This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviewed Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. www.escapistmagazine.com/star-wars-jedi-survivor-zero-punctuation/ Watch it early on RUclips and support our content via RUclips Memberships or Patreon for $2/month.
I get it the whole open-world thing has gotten really old and boring, there are just far too many and there all the same, That's some of the reason why I haven't played all of Elden Ring it still has the same problem I have with open-world games, not to say that it's not any better then the others game's. I just completely agree with Yahtzee it's time for games to have a more dare I say level base or better yet dark souls 1 approach to level design if possible.
Let’s not forget it was 12 years ago when Yahtzee’s original review of Dead Island inspired him to write a novel in which Brisbane is covered with man-eating jam.
Such a great book, I loved how basically all of the characters were just random shitheads who got lucky, and nobody had any relevant survival skills lmao
I never played one and didn't know two took that long g im enjoying so far i can definitely feel the dying light teams work on it so its nothing really new but I liked that game as far as a game that was in development hell its easily the best o e to come out of it
@@nonamepasserbya6658 I mean, it took 9 years, 4 studios and bankrupted one of them. I’m not sure a mere million copies will be enough to make a profit out of this but maybe they’ll be lucky enough to break even eventually.
The most ironic part is that the development of this game somehow managed to make an actual functional pc port with so much change in development studios but somehow Redfall and Jedi Survivor couldn’t.
I know right? It's fucking wild. I got a cumulative ONE crash through my whole playthrough, and apart from that the worst bug I ever ran into were car alarms that could go off even though the car didn't have a battery in it, and dying from a certain damage source even though my health didn't drop to zero.
Some issues with crashes and corrupted save data, but they're at a level that could be expected with any game developed for PC and are already being worked on. And Redfall isn't even a functional game to start with, never mind ported.
Suda51 is a mad genius. I enjoy how “kill the past” manifests as finishing old business for good and moving on to the future, and how NMH3 and NMH TSA is suda killing the past regrets he had with his career and his stint with EA. Hell Damon’s death by disintegrating while wailing he wants to live was probably meant to say “You are a spineless worm who needs others and stab them in the back and now you’re out of the limelight. I’m moving forward and forgetting. Goodbye”
"How the zombie virus affects you seems to vary based on how important you are to the plot" Well to be fair, I'd say it's more a natural choice for the plot to center on the person immune to the zombie virus.
New Zombie survival game where the protagonist is actually very susceptible to the virus due to a compromised immune system and meets someone immune to the virus but not as skilled of a survivor which stems conflict, jealously, and/or romance
@@Doctor_Portly_64 Pikmin but you are a scientist with the cure in a hazmat suit trying to corral soccer hooligans whose BAC make them immune to the virus. You have to constantly keep them drunk and rowdy to make your way to the CDC.
The promo trailer at least introduced me to Pigeon John who did the song in the trailer, so that is a plus. So much time passed by, I went through a plague and transformed into a faux Ninja... that still wears glasses.
Okay an important thing to note that Yahtzee seemingly wasn’t aware of. While the different studios all worked on “Dead Island 2” it wasn’t handed around with each dev continuing where the last left off. In particular Dambuster got the project in 2018 at which point they built the game that now released from scratch. So while other devs worked on versions of the IP what is releasing was actually only made by one developer over the course of a few years.
@@Spigan818 They literally did. They’ve directly stated as much. They took some inspiration from a couple concepts but the actual gameplay, assets, and everything else was built from the ground up by them since they were handed the project.
Can’t say I found the zombies that spongy, with my brass knuckles I managed to kill the final boss before a single zombie helper spawned. I just zoomed around as a living blender with a bit of roid rage mixed in if the situation got too belligerent
Here's a fun thought: Kids just starting their freshman years in high school when the original trailer got out may well have finished their university bachelors at this point. A few may even have started families and gotten married. I think the devs maaaay have missed the boat on this one
You aren't far off on this. I was a sophomore when it was release. I graduated college and have a child with my gf of over 6 years. I even switched majors and was taking classes part time instead to support my family by working full-time. A LOT happened and now I'm looking at this game as something I barely care about and really just using it as a means to look back on a simpler time in which I would have.
I feel like "being immune to the plague" is common because....everyone who isn't immune is either dead, or undead. The people left alive are the important characters and are, by necessity, gunna be immune (whether the immunity is their immune system or like...a big fucking bunker and a moat). A zombie game where you aren't immune would have to be a stealth game to make any kind of sense. And you don't want THAT, Yahtz.
There actually was a zombie game themed around trying to avoid combat a long time ago, since if you got hit you turned into a zombie and the next guy had to hunt you down if you wanted your inventory back. Shame it came out on the Wii U.
The Last Stand: Aftermath has you playing as a dude who's not only not immune, but already infected and slated to die in a few days. Of course, it uses this as an excuse to be a roguelike where each character is another guy on the expendable meat wagon, but it's good fun nevertheless.
I loved the game. I didn’t find the zombies spongy, most regular zombies are 1-2 hit and special infected also aren’t to hard it you use power attacks on their heads like I did all the time. The gore system blew me away. Literally seeing every single cut in the exact spot you sliced is insane and the variety of different zombie models and outfits made it feel a lot more open I felt. Plus I personally loved how the characters interact with the player and the player’s personalities. Just standing around and listening to the conversations they have with you is a nice touch that I don’t really see in other games. Considering this game was in development hell and changed developers that many times and was able to release and be this fun, and not be a buggy unfinished mess is amazing when you see the state other games release in. The entire time I played the only bug I ran into was some car alarms going off with no battery. And even then it happened only twice the entire time
A 30-year-old game shouldn't have a higher FPS cap than Starfield's 30. That 30-year-old game is Doom 1, and it had a cap of 35. This is really a race of turtles versus hares; if game devs would be permitted to focus, they'd actually make something of value... and not DNF or Daikatana.
The version that we're playing now had started development in 2019. The Sumo Digital build before that had the whole state of California, vehicles, 8 player co op and a bunch of more ambitious ideas that ultimately made the game worse, rather than better. That's why Dambuster redid the whole thing while keeping a laser focus on a tight scale.
I wouldn't be. A good friend of mine worked at dambuster, left before the game was finished, but spent nearly 3 years on the game. Deep silver were, at least according to him, the source of a lot of the problems. The scope of the game was altered multiple times during development, and often the targets shifted on weird whims far too late to be practically enacted. Yahtzee was somewhat right about dambuster. The dev studio was also run pretty...questionably from what I've heard (as I say, my friend got out into a different dev studio and I'm really happy for him). But deep silver were the cause of a lot of the issues.
You know I finished the game a few days ago and I found the dialogue to be surprisingly funny and well written. Usually games that try to take a comedic tone end up like Borderlands. Quip after quip with no real heart put into the jokes. But the character I picked: Dani the Irish rockabilly, wound up being one of the most charming and genuinely funny characters I've seen in any media in over a decade. And I think that alone deserves some high praise! The game itself though? I'm not sure why the game insists on having a level system at all. If enemies scale with the player, the player never feels a sense of progression. If you go back to an area you went to before that had level 5 zombies, you'd expect to come back there and mop the floor with them and feel the growth of your character. But if you come back and all the zombies are level 18 because you're also level 18, then what's the point in leveling at all?
The loot tables get better as you level up, though. And Dani is pretty good too, just be careful not to blow up stage hazards with her iconic heavy attack explosions.
I'm surprised Yahtzee gives no mention of the fantastic gore system they created for the game. I swear, melting zombies with acid does not get old. Also, devs have confirmed that every time development started from scratch, so there's no work carried over from the previous dev.
@@nonAehT from what he said it seems pretty clear that he thinks the game is simply bland and doesn't do much to stand out from all the other zombie games, you're pulling the fact that he thinks it's shit out of your ass. It's almost like you just want your opinion to be validated in you opinions by someone more famous and chose not to listen to anything that might not go along with that
@@nonAehT He thinks everything is shit.....thats the joke duh. Honestly the game is pretty good, if this game had the open world variety of Dying Light it would be a masterpiece, but the things it does well, it does better than Dying Light. Also 100% better than the garbage PC crap they have been releasing lately, I mean it worked on Day 1...
@@nonAehT I don't want to dog pile you with these replies, but if you seriously judge games based on how shit Yahtzee makes them sound you'll never play more than ten in your entire life
I've actually heard him run outta breath before in his Bayonetta 1 review, he tends to run out of breath when he goes on a rant string about something INFURIATING in the game. Turns into a huge run-on sentence.
@@brayburell6814 Fun games can still be bland, nothing wrong with having fun with it, but that doesn’t make it not bland. I played the Mad Max game to completion and had a ton of fun with it but there isn’t a universe in existence where that game isn’t one of the blandest things out there
I literally thought this was a reupload or a retro review, I knew for damn certain that I had played a second Dead Island game already. Little did I know that Dead Island: Riptide apparently didn't fuckin count as a sequel. And I can say I am completely underwhelmed by this game I just found out existed because there seems to have been absolutely no social profile on the run up to release, so thank you Yahtzee, you raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly, Sir!
Upon hearing the point about "resilience" in the video, my son asked me what it means, at which point I discovered that the dictionary definition of it literally includes the word "toughness". Dafuq, who thought that was a good design concept?
Well this was a long time coming. I'm honestly surprised it took so long considering what littles has changed. Like _Duke Nukem Forever_ but with more zombies and also pretty bland.
@Marcos A You're pretty close to the mark, based on the PC Gamer article from September of last year. Techland and Deep Silver apparently disagreed on the project - Techland wanted to be more ambitious, Deep Silver didn't. They handed it to Yager, who apparently made a serviceable game but Deep Silver again wasn't happy with it (at the time it may have been seen as their golden goose). You can even see a playable build, since that leaked a couple years ago - it's noticeably different from what we got. Sumo Digital? Less info, but again more "Deep Silver isn't happy with it" stuff and disagreements. And finally made it's way to Dambusters, and according to the game director it was "built from scratch." Based on the old Yager build footage, and the scope of what we got? Yeah...I can believe that. No one knew what to really do with it, shuffled it around, then development on it reset maybe 4 years ago. That definitely tracks with how the game released, to be honest.
I know it's not a big deal at all, and probably didnt even ohase yhatz, but im a bit sad he didnt mention the gore mechanics. Theyre hands down probably the best I've seen in a zombie video game, and hell, maybe even any.
Because he made a review to hate. It's also funny because he says you fight spongier and spongier zombies which, ultimately, means he's bad at the game.
@@epmcgeelol found the fanboy, if you don't like him kindly piss off yeah? Seems you're not here for anything other than to brown nose a blatantly bad game and shit on Yahtzee for whatever reason 🤷♂️
@@epmcgee Yeah, I never had any problems with time to kill at all. Maybe he just didn't care to really build anything meaningful, skills or mods or whatever
TF2’s dev time was to polish what they could see and then they updated when player feedback came in. The source spaghetti often comes from all the years of development and updates making tons of mechanics, and going through it is like going through ancient history. DI2’s dead time was to make an unpolished product with tons of weird code hiccups because it went through 4 different devs! Even then there was no innovation on the formula save a pretty gore engine, so what probably happens is each team it got punted to scrapped what they didn’t like, inevitably left it, and so on until the fourth group finished it. DI2’s total development time was long, but the guys who made the finished version only had 2.5 or so years of work on it.
The game dev began in 2019, no previous code was used. Tbh the game is pretty good and in the sloth of shit being released nowadays id say it stands above a LOT.
So I’ve played through Bel-Air, the hotel, and just got to The Hills. I’ve gotta say, this game really is perfectly functional, with good melee combat and well designed interior sections of levels that do actually loop back into each other. I think the game is at its best when it places you in tight corridors and forces you to be crafty with how you engage with zombies. It feels more dull when it places you on an empty street or rooftop and throws tons of zombies at you. One thing the game does really well is the aesthetic design of its interiors. Each mansion I’ve gone through thus far has felt unique to its owner. However, as nice as the layouts of these mansions are, there’s really not a whole lot to interact with in them. Makes me miss the days of condemned when I could grab a specific set of weapons from the environment and go to town on enemies.
I've only just realised that Dying Light is a different game. They both have such generic names I just remember them as "that zombie game where you can kick the zombies".
technically it is the 3rd installment as Dead Island got an expansion/standalon sort of thing whose name I've forgotten. It also doesn't help that Dying Light was Dead Island clone with parcour that got an expansion and a sequel released before Dead Island 2 released.
Me: Well, I'm sure zombies will come back like any fad, like bellbottoms. Zombie game developer in 2023: I have never heard the word "fad" before and looking up the definition makes me extremely uncomfortable.
I feel that a FPS or escapist podcast episode with SkillUp and Yahtzee talking games would be entertaining based off their differing views in this one.
This to me feels like the typical game that is inoffensive. It wouldnt surprise me if it is a contender for blandest game of the year if Yahtz does that this year. I may pick it up on sale if im bored enough.
Dead island and Dead island riptide were a couple of the first games I played when I got internet and a 360. I do tend to look back at them fondly for the memories of me and 3 randos dying to the straight jacketed wall sprinting dudes over and over, then blaming each other for the screw ups. However I do recognize that objectively speaking they weren't the best, I had fun with them yes and I still do on the odd yearly or so replay I do of them. However I will not pick up dead island 2 until I see a decent sale. Do I think it will be awful? 50/50, Do I think I will enjoy it? Probably but I'm not expecting the longevity I got from the other 2 as I dont have the advantage of not having played games like it before.
Game is good and definitely fun if you enjoy slaying zombies.(the flesh system is epic) But it is a bit lack luster. Was hoping for a bit more variety.
2:19 Yep, I sure do love choosing my class/character/difficulty/etc before I have enough information or understanding to inform that choice in any meaningful way. Love that piece of videogame design every single time it comes up. Sarcasm aside, this is why games need to let you respec/change class/difficulty/etc midway through. Having to choose blindly at the beginning isn't so bad at all as long as you can change your mind once you start seeing what's actually going on.
I like to imagine all of the half finished assets for this game were on a single hard drive that operated like some kind of cursed ring. A developer would just leave it randomly in a public place waiting for someone else to touch it and transfer the angry ghost to.
Iirc, the reason why the final dude went monster is because the thing that kept you alive isn't 100% reliable for everyone who is 'immune' and if it doesn't work on you you become one of the special monsters instead.
Dead Island is just a great time with friends, like a real Shaun of the Dead experience of knocking tanky zombies around as you whittle their health down with silly weapons and get sent flying by a big angry special. Playing alone I imagine loses most of the appeal without your friends laughing along like a bunch of hyenas at all the absurdity.
For good reason cuz for my honest opinion the gameplay is good but main problem is the story which is very underwhelming and so bad that people still remember the Joel incident even to this day.
How come I haven't seen a single person mention Dead Island Riptide? or the Dead Island MOBA that came out? Am I insane? Did those things actually happen?
Dead island 2 was brilliant. It’s exactly what I wanted from a game. I don’t want a pointless lifeless open world for the sake of it. The environments are detailed, large enough, and varied. Exploration is fun. Combat system is adequate. The gore system is the best I’ve ever seen. Even the story was fun. The characters were all unique, and it was just fun, dumb and satirical. I for one am glad it went full release!
First he described Los Angeles as “a 7-Eleven with dodgy air conditioning stretched to infinity” and now “not an island”. LA seems less and less inviting all the time. 😂
Of the 3 new ‘AAA’ games we picked up this week, Dead Island 2 has proven less buggier and less disappointing than either Redfall or Jedi Survivor, it’s not an amazing game, but it’s competent and was the cheapest of the three to boot
I think it'd be cool if they have a zombie game (Perhaps one big open world or some small open worlds) in which theres a finite amount of zombies and things change the more you kill. No grinding bullshit, just find weapon use weapon, occasionaly maintain weapon (Like RDR2's gun cleaning) All you need to do is manage your hunger, thirst and ammo count. You clear out a few blocks of zombies, awesome now the NPC's will work to keep them from re-infecting that area and that community grows as you clear out the undead. Maybe have a system in which there are opposing factions who may get jealous if you choose to help just the one faction and they up their prices when you wish to trade with them or maybe turn hostile against the faction you're trying to save the most. I guess it's hard to innovate on something with zombies but hey... any idea can be a good idea with a competent team
I can understand the fatigue, especially for a game reviewer... But dead island 2 is exactly what I want out of a zombie game. The combat is incredibly satisfying and the game plays/runs/looks great
hey yazhee mate I have been watching you for shit I don't know how long and I want to say a big thank you for keeping up the quality content I was watching you shit a long time ago I am old now haha. keep up the quality content mate!
Hang on I had to pause the video as I imagined the zombie crafting survival game where your crew of survivors is the Rat Pack. Dean Martin's gonna be pushing for a lot of booze raids.
Bog standard 'fire + oil = field of fire,' and 'water + electricity = field of pain Electric Boogaloo' is not environmental combat. It's used in so many games it's basically expected/required when messing around with stuff like fire and lightning. It's as ubiquitous as explosive barrels in a shooter. Real environmental combat would be 'pick up literally anything as a weapon,' like Dead Rising, or giving the player prompts to messing with the surroundings, like destructible scenery to remove or create cover.
I'm content with DI2. It's beautiful, dynamic, and works actually really well, even on ps4, which is something pretty rare nowadays ; the Devs are actually competent. Now, I'll admit there's almost no real build variety, since all 6 characters are the same, save for like 8 skill cards they all share with at least one other slayer... And the level balance is a little harsh, too, with how underleveled weapons deal almost no damage to zombies, while fully upgraded one's almost one hit anything... The story is short, too. I don't understand the criticism of the game not being open world, since DI1 and Riptide weren't open world either, they just had bigger zones. The inventory system is a little lacking, with how you can't store infinite items, and how the pitifully small storage is shared across all characters. Side note, Dani and Jacob get access to the serial killer skill card, but it's graphic depicts Ryan, who doesn't have access to the card. This is a remnant of an older build, probably. Related to the firefighter that eventually was iterated into Ryan. I wonder what other elements are taken from early builds. Also, Sam B isn't supposed to look like that, and his relationship with Emma is forced at best. Would recommend, but maybe don't play as one of the two tanks first, their gameplay is a little slower than the everyone else's.
![OhGeesy x Lefty Gunplay - What It Iz [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/L0yzW9t2ixk/mqdefault.jpg)
This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviewed Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. www.escapistmagazine.com/star-wars-jedi-survivor-zero-punctuation/ Watch it early on RUclips and support our content via RUclips Memberships or Patreon for $2/month.
Review Pizza Tower already!
Killer as always. Seriously after years he never stops being fucking hilarious
@@MasterChief7366 do you think he should do an episode on Pizza Tower?
I get it the whole open-world thing has gotten really old and boring, there are just far too many and there all the same, That's some of the reason why I haven't played all of Elden Ring it still has the same problem I have with open-world games, not to say that it's not any better then the others game's. I just completely agree with Yahtzee it's time for games to have a more dare I say level base or better yet dark souls 1 approach to level design if possible.
Wonderful review
Let’s not forget it was 12 years ago when Yahtzee’s original review of Dead Island inspired him to write a novel in which Brisbane is covered with man-eating jam.
I just finished that book recently
That might be his best review ever. Duke Nukem is close behind.
what is the book called?
Such a great book, I loved how basically all of the characters were just random shitheads who got lucky, and nobody had any relevant survival skills lmao
@@kabhes9040 Jam
Dead Island 2 is exactly what I wanted the game to be. Shame I haven't wanted it for six years now.
At least it worth the wait than other generic game that had high graphics but low gameplay and weak story elements.
@@OwO377 It's sad that I truly can pinpoint the game you're talking about. That could apply to a lot nowadays.
@@mint5438 very true.
Boohoo
Fuuuuuuuuuuck that's so on point it hurts
God I remember Yahtzee and Gabe talking about this back on Let's Drown Out... I honestly just assumed it had come out already to no fanfare.
I never played one and didn't know two took that long g im enjoying so far i can definitely feel the dying light teams work on it so its nothing really new but I liked that game as far as a game that was in development hell its easily the best o e to come out of it
It sold 1 million copies in the first 3 days
@@hawken796 And how many copies were refunded?
@@tissueoflies2780 Doesn't matter when the dev cost was a nickel and some lint. They made money either way. That's how cheap games works
@@nonamepasserbya6658 I mean, it took 9 years, 4 studios and bankrupted one of them. I’m not sure a mere million copies will be enough to make a profit out of this but maybe they’ll be lucky enough to break even eventually.
The most ironic part is that the development of this game somehow managed to make an actual functional pc port with so much change in development studios but somehow Redfall and Jedi Survivor couldn’t.
Somehow even while having Denuvo in it.
I know right? It's fucking wild.
I got a cumulative ONE crash through my whole playthrough, and apart from that the worst bug I ever ran into were car alarms that could go off even though the car didn't have a battery in it, and dying from a certain damage source even though my health didn't drop to zero.
Polish tech sorcery at work.
Some issues with crashes and corrupted save data, but they're at a level that could be expected with any game developed for PC and are already being worked on.
And Redfall isn't even a functional game to start with, never mind ported.
That just makes me proud of deep silver more! They actually made a PC port that runs well!
Zombies and a '50s/'90s cheerleader and her decapitated boyfriend still outweighs all of these...
Man, when are we getting *that* re-release?
I remember thinking that Lollipop Chainsaw could be more fun with some more technical polish.
When you can play "Hey, Mickey" on a livestream without getting hit with the DMCA cannon.
Suda51 is a mad genius.
I enjoy how “kill the past” manifests as finishing old business for good and moving on to the future, and how NMH3 and NMH TSA is suda killing the past regrets he had with his career and his stint with EA. Hell Damon’s death by disintegrating while wailing he wants to live was probably meant to say “You are a spineless worm who needs others and stab them in the back and now you’re out of the limelight. I’m moving forward and forgetting. Goodbye”
When WB actually stops killing animation...
@@Montesama314 yeah, Suda games in general
Man, imagine a game where The Rat Pack have to fight off zombies to a classic soundtrack. I'd play that.
Sounds like a black ops 1 dlc
Aint that a kick in the head?
I'm going to live until I die, then live again.
these puns are fantastic.
Give Sinatra the Horse's Head special and I'm sold.
Honestly, a game that works for the most part upon release is a precious thing these days.
*cough* Redfall *cough*
How our standards have fallen.
@@Bogkun star wars
Colonial Marines enters the comments...
"How the zombie virus affects you seems to vary based on how important you are to the plot"
Well to be fair, I'd say it's more a natural choice for the plot to center on the person immune to the zombie virus.
New Zombie survival game where the protagonist is actually very susceptible to the virus due to a compromised immune system and meets someone immune to the virus but not as skilled of a survivor which stems conflict, jealously, and/or romance
It's between Dyinglight or State of Decay when it comes to immunity
@@Doctor_Portly_64 ...resulting in complaints about it being too tough because of technical issues or people blundering into harm's way
@@Doctor_Portly_64 Pikmin but you are a scientist with the cure in a hazmat suit trying to corral soccer hooligans whose BAC make them immune to the virus. You have to constantly keep them drunk and rowdy to make your way to the CDC.
@@Doctor_Portly_64 wow did you just make a Netflix drama show using TLOU's plot?
The promo trailer at least introduced me to Pigeon John who did the song in the trailer, so that is a plus. So much time passed by, I went through a plague and transformed into a faux Ninja... that still wears glasses.
Oh god I love that track!
*I'm the bomb and I'm 'bout to blow up!*
@@Randomyoutuber-4831 Boomerang is also good.
That's a wonderful plus side 🥰
Man is his redfall review next week going to be... heartbreaking.
Oh yeah, I'm "staked" to see it.
You could say he'll probably think it "sucked".
vampire pun
@@luisacuna4326 teeth blood
Or hilarious
Okay an important thing to note that Yahtzee seemingly wasn’t aware of. While the different studios all worked on “Dead Island 2” it wasn’t handed around with each dev continuing where the last left off. In particular Dambuster got the project in 2018 at which point they built the game that now released from scratch. So while other devs worked on versions of the IP what is releasing was actually only made by one developer over the course of a few years.
no they didn't the game still has the bones of the work Yeager worked on. You can see some of the same shit from the pre-alpha footage
@@Spigan818 They literally did. They’ve directly stated as much. They took some inspiration from a couple concepts but the actual gameplay, assets, and everything else was built from the ground up by them since they were handed the project.
@@CeliriaRosebut they still used the older versions as a framework to guide gameplay, plot elements, etcetera.
Can’t say I found the zombies that spongy, with my brass knuckles I managed to kill the final boss before a single zombie helper spawned. I just zoomed around as a living blender with a bit of roid rage mixed in if the situation got too belligerent
Coolness!
XD
For real I used a mace most of the game and it could break a zombies leg in one swing
Here's a fun thought:
Kids just starting their freshman years in high school when the original trailer got out may well have finished their university bachelors at this point. A few may even have started families and gotten married.
I think the devs maaaay have missed the boat on this one
Holy shit I'M one of those kids and I took a semester off thanks to the pandemic.
You aren't far off on this. I was a sophomore when it was release. I graduated college and have a child with my gf of over 6 years. I even switched majors and was taking classes part time instead to support my family by working full-time. A LOT happened and now I'm looking at this game as something I barely care about and really just using it as a means to look back on a simpler time in which I would have.
I feel like "being immune to the plague" is common because....everyone who isn't immune is either dead, or undead. The people left alive are the important characters and are, by necessity, gunna be immune (whether the immunity is their immune system or like...a big fucking bunker and a moat).
A zombie game where you aren't immune would have to be a stealth game to make any kind of sense. And you don't want THAT, Yahtz.
Project Zomboid would like to have a word with you.
There actually was a zombie game themed around trying to avoid combat a long time ago, since if you got hit you turned into a zombie and the next guy had to hunt you down if you wanted your inventory back.
Shame it came out on the Wii U.
@@fluorideinthechat7606 An even bigger shame is that the PC port for the game is kind of FUBAR to put it nicely.
The Last Stand: Aftermath has you playing as a dude who's not only not immune, but already infected and slated to die in a few days. Of course, it uses this as an excuse to be a roguelike where each character is another guy on the expendable meat wagon, but it's good fun nevertheless.
@@fluorideinthechat7606zombiu my dude
I loved the game. I didn’t find the zombies spongy, most regular zombies are 1-2 hit and special infected also aren’t to hard it you use power attacks on their heads like I did all the time. The gore system blew me away. Literally seeing every single cut in the exact spot you sliced is insane and the variety of different zombie models and outfits made it feel a lot more open I felt. Plus I personally loved how the characters interact with the player and the player’s personalities. Just standing around and listening to the conversations they have with you is a nice touch that I don’t really see in other games.
Considering this game was in development hell and changed developers that many times and was able to release and be this fun, and not be a buggy unfinished mess is amazing when you see the state other games release in. The entire time I played the only bug I ran into was some car alarms going off with no battery. And even then it happened only twice the entire time
A 30-year-old game shouldn't have a higher FPS cap than Starfield's 30.
That 30-year-old game is Doom 1, and it had a cap of 35.
This is really a race of turtles versus hares; if game devs would be permitted to focus, they'd actually make something of value... and not DNF or Daikatana.
The version that we're playing now had started development in 2019. The Sumo Digital build before that had the whole state of California, vehicles, 8 player co op and a bunch of more ambitious ideas that ultimately made the game worse, rather than better. That's why Dambuster redid the whole thing while keeping a laser focus on a tight scale.
Thank God for that, Sumo Digital one sounds like it could've been a zombified Saints Row remake.
Laser focus on what? Annoying characters and generic zombie story?
The whole state of California and vehicles would’ve made this game so much better imo.
Honestly I'm just glad Deep silver finally released the game after years of development hell, I'm so proud of them!
I wouldn't be. A good friend of mine worked at dambuster, left before the game was finished, but spent nearly 3 years on the game. Deep silver were, at least according to him, the source of a lot of the problems. The scope of the game was altered multiple times during development, and often the targets shifted on weird whims far too late to be practically enacted.
Yahtzee was somewhat right about dambuster. The dev studio was also run pretty...questionably from what I've heard (as I say, my friend got out into a different dev studio and I'm really happy for him). But deep silver were the cause of a lot of the issues.
@@Crawver so the same story as pretty much any low scoring game and the same predictable results ...
Why am I not surprised ?
@@Crawverwell...at least they managed to make a 2023 PC game that runs well
Surprised you didn't make the three celebrities into Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper.
That would have been the shortest game ever.
Yes but at least it would have taken off.
Landing not so much.
You know I finished the game a few days ago and I found the dialogue to be surprisingly funny and well written. Usually games that try to take a comedic tone end up like Borderlands. Quip after quip with no real heart put into the jokes. But the character I picked: Dani the Irish rockabilly, wound up being one of the most charming and genuinely funny characters I've seen in any media in over a decade. And I think that alone deserves some high praise!
The game itself though? I'm not sure why the game insists on having a level system at all. If enemies scale with the player, the player never feels a sense of progression. If you go back to an area you went to before that had level 5 zombies, you'd expect to come back there and mop the floor with them and feel the growth of your character. But if you come back and all the zombies are level 18 because you're also level 18, then what's the point in leveling at all?
The loot tables get better as you level up, though.
And Dani is pretty good too, just be careful not to blow up stage hazards with her iconic heavy attack explosions.
I'm surprised Yahtzee gives no mention of the fantastic gore system they created for the game. I swear, melting zombies with acid does not get old. Also, devs have confirmed that every time development started from scratch, so there's no work carried over from the previous dev.
@@nonAehT so it's weird that he didn't care because the game isn't shit
@@nonAehT from what he said it seems pretty clear that he thinks the game is simply bland and doesn't do much to stand out from all the other zombie games, you're pulling the fact that he thinks it's shit out of your ass.
It's almost like you just want your opinion to be validated in you opinions by someone more famous and chose not to listen to anything that might not go along with that
@@nonAehT He thinks everything is shit.....thats the joke duh. Honestly the game is pretty good, if this game had the open world variety of Dying Light it would be a masterpiece, but the things it does well, it does better than Dying Light.
Also 100% better than the garbage PC crap they have been releasing lately, I mean it worked on Day 1...
@@nonAehT Even if he doesn’t like it, the gore is one of the most unique things about the game, so that’s pretty dumb statement to make imo.
@@nonAehT I don't want to dog pile you with these replies, but if you seriously judge games based on how shit Yahtzee makes them sound you'll never play more than ten in your entire life
4:53 is the first time I've ever noticed Yahtzee running out of breath!
I've actually heard him run outta breath before in his Bayonetta 1 review, he tends to run out of breath when he goes on a rant string about something INFURIATING in the game. Turns into a huge run-on sentence.
First time I've noticed as well (and a little bit at 4:23 too).
@@flaco3462 i just watched black ops 4 one recently where its out of shock and horror at the price. does that count?
@@Rendo86 course it does he's running out of breath isn't he what difference does it make
@@flaco3462 sudden shock and a prolonged rant was my thinking. Like a marathon to a pole-vault
Sounds like we already have a shoo-in for the One True Bland award come end-of-year list time!
The cover even looks like the one for last year's Saints Row
This year will be competitive for sure
I fear is might end up beeing GOTY for beeing the only playable game of the yhear, its gets the Functional Award
I disagree. I find the game plenty fun. Especially the gore
@@brayburell6814 Fun games can still be bland, nothing wrong with having fun with it, but that doesn’t make it not bland.
