Kieran Thor

The maps are tiny and hold no atmosphere in them unlike the first dead island. There is no mystery or open world environment to it. You pretty much open a map about the size of a football stadium and it lists everything you can do which is minimal. You get about five safes, a few storage rooms requiring a fuse to buy off the traders and a couple side quests which are listed without having to find them yourself. No other hostile gangs in sight to shoot or survivors to save that you will come into contact with. You get directed in circles round the maps in a way which the game forces you to go through narrow places or blocked off places. At times it's like a maze, and just turning a corner all the zombies which took ten minutes to fight will re-spawn which is very annoying for a small map. You don't come into contact with anything that stops you doing the story line and if you do the side quests they are extremely boring. This game went a step back in terms of map design. Once you do the missions there is no motivation to go back and do any side quests because there is nothing to the maps. Nothing new to find or anything mysterious. The whole maps poor design choices just become repeated I'm not running through narrow places to do side quests. You're always having to get into a fight like it's doom and use special powers. I completed the game which took about 12 hours to do mostly everything. The first dead island I put in at least 30 hours into it and there was still things left over I could do. That I could still explore. Weapons I could find. Things I had missed out on doing. You had to open a city sized map up and go exploring through the nature on an island. Nothing was listed so everything was still a mystery when you find loot or had to save survivors. Even going through the jungle in the first one finding new zombies felt incredibly fun. Searching through plane wrecked areas and huts. but this new game was a design mess, although released without serious glitches, the maps were incredibly boring comparatively. The only thing I liked in this dead island 2 was the boss levels and the zombie fighting mechanics was incredible, but that's it. The rest of the game was bland other than the fighting experience and story line of searching through large buildings. Another thing I completely didn't like is you have to rely so much one the traders to buy fuses in order to find the best weapons. This game was so watered down and streamlined. It was cheap knock off the first dead island. All you do in this game is go to the traders and work bench every two seconds because you level up so quick the weapons also become watered down just like the game. This game is probably worth half the price it's going for. And the worst thing there is no island to this game!