I genuinely liked this, I played it solo, and I was NOT expecting to. It's got flaws, but on the whole I actually like the plot and many of the characters. Many of them had real depth and flaws and conflict and even GROWTH. Annoying characters get redemption, the bad guys I thought it was setting up wound up being not, the plot actually went interesting places and for a co-op friendslop zombie shooter it had far more depth to the NPC's and story than I expected - I do think it kinda ended too suddenly (not that it was too short, just the plot gets too wrapped up too quickly once you go down that route).
Combat is serviceable. It can feel a little floaty at times, the cards system don't really make playstyles change all that much, I didn't find monsters all that spongey but also not that challenging (there were a couple quests and areas that were a chore though for some reason) the gunplay feels decent. I think there was a good variety of melee weapons, could have been a few more, with more distinct design changes and gameplay changes to the mods which felt a little under-baked. The gunplay felt good, but with how limited the ammo was, having a full auto pistol vs a normal one that did 2-3x the damage per bullet and you never needed that bullet hose made the auto weapons pointless.
And holy crap there were NOT enough ranged weapons. One semi auto, one burst, one full auto rifle. One pistol, one machine pistol. 3 shotguns (short barrel, long barrel, semi auto), one heavy rifle, one heavy pistol. one nailgun I think. The gun count needed to be tripled for variety.
So I was hoping more borderlands esque guns or more modification options for the few it had. But on the whole, they're fun weapons to smash zombies with.
Zombie selection isn't bad, none felt ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, only once did the exploding kind pop up too close.
Art direction isn't bad either. The fact that this game has better glory kills than doom dark ages is sad.
I did hate a few NPC's, it was clearly intentional, the character I played - Amy kinda jumps off into my first major gripe
The writing jumps back and forth between good and the most hateful sin that we millennials have done - we RUINED dialogue in media because everyone saw firefly and thought they needed that joss whedon insanely quippy, comeback-laced dialogue in EVERYTHING. So very often, the dialogue kinda lurches into being stilted and the one-liners SUCK. Amy's character is particularly bad because i don't know why but generations before us just wrote what they knew. But something about modern media (I'm going to keep blaming my millennial generation) feels far more "a gen Z person as written by a millennial/gen X, far more than media used to. A character in their EARLY 20s at MOST is quoting dead memes noticeably older than she is.
I think it stands out because quite a lot of bits in the main plot are actually very well written. But in an attempt to be "quirky" with perpetual snappy combacks, it went way too far into being quippy and "LOL XD" cringe a noticeable amount. And they get dropped in moments that should have been played more somber. A gym bro's two friends get zombie-fied, you kill them, and he's clearly still distressed. My character's snarky statement made me want to smack her. I think the game's tone was far less grindhouse and having a more serious, somber tone most of the time would fit better with the plot and NPC's. It's annoying because it's a trend I see in so much media now.
The boss fights were fun but making them into regular enemies and just using that as an intro should have only been done for the first one, after that I would have liked more unique bosses other than just flavor/reskinned versions of what will be just special zombies you mow through later..
But that weird dialogue and tone gripe that pops up throughout, the quests weren't bad and didn't feel repetitive, there was tons of flavor text throughout the world , I do think the hub safezones could have had more active things going on in them, they feel a little dead despite having people in them. The combat was serviceable and I was never seriously challenged but also it wasn't TOO easy. I died a few times. I think the story wrapped up too fast at the end, but seeing as I HATED the first dead island, this was a perfectly solid, 7/10. I had fun, I might even play it again sometime. Get it on sale, and it's worth your time/money.
