thel33th4x0r quotes "Yep, it's a blast. Imagine Fallout sized world, with borderlands style quests. I highly recommend it. I rate it a 9/10!"
the133th4x0r also quotes "Well, for one. All the people saying it's another L4d are dead (No pun intended wrong. I've been playing for a few hours now and I've yet to use a gun. Most weapons you find/use are all melee. As far as the weapon customization goes, it's just like the trailers showed with it being very similar to dead rising. Also, if you're into gore in games, this is a must have. Way more blood then some games like left 4 dead."

IGN Quotes "Dead Island is Fallout 3 with zombies. Plenty of people are going to compare it to Dead Rising (as you can create weapons) and Left 4 Dead (as the action is first-person and good for four players online), but when I finally got past the game's obtuse opening and less than stellar cutscenes, I found a world rife with quests, interesting environments, and a character progression system that had me begging for more hours in the day. In short, Dead Island's a rough around the edges role-playing game, and I dug it.
On a small island off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the dead walk. The story didn't set my hair on fire, but everything else makes up for it. When you sit down to play, you'll choose one of four characters and for the next 20 to 30-some hours roam massive maps, take on interesting side quests, and chop the heads off hundreds of ghouls.

But Dead Island doesn't succeed because of its gore (though I liked the dismemberment). Dead Island's strength is in the world it creates. I crept into and through each environment I came to, from beaches to sewers to jail cells. I listened for the screams of the infected or the roar of a damage sponge known as a "Thug." From that perspective, I was on the island; not my character. In the beginning, I'd slaughter every zombie I saw, but by the time I got to the city and found tight alleyways overrun with monsters, I began to just run from objective to objective. No longer was I playing a game -- I was focusing on survival as if I were the one running from Point A to Point B.

Objectively speaking -- like, right now from my keyboard and not playing the actual game -- that's a stupid thing to say. Dead Island doesn't really punish you for dying. If you croak, you wait five seconds and respawn with less money. Any damage you inflicted before heading to the great beyond remains. But I say that using hindsight. When I sprinted away from a zombie and heard its growls directly behind me, my heart pounded in my chest. I didn't think "Oh, I'll just let him get me and restart back there."

You rarely feel safe in Dead Island, and that's how a zombie game should be. You have a limited stamina bar, so you can't run or swing your weapon forever. Med kits were few and far between in my experience, so scavenging for energy drinks and fruit -- which have to be used at that moment and can't be stored -- became part of the experience. Weapons degrade as you use them, so finding a "legendary" weapon was exciting, but not as exciting as finding a workbench to keep weapons in tip-top shape.

Dead Island made me my character. I chose the weapons, the enemies to attack, and the side quests to take. When I leveled up, I chose in which skill tree to invest my new point in -- so even if you joined my game as the same knives expert I play as, we wouldn't necessarily have the same abilities.

Thankfully, joining games is easy. When you're playing, a pop-up message will notify you if a player is close to you and joinable. If I see you sign on, I can invite you in. Of course, experience levels play into this. Players can only join the games of people who are equal or lesser levels. I can't be level 31 and about to win the game and have a level 1 player join me. It might sound depressing, but there are tons of character slots, so having a character for different sessions shouldn't be too tough. Plus, you can always switch your game to single-player if you just want to be left alone. Sadly, there is no local co-op.

Is Dead Island perfect? No. Far from it. As much as I lauded it, Dead Island is rough around the edges and that's sure to turn a lot of people off. First-person melee combat doesn't feel natural right away. Sometimes textures take their time loading in, I'd describe every cutscene as "stiff," and the visual flaws like hands going through doors and weird mini-game meters made me laugh. Still, presentation doesn't make a game, experiences do. And they are packed into Dead Island.
Dead Island probably won't win any game of the year awards. It's got visual bugs, the controls take a bit to feel normal, and the presentation in general isn't up to snuff. But the game gets a lot right. There is a huge world to explore, thousands of zombies to kill, and tons of side quests to take. Here on the other side of a 25-hour playthrough -- where I skipped a lot of side quests after Act 1 -- I'm anxious to get back into Dead Island, and despite the game's flaws, that's not something I say often. IGN rated Dead Island 8/10"

Game Informer Quotes: "New games featuring the walking dead have trouble standing out from the horde, but Techland's first-person, open-world, action/RPG entry Dead Island distinguishes itself. After kicking and slashing my way through the infected island of Banoi, I can say the game has tons to offer. Rated 8.5/10 by Game Informer."

TeamXbox Quotes: "Did I enjoy this game? Absolutely. Did it scare the crap out of me at times? 100%. Was there a real feeling of survival horror (as opposed to just jumping-scares) that has been sadly lacking from other contemporary zombie games? You bet. TeamXbox rated Dead Island 9/10"

Meristation Quotes: "Dead Island is a great game. It has many flaws in its visuals, and the first-person gameplay is hard to understand at first. But Dead Island delivers a big open world RPG game, with 4 player coop and many things to do on the island. Horror movie lovers and RPG lovers should give it a try. Meristation rated Dead Island 8/10."