I played the Mad Max game to completion and had a ton of fun with it but there isn’t a universe in existence where that game isn’t one of the blandest things out there
I literally thought this was a reupload or a retro review, I knew for damn certain that I had played a second Dead Island game already. Little did I know that Dead Island: Riptide apparently didn't fuckin count as a sequel. And I can say I am completely underwhelmed by this game I just found out existed because there seems to have been absolutely no social profile on the run up to release, so thank you Yahtzee, you raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly, Sir!
well this was a we have the ip and better do something with it and the studio that got it was like yes we need money and a chance
I always find your input extremely entertaining
I'm having great fun playing this exclusively co op. All criticisms are completely accurate though
Upon hearing the point about "resilience" in the video, my son asked me what it means, at which point I discovered that the dictionary definition of it literally includes the word "toughness". Dafuq, who thought that was a good design concept?
Well this was a long time coming. I'm honestly surprised it took so long considering what littles has changed. Like _Duke Nukem Forever_ but with more zombies and also pretty bland.
Duke Nukem Forever was shovelware that wasn't even fun from a gameplay perspective. This game at least has fun gore effects and good combat.
@Marcos A You're pretty close to the mark, based on the PC Gamer article from September of last year. Techland and Deep Silver apparently disagreed on the project - Techland wanted to be more ambitious, Deep Silver didn't. They handed it to Yager, who apparently made a serviceable game but Deep Silver again wasn't happy with it (at the time it may have been seen as their golden goose). You can even see a playable build, since that leaked a couple years ago - it's noticeably different from what we got. Sumo Digital? Less info, but again more "Deep Silver isn't happy with it" stuff and disagreements.
And finally made it's way to Dambusters, and according to the game director it was "built from scratch." Based on the old Yager build footage, and the scope of what we got? Yeah...I can believe that.
No one knew what to really do with it, shuffled it around, then development on it reset maybe 4 years ago. That definitely tracks with how the game released, to be honest.
@@Beredaman08 Looks like this is a prime candidate for a Wha Happun with how many dev team it got shuffled around due to executive meddling
Zero punctuation fans are insufferable
@@marcosa1961 Deep Silver is just a walking red flag aren't they. That Wha Happun is something else
Dambuster started off with a fresh build, they didn't add to any of the previous developers' existing code
One of the best outro comics ever!
Took me a while to realise on the last image there's Dad Island, too! XD
I legitimately thought this game got released years ago
I'd love to see Zero punctuation's review of The Room series by Fireproof Studios.
I know it's not a big deal at all, and probably didnt even ohase yhatz, but im a bit sad he didnt mention the gore mechanics. Theyre hands down probably the best I've seen in a zombie video game, and hell, maybe even any.
Because he made a review to hate. It's also funny because he says you fight spongier and spongier zombies which, ultimately, means he's bad at the game.
@@epmcgeelol found the fanboy, if you don't like him kindly piss off yeah? Seems you're not here for anything other than to brown nose a blatantly bad game and shit on Yahtzee for whatever reason 🤷♂️
@@epmcgee Yeah, I never had any problems with time to kill at all. Maybe he just didn't care to really build anything meaningful, skills or mods or whatever
TF2’s dev time was to polish what they could see and then they updated when player feedback came in. The source spaghetti often comes from all the years of development and updates making tons of mechanics, and going through it is like going through ancient history.
DI2’s dead time was to make an unpolished product with tons of weird code hiccups because it went through 4 different devs! Even then there was no innovation on the formula save a pretty gore engine, so what probably happens is each team it got punted to scrapped what they didn’t like, inevitably left it, and so on until the fourth group finished it. DI2’s total development time was long, but the guys who made the finished version only had 2.5 or so years of work on it.
The game dev began in 2019, no previous code was used. Tbh the game is pretty good and in the sloth of shit being released nowadays id say it stands above a LOT.
The amount of callbacks to other games in this review make it infinitely rewatchable. This is one of your best, Yahtzee
My god... Afte all the years he lost his breath once. 4:51
Sound slide he lost it slightly around 4.23 as well lol
So I’ve played through Bel-Air, the hotel, and just got to The Hills. I’ve gotta say, this game really is perfectly functional, with good melee combat and well designed interior sections of levels that do actually loop back into each other. I think the game is at its best when it places you in tight corridors and forces you to be crafty with how you engage with zombies. It feels more dull when it places you on an empty street or rooftop and throws tons of zombies at you.
One thing the game does really well is the aesthetic design of its interiors. Each mansion I’ve gone through thus far has felt unique to its owner. However, as nice as the layouts of these mansions are, there’s really not a whole lot to interact with in them. Makes me miss the days of condemned when I could grab a specific set of weapons from the environment and go to town on enemies.
Great sell, shill.
@@HumbleMemeFarmer thank you, kind stranger!
My experience with Dead Island 1 is I liked it, it felt fair and balanced and then I 1 shot the final boss with my 3% to one shot on a crit weapon.
I genuinely thought this was a remake of the game that came out 9 years ago
I genuinely hadn't realized this hadn't come out yet, for some reason I thought he'd already done this one and it was time for the third installment.
I've only just realised that Dying Light is a different game. They both have such generic names I just remember them as "that zombie game where you can kick the zombies".
technically it is the 3rd installment as Dead Island got an expansion/standalon sort of thing whose name I've forgotten.
It also doesn't help that Dying Light was Dead Island clone with parcour that got an expansion and a sequel released before Dead Island 2 released.
Me: Well, I'm sure zombies will come back like any fad, like bellbottoms.
