Review: Escape Dead Island (PC)

Maybe it's because it's the close of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, and another birthday for yours truly, that I'm feeling too old, decrepit and tired to have any patience for video games that are slapped into lock-step with tried and true formulas that have proven effective in the past but stopped filling me with awe or, hell, interest.

And that, predictably, is where Escape Dead Island comes in.

How did Dead Island warrant this kind of multiple-game attention in the first place? Back in 2011, the first game was pretty well received, I remember liking it, but since then there's been a stand-alone expansion (Riptide), a Gauntlet-style co-op title (Epidemic) and a sequel to the original coming in 2015. Does the series deserves this kind of multi-game treatment? Clearly someone thinks so, it's just a little disappointing that Escape comes off as a bit of a novelty that offers sporadic entertainment instead of a series of escalating points of mystery and weirdness. Something along the lines of LOST where there are more questions than answers (and even fewer answers that make any damn sense).

It starts off very promising, with zombies shambling along the beach and shipping containers dropping out of the sky, as three stranded people try to figure out what's happening on an island close to Banoi, where the events of the original game took place. Then we get into the combat...

And it's a bit of a whiff. For play sessions longer than about 30 minutes, the combat quickly wears thin even when the protagonist, Cliff, begins to lose his mind and the environments start morphing, the basic enemies don't change. There are some enemies that change up overall strategy when managing groups of enemies, but overall, sneaking around, performing stealth kills, then realizing that straight-up, toe-to-toe fighting is faster and more effective just not very fun at long stretches.

The exploration and progress is basic and easily understood in the style of Castleroid games. For example, Cliff will need to backtrack between areas to fully upgrade his arsenal and gain access to areas that couldn't be reached before. Getting hold of the grappling hook allows him to explore other corners of island, get more upgrades, and so on. But that's not very interesting either at long stretches.

The multiple layers of collectibles and Cliff's photography skills to capture even more collectibles might offer some kind of distraction for some players, but hold very little interest for me, especially when it comes to pecking for bits of the story to really know what may (or may not) be happening.

Probably Escape's biggest draw is the big and bright art style and the cool still-panel cutscenes, that reminded me of Rise of the Dragon (1990). But then there's a lot that reminds me of Rise of the Dragon. Reminds me of days when games meant something, had heart, and were just simply better, especially from the view from my rocking chair on the porch...

Escape Dead Island is a game in the strictest sense, with a few interesting ideas that never feel like they go as far as they should. If this is the start of something bigger -- some larger part of the Dead Island plan -- maybe we'll look back and see how the seeds were planted, but I'm not convinced.

- Aaron Simmer

Follow @EmpireArmchair

The Good:

- Cel-shaded art is cool, even with zombies

- In short bursts, it's an interesting romp

- Slow slide into madness for the protagonist almost makes things interesting

The Bad:

- Combat starts to feel like a grind

- How does Dead Island warrant an entire franchise?

- I've started to really hate pecking through collectibles for the whole story