It's really incredible how the experience can differ so much. I played Dead Island with German friends (while sitting in Poland). Not only did neither of us experience ANY technical issues but the game was even perfectly lag free while we used Skype (including video!) for voice chat. It's sad that some people still aren't able to fully enjoy the game, even in its latest version. :/

First reviews are coming in:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/22/dead-island-riptide-review
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-22-dead-island-riptide-review

Hm, I just realised that I should play Far Cry 3...

I'll wait until I hear more about it. I'm interested in picking up Dead Island GOTY when it goes on sale. It's always interested me, even though people bashed the shit out of it. So, I'll definitely wait to see what Riptide is like, if it really is leaps & bounds better, I may skip the original & just pick up Riptide instead.

WTF is by Totalbiscuit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBpn2DDYtoc

Doesnt sound too different from the first game except its a bit more polished....
Also isnt this just an expansion?

I got burned on the first one, gonna wait until this one is at least 75% off before I bother with it.

http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/673401-dead-island-riptide/index.html

Spoiler: meh.

Yeah, it's more like a standalone expansion but you know how it is these days: if it doesn't need the base game it's a sequel. :P
They aren't all bad. The last three reviews are pretty positive.

What is so terrible about it anyway? I remember to hear about some launch issues, but I didn't really pay much attention to that, and now that I got the game for 5 euro, it's proven to be a pretty good experience, even in singleplayer at that. A bit monotonous perhaps, but level-design is great, graphics are fairly pretty and colorful which I definitely like, combat system, while simplistic, is quite fun and gets more complex as I get more and more into the game, I love that so far I have only found single gun and 5 bullets for it (even tho to be fair I have kind of expected it to be more powerful, that is a bit of a letdown), and ... Well I have played 7 hours so far, and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. Now that I think about it, it's probably my favourite Zombie games of recent years, including left 4 dead and killing floor.

In Dead Island it's pretty much Zombies = Melee, Humans = Guns. Not just for finding it, but for killing too. Apart from killing an occasional suicider with a gun you're really better off meleeing them as guns don't do much against them.

Yeah, pretty much. Although supposedly playing as Purna in coop mode as a support character works pretty well (although I should mention that whenever I played the game with two friends Purna was the one character we never used).

Here's the thing, you paid 5 euro for it, I paid $70USD. For 5 euro it'd be just fine, hence why with riptide I'll wait until it's at least 75% off.

As for the game itself it launched with hotkeys that the developers had left in like noclip and fly, the tone was drastically different to it's initial advertising, weapons broke too easily, the characters were hilariously bad stereotypes that were unlikable and poorly voiced and the last half of the games' story went to complete shit.

For 5 euro's I wouldn't mind all that, but I expect more for $70USD.

I actually kind of like that they do. At times it doesn't make sense, but a cleaver to cut meat in kitchen would most probably not be able to withstand much punishment from actual combat. It wouldn't nearly fall apart as it does in the game, but it would get fairly blunt fast. That might not be that much of an issue on a dead pig, but when trying to kill a target which constantly twitches, well... Tough :-P

From mechanical perspective, it makes you shuffle your weapons around and improvise, which I very much like in the given environment, and it stops you from just using the most powerful thing you have over and over again.

As for falling for hype and preordering... Well, shame on you, really :-P I wouldn't mind paying 20 euro for it, I really do like it, but my price ceiling as far as videogames go is 30 EUR. Not that it excuses screwed up initial release.

You do, I don't.

That was only one complaint. I also never mentioned bugs beyond that. Though now that you mention bugs I died several times when using the kick thanks to some shoddy physics.


But hey, if you two love it so much, I'm willing to give it a second chance. Pony up the cash and buy me a copy of riptide :)