Dead Island: Love, family and 10,000 zombies

I have to admit, the last few years have been so glutted with videogames about zombies that when one is announced now I hardly give it a second look. And in fact, I have to admit that games have become so good looking in general, that I find myself glossing over a lot of them too. Even RPGs, once my favorite genre, look more flawless than ever, but so many games these days seem to lack the thing that made me so deeply attached to them in childhood.

Whatever that elusive thing is, Dead Island seems to have it. Techland describes their game as a "survival horror first person shooter with RPG elements", but truthfully, they could have called it a carnival simulator featuring a ouija board minigame and I would have nodded and said "Uh huh, uh huh" in numbed amazement, mostly because I've watched the trailer ten times and even though I have seen everything that can possibly happen in it, I can't seem to stop watching it.

It also hit me while watching this that the people that make trailers for videogames are going to be ashamed of themselves when they see this. And honestly, they should be. Not because the trailers we see these days are subpar, but because they are all painfully alike. Like sitting at a runway show and watching one impossibly tall and beautiful girl after another saunter down the catwalk. And you should be thrilled, really, to be surrounded by so much hotness. But for some reason, you're bored instead.

Dead Island's first trailer does not fire you up by using crazy music, show you how many guns you can use to reel you in, or even try once to look badass. Actually, it takes a more courageous approach by using a musical track that is slowly paced and introspective. it shows us how savage zombies are, and we've seen plenty of that before, but it also shows us the death of a child, a father and daughter's bond, and a family's happiness. We don't even know their names. But we want to, right away. And that is something that hasn't happened to me watching a trailer for an action game in a long time.

I have to concede that the piece of music accompanying this trailer is stunning, and that may be doing a lot of the talking here when it comes to the emotional wallop it seems to pack. We'll see as more of the gameplay is unveiled, but it looks like for now, we may have something special to look forward to. After releasing a trailer this unique, they have one hell of an act to follow.

Bioshock demo liveblogged

Let me preface this post by saing that even though I have attached a picture to it, it does this title absolutely no justice whatsoever. Seeing screenshots and gameplay videos does not compare to the experience of seeing the world of Rapture open up before you.

I can say with all surety after playing this demo that 2k has made a masterpiece that is going to redefine the medium and perhaps create it's very own genre altogether. The game is marketed as a shooter, but is is infinitely more than what I know shooters to be, even at their very best. The average shooter lacks a story, and Bioshock is the absolute opposite of that. From the very first moment you emerge into the world, choking on water as you watch the airplane you crash landed in sink slowly into the sea, the story is already pulling you in with urgent intimacy. By the time you step through the golden doors of Rapture, you'll have completely forgotten about everything else.

Total immersion is not a good enough descriptive term for the first ten minutes of Bioshock. We are given a few moments to absorb this flawlessly designed universe before things go completely haywire. The atmosphere has a Art Deco-just-barely-masking-an-underground-cult vibe that somehow manages to strike the perfect balance between melancholy and madness. Meeting some of the residents of Rapture nails it down -- you've stumbled from real to surreal in a transition so smooth you never even noticed it was happening.

One thing I found remarkable about the game was how it exhibits features of multiple genres, but abstractly so, as you may smell many fragrances in a single perfume. The beginning reminds me a bit of the Myst series with it's incredible detail and immersiveness, but there are also traces of PC titles and indie games that it reminds me of. Most of all, Rapture reminds me of a world of adventure gaming we are rarely lucky enough to see anymore, and to see that merged with a popular genre like shooters gives me hope that I may continue to see more of the same -- or the birth of completely new genres altogether.

The only complaint I have is that the demo is short -- I was done in about 30 minutes, and I took my time looking around. Still, it has the intended effect of leaving you drooling for more. Had I been sitting here with the full title rather than a demo, I could have easily played until dawn and probably not have even noticed. It's everything you hoped it was and more. There aren't too many titles that I feel I can claim for the "games as art"argument, but Bioshock truly fits the bill. It's simply astonishing.