IGN's Strategy Guide:

Kicks Don't Waste Stamina

Many of your character's major actions, such as sprinting and swinging a weapon, use up a portion of character's stamina bar. However, kicking doesn't expend any energy and is a great way to stagger enemies, giving you enough time to wind up for a powerful blow to their face. Furthermore, this saves you from unnecessary weapon degradation if you can kick enemies to set them up for better placed attacks.

Figure Out Swing Distance to Optimize Damage

One of the cooler aspects of Dead Island's combat is its use of contextual melee attacks. Your character's proximity to the target pretty much can lead to your character's interesting and creative ways of attacks. If he is too close to perform a fully extended swing, he might end up using the hilt of a knife to conk the zombie's noggin. This results in lowered damage, of course, so get comfortable with your swing distance to guarantee landing those hard, damaging hits.

Upgrade Weapons

Upgrade decent weapons as soon and as frequently as you can. In fact, some characters possess skills that lower the cost of upgrading weapons.

Repair Weapons Often

It's much more expensive to repair severely degraded weapons than to repair properly maintained weapons. It helps to have a full arsenal of different weapons at your disposal so that you can cycle their usage and avoid inadvertently disabling a weapon due to overuse. For the record, the weapon doesn't disappear into the ether if it breaks; it just gets rendered unusable.

Work to Your Character's Strengths

The four characters you pick out each have specializations in different weapon types. As you'll no doubt come across myriad weapons to pick up, it's best to cater to your character's strength to really capitalize on their damage potential. For example, it would be a great boon to Logan, who boasts a mean throwing arm, to have upgraded weapons that can be easily thrown and retrieved.

Vehicles and Fast travels

Dead Island spans across large maps with far too many miles upon miles of land to explore on foot. Cut a chunk of your traveling time by exploiting the Fast Travel feature. Locations that you can access via Fast Travel become available only after you've visited the area at least once. You can also use vehicles to cover more ground much more quickly.

Keep Everything You Find

Dead Island is a game about looting and pillaging. Scour the environments for a variety of items like deodorant, lemon juice, and all sorts of weird knick-knacks that may initially come off as useless, but don't throw them away! A lot of these items end up becoming key components for creating powerful combo weapons. Since you have unlimited storage space for non-weapon items, you have no need to discard anything.

Make Combo Weapons

Throughout your tale of survival, you come across weapon mode blueprints that you receive either from completing quests or from thorough exploration. These blueprints enable you to throw together a vast number of combinations to create a better and badder weapon or item for use against the feral horde.

Watch For the Blast Radius

It seems any explosive weapon in Dead Island has a greater blast radius than you'd think. Practice safe detonation by keeping your distance at all times. Even if you think you're far away enough, get even further away.

Enemy Levels Scale

You can never let your guard down in Dead Island no matter how many levels you gain. The enemy levels scale accordingly to your own. So, even if you returned to the area where you started ten levels higher -- lo' and behold -- the zombies have evolved just as quickly; that's why it's important to upgrade weapons and make your hits count.

Purple Skull

Find this skull just after the Act 2, Chapter 5 titled "Let the Waters Flow." More specifically, it's located in the "It's Our Own Fault" shrine that you enter near the church. Head through the entrance and take a left at the dead end, near where a pair of green barrels are. Keep going straight and through a gated entrance. It will get darker, but keep your eyes open for a room on the right with a high catwalk. This same room has a ladder that you'll take up to the catwalk where a chest has the Purple Skull.

In Moresby, take on the "Uninvited Guests" side quest that allows access to the abandoned house. There's a stove in the house's second floor that you'll want to use to deposit the Purple Skull.

Your reward is the Developer's No. 4 Craft weapon recipe that will build the Military Knife. It requires the usual battery, $10,000 and 5 diamonds.
Here is video:

Blue Skull

Remember the room where you just dropped off the Purple Skull? The Blue Skull is located in the room just across from the room where that skull was. You'll find it perched atop a cabinet shelf behind glass.

Once acquired, take the Blue Skull to where the game started and head south toward the beach. You need to be far enough along in the game until you hear Jose Garcia yelling for help. The bunker here previously locked will now be unlocked, so you can enter and take the warp inside. You'll find youself in a graffiti-filled bunker with a ladder. Take it, then use the propane tank to blow up the door to the right. The skull drop-off location will be obvious in the next room.

The Blue Skull will reward the Developer's No. 3 Craft weapon recipe for the Plaguebearer Military Knife. To build this toxic knife you'll need a battery, $10,000, 5 diamonds, AND 1 oleander.

Here is video:

Green Skull

Travel to the Gas Station and head directly east in search of a hill with a sand path around it. Search around the hill for a path accessible only by jumping, and find the Green Skull on the other side.

Take the Green Skull into the Supermarket to the aisle near the Surf Shop area that has toy bears. Look toward the bottom of the bears for the one where you need to drop off the Green Skull.

The Green Skull drop-off reward is the "Cr33zz Revenge For Endless Crunch" baseball bat recipe, and will set you back a battery, 5 diamonds and $10,000.

Here is video: