in practically the same position, and the only penalty is losing some cash, and its because of this its difficult to feel a sense of danger, which in a game filled with Zombies, should be there in full effect. REVIEW1
6/10
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