RATINGS:

DBT

Pros: Awesome visuals & fast-paced battles.

Cons: Challenge in the PvE Horde mode too low.

                                                                                                                   

We recently devoted some time to check out again on Dead Island: Epidemic, the Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena (ZOMBA) from Deep Silver we already had the opportunity to put our hands on at last year’s Gamecom. Back then, we were able to participate in a 3-faction team-based battle in what is called PVPVPVE by the developers, which is essentially a fight between 3 player teams on a mob-filled map. As the title is now in closed beta testing, we once again jumped in to finally discover for ourselves what Dead Island has to offer.

After downloading the client (handily available via Steam), we loaded into the game and were immediately welcomed by a tutorial mode/ single player prologue that introduced us to the controls and the fundamentals of movement. The W, A, S, D keys are used to navigate around, which is generally a welcomed enhancement to the usual mobile mouse click movement, while performing standard weapon attacks as either normal attacks with the left click or powered attacks with a click on the right mouse button. By pushing Q, E, R, F, you are able to additionally use special abilities which can be increased in level to make them more powerful as players earn XP while playing. This is similar to most MOBAs (Although the development team keeps emphasising that their game isn’t a MOBA, it pretty much is, it simply presents some differences).

Moving across a map the layout of which reminded of a Diablo-like action MMO, we gunned down zombies and interacted with the environment till eventually one of the other survivors on the island came into sight. Banding together, we continued our path to a safer location while getting to grips with the gameplay basics, e.g. collecting up scavenging items and capturing points (essential for the regular PvP modes).

There’s an area that functions as a main lobby where we had access to the characters they provided us on our beta account. However, there are additional characters, each of which has 3 distinct forms, which can be purchased with in-game currency. There furthermore is a workbench to produce a variety of items, which requires blueprint schematics we unfortunately weren’t equipped with and thus unable to try out the crafting.

Dead Island: Epidemic currently features 2 different game modes (not counting the tutorial mode/ prologue that can be repeated): Horde and Scavenger. The latter is the major PvPvPvE in which a blue, green and orange team compete against each other, trying to capture and defend points that continually change hands throughout the course of the match. The team to reach 800 points first is declared the winner while there’s also a secondary objective tasking teams to defeat the horde boss mob on the map, which grants loads of rewards for players to collect. This entirely unforeseen occurrence resulted in a twist in PvPvP as the 3 teams were fighting and trying to kill each other while also trying to defeat the boss – a quite fun experience.

The Horde mode is similar and also about capturing points; a 4-player-team works together to battle the AI in order to secure and defend certain points for a specific time while waves of mobs keep attacking them. Working their way through multiple linear points, they finally reach the end of the level to take on a larger boss creature, which in our case was one of the giant Puller mobs. Bosses possess unique mechanics, the Puller, for example, spews acid all over the team to inflict damage over time. As we were battling in a vast drain zone, we had to hurry underneath the drain water to wash off the acid. The acid attack was accompanied by a cocooning one which isolated team members hindering them to continue the fight till a timer ran out or an ally attacked to destroy the cocoon.

We were granted the opportunity to play two of the available characters, the stealthy DPS character able to become imperceptible and to fire venom at their opponents as their main attack, as well as the heavy defence/ support character able to jump across the scene to cause severe damage.

Given sufficient variation regarding levels and characters, we feel the title might go a long way. We have to admit, however, that the Horde mode was significantly easier than expected and we presume it’s more than probable that Dead Island: Epidemic will be taken over by gamers willing to play the PvP mode.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2014 at 3:14 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Puedes dejar una respuesta, o un trackback desde tu sitio web.