TAKING THE TECHLAND

If I had an audience with Techland, the people that created Dead Island, I would ask them one question; Are, or rather were, you taking the piss?!

Actually I would ask two questions, lol, and the second one would explain or at least hint to why I asked the first question...how do you think that Dead Island, or at least Dead Island Riptide as I have not played the others, is in your woldest dreams a triple 'A' title?! Because it looks pretty and/or because of the price you charge.

In fact this I may actuallty put top the publishers because it seems to me that all you have to do is make a game that looks pretty, albeit absolutely abysmally designed in so many ways its simply staggering bnot to mention bland, and you think its time to build a new vault for cash?

I was so disappointed and disgusted in Dead Island's Riptide, yup even at a fiver, that I left it alone for months on end. Recently I went back to it to give it another chance but the only way I was going to do this was to play from the beginning again.

Now as it turns out there were a few things I did not realise, mostly down to game design I am afraid and only supports what I said previously about lots of big 4x4s on a single two mile long road with no other intersecrting ones. One of these is that there is vastly more to the island than this poxy badly designed road suggests. that and the fact that I did not know that the game is based on firstly kicking things, well how fecking many people would think that, and THROWING things!

Yeah, yeah let's hear it?! I did not know get over it, lmao.

Also it turned out that the boat I put the engine on was noth the fecking boat I was supposed to get, despite the radio conversation leading me to believe it was I circled for ages getting killed and losing loads of money before I realised that there was no way out and back to the camp with the boat! Turns out you did not have to do that either and one gamer that helped another by stating that when you place wone engine in they all have engines and the person he helped said there were no other boats, well there fecking are!!

Do yourself a favour, do not bother with the road and stay the feck out of boats and the water and away from caves! AT ALL COSTS!! Even on level 33 which I am now on! It dont mean diddley-squat when your in certain caves with bosses!! Really, mark my words.

Still realsising you can throw anything and not just the things listed at throwing weapoons, again really bad desig and use of language, this made up for the fact that even though you had a long staff in your hand you were still unable to hit a zombies head while they rep3eatedly clouted you with their ghostly extensions to their super-human arms?!

I actually started to have fun with this realisations and there was a time when I woould end up, not by my command, with a weapon in my hands from my own inventory I did not chose, incompetence again I am afraid, and I would think 'ooh...can I throw this?!! WHOOSH, 'yup!! Cool!'

So with my second stab at things I managed to complete my first two missions. However there still remained the problem that not only did Zombies you beheaded all grow new ones when you had only just fought your way through minutes before but that of a whole group of spawning sprinting zombies right before your very eyes, again incompetence. Then there were two new things that cam to ligght and this is that the maps are fecking rubbish, for feck sake hire a cartographer, and I metntioned boats?! Yeah well when your playing on your own do not fecking go anywehre near one and ignore what the imbeciles who coded the game told you as they clearly lied about testing it. Zombies spawn in front of the boat constantly, grab ahold of the sides and all you have to defencd yourself is a kick with the 'E' button that has to be times just right in a maze of a swamp with no straight lines and useless against any zombies getting in the boat beside you or behind you?! Impervious to propellers then to, eh?

This brings me onto the drivel that is in the paperwork of many products you buy that is not only vomit inducing but, and especially so in the corruption blogs I write, may be a very tricky prosppect for many impatient and greedy money men in the nopt too distant future...

We thank you for buying our product which has been bought to you in a highly polished state and with rigorous testing....

FECK OFF!!

In a hand to hand combat game you never even boithered to measure a human's arm? Do not, I repeat do NOT code a Boxing game for feck sake!

Also the other thing is that not only were many things clearly not tested at all neither was this game tested in single player mode as this is the very first title I have ever owned or played through and thought 'yes this bit needs help from other players I don't have'. Not only have I never thought this about any previous game but I have lost count of how many times I have thought this during Riptide.

The two main ones are travelling in a boat anywhere more than 10 metres, no I am not kidding, and in a damned cave called Jimmy's Tight Spot or Jimmy's Little Cave or something like that! Lol! There as a boss in there and I had used up all my weapons by throwing them all, oops do not try thisd at home kiddies, and then got my arse kicked around 100 times. I got so enraged by the absolute incompetence once again that this was designed and coded that I simply refused to back down. Eventually I beat the stupidly hard zombie and my cash went from around $30,000 just under to $8,000 dollars?! Yeah do not even get me started on there stupid procing system, charging you more to upgrade or fix a weapon that the weapon ends up being worth?! Yeah thats a good incentive to get players to be created! In fact...

The very first time I had other players in my game, which has happened only twice out of several dozen plays, they were clearly cheating. Not just one but two players cheating as their guns and amount of bullets were simply unbelievable. I remember thinking 'yeah thats how fecking incompetently designed game is as everyone has to cheat!' which brings me into the one thing that is not annoying but IS the most disturbing aspect of this game and one that has been totally missed by authorities anywhere, guess it makes them far too much money and tax, and everywhere despite draconian rules and laws governing other things that do not even come close to this atrocity...

For me this game has a far greater violence aqnd gore aspect than any other game I have played and I have played all the ones that have been mentioned in the media after some moron shoots a bunch of people in America. In fact I avoide axes and heavy duty stuff like chainsaws because it makes me queasy walking around with a large blunt object that as soon as you swing it ends up covered head to toe in blood! I cant tell you how many times I have waded through a swamp trying to wash it clean! It is like the coders can not wait to just get it covered in thick blood at every oppurtunity and the lack of professionalism, physics and even really bad ommisions like no animals and its clear that the target audience for this were children!

I would not have liked my own children playing this game and nor my grandchildren either. Which begs the question that there is some truly dreafdul parenting going on to today?!

But, hey, what do I know after all the world is such a perfect place today what could possibly be wrong wwith anything I complain about?! Lol!

As for this game....grrrrr. Well I wont be buying anything brand new ant full price that has the Techland name on it, not even as gifts and will advise any parents I know against either their products for kids or anything published by Deep Silver.

I have never paid much attention to those that complain about violence in games but were I to be approached about this particular title I would recommend they ban it in its current form and any further games from either Techland or Deep Silver, as ll games should just as films are, be scrutinised more closely. When I think of the film titles they banned over the years and for a couple of decades too its pathetic compared to what this game shows its user. Being able to throw weapons means I could keep a distance from any gorey aspects.

I just hope that they did not sell that well as I would hate for other publishers and game software houses to go this route, really I would and this coming from someone that played almost all the Doom and Quake games and Return to Wolfenstein and a whole host of others.