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Review: DEAD ISLAND: RETRO REVENGE

While I do believe this is a great game, it does have a very specific audience.  Think of it of a mix between Temple Run and Dead Island set into a side scrolling format.  I think you really have to enjoy and be in the mood for a simple button smasher to enjoy this one.  The other thing you’re going to need is a controller.  I’ve got the Xbox One with an adapter for my Windows PC and it worked great, as this game is obviously designed for a controller.

While the gameplay might be very simple, don’t mistake this for easy.  It took me a few tries just to get through level one.  The controls do take a little getting used to, but once you do, you’ll find yourself smashing through hundreds of zombies in no time.  As you make your way through the side-scrolling 16-bit graphics, you will encounter a variety of different zombie types, which serves to break up the potential monotony of a game of this type.  Many of the zombies require different attack types just to defeat them.  Once you figure this out you are back to smashing buttons again. On top of the button smashing, there is also “super weapon’s” and “magic powers” both of which charge during the levels in order to activate them.  This also adds a little-welcomed variety to the game.

Onto the negatives. The first big one I noticed is that the levels are much too long.  If you end up dying you don’t have any type of checkpoint you get to start the level over again. After playing more I noticed that the controller had some issues with menu selection and actually getting the game started.  I ended up having to use the mouse to select in menu’s sometimes, a minor but very annoying bug.  This could just be the Xbox One controller I was using, but then again, I would have to assume that controller is one of the more popular for the PC.  Minus that It’s a solid simple side scrolling button smasher.  And if you grew up with 8 and 16-bit graphics like I did, you will be right at home in this retro creation.