Home is Dead, Long Live Home: Dead Island Content Review
by Gideon, Zombie Stomping Stud & HSM team writer
Stepping out into the Central Plaza was surprising to say the least. Scattered about in place of the familiar modern courtyard were the remnants of a tropical island resort. Tattered umbrellas and splintered beach chairs told the story of a long lost horrifying struggle. Blood dried nearby and the words “NEED HELP” were sprawled before the Harbor Studio, a desperate plea that probably went unanswered, or at least not answered in the way the author had hoped. More than likely, they were gone.
Home visitors ran frantically around the debris laden, half empty pool of the overturned Central Plaza. Luggage gathered in abandoned piles. The sun hung tightly over the horizon, pushing ghastly shadows across the ground. Peculiar palms twisted from the ground as if foretelling of this upheaval from years long past. Those lucky enough to still be alive gathered around the tiki bar, which had been converted to a makeshift weapons bench. A pair of zombies, lulled by memories of Chain Swing, which once emanated from Listen@Home, staggered about, ignoring passerbys. Their hunger for flesh seemed sedated; it’s possible the blood stain at their feet is all that is left of their last meal.
Central Plaza was no more. Gone was the carefree bench walking and robot dancing. The willful playfulness of Home had been transformed into something more terrifying than anyone could have imagined. It was now some sort of perverse decaying carcass of an island – a Dead Island.
Sorry, that pun just begged to be told.
Zombie apocolypse aside, Central has rarely looked this good!
At first impression the Dead Island content, the next offering of Total Game Integration (TGI) from PlayStation Home, comes across as unfamiliar and surreal. Just as a recognizable location of an island resort is turned on its side for the zombie infestation in the Dead Island game from Deep Silver, Central Plaza is so changed to support this TGI.
Even though the cosmetic differences would be impressive on their own, this Dead Island TGI goes multiple steps further, engrossing the Home user into the world Deep Silver created to advertize their new action survival game. There is a quiz, a robust mini-game, an impressively deep photoshoot, Home clothes, Home costumes, Home apartment items, Home reward items, unlockable rewards for use in the Dead Island, a preorder bonus for Home buyers, and (of course) t-shirts.
Each interactive section of the TGI is marked by a spinning blue palm chip, which is easily distinguishable from clear across Central Plaza. The developers of this new addition to the seemingly inundated zombie genre have given Home users almost everything they could to entice them to purchase their game, and what they have given is more than sufficient to achieve that task.
I peg this guy for a "Zombie Friend"
The quiz station, which has a blue palm icon floating over its signpost, consists of a collection of situational analysis questions which test the user’s view of themselves and their overall attitude toward zombies. Depending on the answers given, at the end of the quiz, the player is awarded with a t-shirt for their avatar and a label which deems them to be one of four breeds during a zombie apocalypse. Most users will collect all four shirts by completing the quiz once for each shit. From fodder to slayer, the questions are generally straight forward and it’s usually simple to tell which answer will award which shirt. There are a few, however, which pose moral dilemmas that might actually give pause. It’s a shame the rest of the questions weren’t as ambiguous, because then the quiz could have given the user something more valuable than an avatar t-shirt – some insight into themselves.
At that same station, users are able to preorder Dead Island directly from Home, a feature which seems might be standard with the TGI initiative. If a user takes advantage of the preorder feature they are rewarded with a preorder voucher that gives them access to an outfit for Home avatars of an exploding zombie, complete with torso exploding action. Keep in mind, this item only available at the time of preorder and will likely not be offered again after the game is launched in any capacity. So if a user desires the ability to gib themselves into oblivion at the drop of a hat, now is the time to act.
The last aspect of the quiz station is a commerce point to the Dead Island sections of the PSN Store, which is also accessible through the Dead Island commerce point near the standard Central kiosk location. At each commerce point, users can browse the offerings of Dead Island for PlayStation Home. Males can choose between multiple zombie outfits. Females can acquire both zombie outfits and the torn skirt-suit and hair of one of the characters of Dead Island, Xian Mei. There is also a small selection of moveable blood splatter and wall hangings for apartments, which depict zombies breaking through walls. Through this commerce point, users are able to view all the Dead Island merchandise conveniently grouped together. Finding the items in the Mall or through the navigator will require trips to multiple stores.
The overall quality of the items are slightly above par with the similar offerings of Home. One particularly interesting attribute of the headless zombie outfit is that the character name and chat bubble hovers just slightly above the shoulders and would intersect with the head, if there were one. If the outfit simply made the head invisible then the label and bubbles wouldn’t be jetting out the jagged neck stump of the outfit. This is just one example of the meticulous detail the creators took with the entirety of the PlayStation Home Dead Island content.
Smile and say "Brains!"
One of the most impressive activities of the Dead Island TGI is the Dead Island photoshoot, which is accessed through the blue palm icon taunting a pair of shuffling zombies. In this, users are given two options, Simple and Expert. In Simple mode the user is given predetermined poses for their avatars with a bevy of zombies. Each is different and some offer a bit of humor, but the overall experience is limited. Once a scene is decided upon, a frame is chosen and picture can be taken and saved to the XMB. If the Expert mode is chosen, the user is treated to a rather powerful positioning tool to create almost any scene imaginable.
The Expert mode begins with the same pre-positioned scenes which can be found in Simple mode, but from there the user can choose from a set of pre-determined poses for each individual character and position them anywhere they wish within the confines of the scene. The body parts of the zombies can be made invisible, so if one wished to have a headless zombie shuffling about, or have their avatar triumphantly hold a zombies head; it can be done with simple manipulation. Lighting effects and camera positioning is also available for user manipulation. There is a slight learning curve, but with just a dozen-or-so minutes most users will likely get a firm grasp of the positioning concepts and begin to make their own zombie centric scenes starring their avatar.
By far the most impressive content available in the Dead Island TGI is the Zombie Survival game. This mini-game is presented in three parts. The first is a scavenger hunt, the second is a crafting game which both of these support the efforts of the third action-oriented portion of the Zombie Survival game.
Groovy!
The scavenger hunt is simple enough and should be familiar to anyone who played some of the previous Home item-gathering games. Users must run around the Dead Island plaza and search for radiant backpacks which contain a number of material items which are tallied by icons in the upper right portion of the screen when each item is found. This portion of the game is native to the experience of the TGI and does not need to be entered into like the other activities of the space; that is, it doesn’t have a specific palm icon which activates the game. By simply being in Central Plaza you are partaking in the scavenger hunt.
The crafting game can be entered into by activating any of the three blue palm icons within the tiki bar, on the opposite side of the leaderboards. There are four weapons and one heath item that can be crafted if a user has found the appropriate items through the scavenger game. Only two weapons and the health item are currently available, which is a clever way to ensure there will be interest in the TGI the entire time it is available in PlayStation Home.
Crafting weapons will consume the items scavenged, and each item is given only one use within the action game, so repeated savaging and crafting is required for success in the action-oriented portion of the Zombie Survival Game. This weapon consumption and constant need to find new items to make weapons is an excellent application of the in game mechanics of the Dead Island game. The dependency of item collection and weapon crafting is to be one of the core mechanics of the Dead Island game itself, and the inclusion of this feature should be appreciated by both Home and Dead Island fans alike.
The action-oriented portion of the Zombie Survival Game can be accessed by going to the blue palm rotating over the changing rooms. It is recommended that each user take the time to read through the instructions because this portion of the Zombie Survival Game is as well developed as some for-purchase Home games. There are Home furniture items which can be won by completing the challenges presented and if all challenges are completed a Home exclusive in-game item is unlocked for use within the Dead Island itself.
I'm kickin it old school!
Once inside, players are dropped into a quarantined section of the plaza where they try to survive a wave of a zombie onslaught. The player has multiple offensive and defensive movies they can use to try to survive as they move their avatar around the space, slashing and bashing staggering zombies who are lunging toward them. Once enough damage has been dealt to a zombie, it may fall to the ground and crawl for ankle threatening attacks. A special ground stomp can be used to get at the crawling zombies, and although they tend to be slower than their bipedal counterparts, they pose a threat all the same.
There will be times within the mini-game the player is prompted with a button to execute a finishing move on a damaged zombie. When the appropriate button is pressed, a small animation plays which unleashes a fist-pump educing attack to end the reign of the target zombie. When these animations are playing the player is immune to damage, but the zombies still move closer to get their bite. With this in mind, the finisher moves can be used in a somewhat strategic manner to avoid attacks, but can leave the player in a tight spot if used too often in close quarters. The player has a limited amount of heath, which is displayed at the bottom of the screen and it must be watched during the wave. If all health is lost, the wave is understandably over.
There will eventually be three waves of increasing difficulty to choose from, but two are on time-released locks and will be available closer to when the game is released. The user is given a small selection of weapons to fend off the zombies, all of which are obtainable at the tiki-bar. The player also has an accessible inventory with which they are able to hold, and change between, multiple weapons to ensure they are well prepared for the encroaching zombie mass. These weapons all have limited use and will break after repeated strikes, which is another mechanic of Dead Island successfully transposed into this mini-game.
The weapons a player crafts using the scavenger and crafting games will also be available to use within the Survival Game. Once a crafted item is used and its integrity weakened to the point of breaking, another will be needed to be scavenged and crafted. This interconnection between the various mini-games within the TGI is a large part of the appeal of this portion of the Survival Game. Beating the limbs off of a zombie with the weapons that were personally crafted is immensely satisfying.
I think my teammate by the changing rooms was having a seizure.
All of this frantic zombie-riffic action can be taken into the multiplayer arena, where a user can join up to three other players to fend off the zombie horde. This is by far the most impressive aspect of this TGI. This mini-game proves that real time simultaneous multiplayer cooperative avatar action games can be achieved within PlayStation Home.
As the zombie slaying survivors run around the quarantined space the health of each player is displayed at the bottom of the screen. If any player goes down, it is up for the other players to revive their co-defenders. This revival takes time and while assisting a teammate the player is left vulnerable to zombie attack. Once revived, a player is left with only a small amount of heath and must rely on their crafted heath items to heal themselves. The revival itself does not consume any heath packs from any player and can be done multiple times for each person. Only when all the players are taken down by the zombie horde is the wave failed. If one survives, the wave is considered a success.
While impressive, the multiplayer isn’t without hiccups. There were multiple times a team member was off in the corner of the quarantined area, swinging away at nothing but thin air. There were other instances where a zombie, who appeared to be by themselves, would take damage and crumple to the ground, dead. So while the action is happening simultaneously, the display of the action is not. This never affected the gameplay and is only a visual anomaly. There was never an instance where a zombie appeared to be in one location but was not able to be damaged. Neither was there ever a time when the avatar was damaged without a zombie being near and executing a visible attack toward the avatar. The visual quirk simply provided a few chuckles at seemingly spastic team members and auto-decapitating zombies.
This second offering of a TGI, which has been provided by a third party company who isn’t Home-centric, has certainly set the bar at a lofty height. The incorporation of so many aspects of PlayStation Home simply goes to show exactly what Home is capable of if a developer chooses to put forth the effort and creativity. The Dead Island TGI certainly holds up against any of the content currently on Home and offers a unique experience that has not yet been seen within this virtual world. Not only does this TGI give Home users a fun activity and introduces them to the world of Dead Island, it gives fans of Dead Island, and zombies in general, an outstanding reason to visit PlayStation Home. The most negative thing that can be said about the Dead Island TGI is that it is only here for a limited amount of time.
Here’s hoping for a perpetual Dead Island public or private space.
August 22nd, 2011 by Gideon | 14 comments
Gideon is a team writer for HomeStation Magazine and likes cheese in all its forms. Whether it be block, slice, cream, wheel, log, string or aerosol, Gideon cant resist the pungent bitter taste of good cheese. Heck, he'll even take mediocre cheese, as long as its slapped between two pieces of whole wheat bread with a little bit of mustard.
Thank you! I was totally confused (as usual) and kept getting killed. Now, maybe, I will have a chance of surviving.
My best advice to staying alive playing the Dead Island Zombie game is to run up to your target zombie, hit them a couple times and back away. IF and only if the zombie is alone, feel free to get a couple more smacks in or try to take them down. Also, running around like a sheepdog around its flock works wonders. Keep in mind the prevailing tactic during multiplayer is jump into the fray with both machetes blazing (disclaimer: dual weapon wielding not allowed) so if you use the same single player tactics in multiplayer you’ll likely be reduced to being the medic for your teammates and quite a lower score.
All I did is chop their legs off and stomp on the until I had to press triangle to finish them then I singled them out one by one and stepped on their bodys until they disappeared in the ground. I got a few decapitations too, and ended up doing the same in multiplayer and I got more than 8,000 points! You have to be prepared though, and have a medi pack ready! (Phreak_Gamer2010)
Great article gideon and thanks for the hints for the action game too. The photo shoot area is hott. I’ve posted my pics in forums and on google+.
Thanks for the review Gideon, now I know what to do about the crafting thing. I have already beaten the multi-player and single modes, though I ended up doing the muti-player on my own as me teammate just stood there like a dead man, (I didn’t know him). Well back to do some zombie killing!
Really great article Gideon! I think I have Single Player down pretty well, and playing Multiplayer with friends is fun.
I’m still working on unlocking the challenges. They were confusing to me at first but I’m getting better at them.
The game has its bugs but it isn’t the frustrating experience I’ve had with other games in the past. It looks like Sony and the developers have really improved pre release testing!
Great read Gideon!
I Originally thought the Killzone promotional Central plaza was impressive with it’s atmospherics and its shooter arcade game, until this came along. This has definately raised the bar in terms of what a multiplayer should be. Although it does have it’s hiccups in terms of minor bugs. (Your player sometimes doesnt get a hit on the zombie character but yet it can lunge at you can take a chunk out of your health bar) The best weapon (though limited in number) is the shotgun, if you can get it, it inflicted maximum damage and is great for knocking down groups of Zombies to ensure a much higher score percentage. My only gripe is that it can get confusing when non players walk into the space (spectators?) and the fact that you can damage your own team mates with weapons if it gets a little crowded and messy. But overall huge amounts of fun throughout. I would definately welcome a third person multiplayer shooter.
LOL. I saw those hiccups youre talking about but totally didn’t even think as them as bugs. In that sort of situation not every hit, jab or swing is going to land, people would be randomly running about and things would get hectic. Never considered that they might be unintentional gameplay mechanics! One mechanic I didn’t mention which really irked me, but I have no complaints about it, is how it’s possible for your teammates to run the tiki bar dry of weapons for a bit. I was left, multiple times, running around looking for a bat on the ground or lead pipe when I wanted something with a blade! For a minigame it IS complex enough to write a guide for, and thats saying A LOT.
Excellent article Gideon! I spent the weekend watching Herx kill zombies endlessly, and more would fill his tv screen! Where are they all coming from?
My thoughts were to gather them all up and dump them on the dance floor, then play “Chain Swing” for 48 hours solid. That would surely kill more than any shotgun could!
Was a fun read and I’ve been enjoying the transformation of Central Plaza. Makes me almost want to swim in the half filled pool, until I saw the blood trickling down the slide….
Keep up the good work
Nice read, Gideon. Thx.
It is just SO great to finally be able to sever limbs and drop kick heads in the Central Plaza.
AND get your picture taken before and after..
Ahhh, life’s guilty pleasures
Now that’s a comment I wish I could like.
Sorry. No harm against actual humanity intended.
Attn Kids: IMO, Zombies are not people, too.
Please don’t sever limbs and kick heads at home.
cool review i like your style
i’ve been getting 8,000 or more points do you know how to get 12,000 any help appreciated (Phreak_Gamer2010)