The Tide Comes In

As I slowly progress through my solo run of Dead Island: Riptide, a number of worthy topics pop into my head. This game is nearly identical, yet subtly different from its predecessor.

This is an extremely dangerous building. Don't go in alone!

The engine appears identical. Controls are still a bit stuttery. The audio is still pretty good. It looks to me like the animations haven’t changed at all, but otherwise the graphics seem improved. I chalk it up to improved textures. Foliage, in particular, looks fantastic. The overdone bloom effect from the original DI has been drastically scaled back, so it no longer feels like you’re staring into a light bulb while playing the game.

Gameplay-wise, character advancement and weapon customization have not changed one iota. I’ve noticed one thing over the past few hours in the game, though: zombies seem to have a much longer reach than they used to, or perhaps my kicks are shorter than they used to be. I keep finding myself taking tons of damage from weak swipes that I honestly don’t think should have hit me. Perhaps the field of view (FOV) changed on me but the zombies on my screen are, apparently, closer than they appear. And another thing: those weak swipes are capping me for upwards of 30% health. I can’t absorb more than three hits without hitting the dirt. That’s not cool when you’re playing solo.

Speaking of difficulty, enemies and items appear to respawn really fast. It seems every time I turn around, I can harvest the same huts for loot and materials over and over again. At the same time, enemies have respawned (unless you’re in a safe area). I can’t walk 100 feet down the beach and back without fighting the same overwhelmingly large (I’m playing solo) groups of zombies at least twice.

Which brings me to another point. There are a ton of zombies in this game. They apparently move in herds now, coming in tightly-knit family groups of three or so. Each family group is located ridiculously close to another family group. Woe be to the solo player who accidentally aggresses multiple groups simultaneously.

Not that I don’t enjoy the difficulty. I like hard games, but I still feel like Riptide, just like its predecessor, is a game best played with a few friends. Solo, it’s way harder than DI. Opportunities for being surrounded are numerous, and it’s just plain scarier that way. Why doesn’t Riptide scale the number of enemies with the current player count? Or perhaps provide AI teammates when humans aren’t in-game?

I played the original DI with a group of three and we facerolled the game in an almost comical fashion, with the notable exception of this one room in the middle of the city in Act 2 where raging, ludicrously fast, infinitely-spawning Infected continuously flood in to wreck you. I can only imagine how easy the game would have been with all four players. Riptide is different, though. I think it will challenge my group of three enough to make us pressure the reclusive fourth member of our gaming group into joining us.