Zombie game developer in 2023: I have never heard the word "fad" before and looking up the definition makes me extremely uncomfortable.
I feel that a FPS or escapist podcast episode with SkillUp and Yahtzee talking games would be entertaining based off their differing views in this one.
This to me feels like the typical game that is inoffensive. It wouldnt surprise me if it is a contender for blandest game of the year if Yahtz does that this year. I may pick it up on sale if im bored enough.
It would be a plot twist if I don’t see this at #1 for his blandest game of 2023
@@shamaboy11 We're only 1/3 into the year. Plenty of time for some other tofu-flavored expanded polystyrene game to outbland this one.
You know how garbage it is when a game called Dead Island doesn't take place on.....an island.
@@shamaboy11 I mean, Ubisoft will probably do their best to claim take that award away...
Having watched people, including Yahtzee, play this game in the last week - this review is pretty much perfect
Sounds like you watched the wrong people.
@@epmcgeesounds you like can't take criticism 🤷♂️
Dead island and Dead island riptide were a couple of the first games I played when I got internet and a 360. I do tend to look back at them fondly for the memories of me and 3 randos dying to the straight jacketed wall sprinting dudes over and over, then blaming each other for the screw ups. However I do recognize that objectively speaking they weren't the best, I had fun with them yes and I still do on the odd yearly or so replay I do of them. However I will not pick up dead island 2 until I see a decent sale. Do I think it will be awful? 50/50, Do I think I will enjoy it? Probably but I'm not expecting the longevity I got from the other 2 as I dont have the advantage of not having played games like it before.
It's definitely fun but I'd wait for a sale. Its a bit lacking in content for a full price game.
"The life expectancy of a Saint Bernerd." lol That got me.
Game is good and definitely fun if you enjoy slaying zombies.(the flesh system is epic) But it is a bit lack luster. Was hoping for a bit more variety.
2:19 Yep, I sure do love choosing my class/character/difficulty/etc before I have enough information or understanding to inform that choice in any meaningful way. Love that piece of videogame design every single time it comes up.
Sarcasm aside, this is why games need to let you respec/change class/difficulty/etc midway through. Having to choose blindly at the beginning isn't so bad at all as long as you can change your mind once you start seeing what's actually going on.
4:46 you just described every multiplayer game of project Zomboid
What about a game with zombies and a mermaid conspiracy?
I like to imagine all of the half finished assets for this game were on a single hard drive that operated like some kind of cursed ring. A developer would just leave it randomly in a public place waiting for someone else to touch it and transfer the angry ghost to.
"Did Dinead's people call back?"
*that one didn't age too well.*
"And then Yager had it for a while the Spec-Ops: The Line lads, but I guess they had a PTSD flashback at some point and stopped replying to e-mails"
I appreciated the last comparison especially.
2:00 that's almost how the hub map looks in vtm bloodlines lol
Iirc, the reason why the final dude went monster is because the thing that kept you alive isn't 100% reliable for everyone who is 'immune' and if it doesn't work on you you become one of the special monsters instead.
Oil all over LA for some reason. Imagine that.
I don’t know as a fan of the first game this is exactly what I wanted out of the dead island sequel
zombies and magic, with a ever growing scale of combat ending with you standing on a mountain throwing world ending spells around.
My favourite moments of zp is when you can hear him literally running out of breathe, forcing out the last syllables of a sentence.
With all of that being said, I'm enjoying the hell outta Dead Island 2.
Just below the screen on 0:30 is Beyond Good and Evil 2's development timeline (and counting!)
Dead Island is just a great time with friends, like a real Shaun of the Dead experience of knocking tanky zombies around as you whittle their health down with silly weapons and get sent flying by a big angry special. Playing alone I imagine loses most of the appeal without your friends laughing along like a bunch of hyenas at all the absurdity.
5:48 He just can't resist to give TLOU 2 another kick in the stomach
For good reason cuz for my honest opinion the gameplay is good but main problem is the story which is very underwhelming and so bad that people still remember the Joel incident even to this day.
@@OwO377 Being forced to play Abbie-zilla was never going to end well.
@@cattysplat your absolutely right.
As Lyle McDouchebag said way back when the first trailer came out, "wait, am I supposed to be excited for that?"
Did the sunglasses sprite for ZP always have little white circles or is that new?
How come I haven't seen a single person mention Dead Island Riptide? or the Dead Island MOBA that came out? Am I insane? Did those things actually happen?
Riptide was great!
@@Cheficide true. And it actually happened but release in a weird way
"Gear Grinder" huh ? Yeah that could really catch on. I really like it
They should have called it _Arizona Bay._
I love how Days Gone is still getting kicks to the gonads four years on.
Dead island 2 was brilliant. It’s exactly what I wanted from a game. I don’t want a pointless lifeless open world for the sake of it. The environments are detailed, large enough, and varied.
Exploration is fun. Combat system is adequate. The gore system is the best I’ve ever seen. Even the story was fun. The characters were all unique, and it was just fun, dumb and satirical. I for one am glad it went full release!
Your point about LA having a “Bring Your Oil to Work” day isn’t too far off seeing IRL the city is a giant oil field masquerading as a city.
I was sure this game had come out like 10 years ago.
Yahtzee you should review Advance wars Reboot camp!
First he described Los Angeles as “a 7-Eleven with dodgy air conditioning stretched to infinity” and now “not an island”. LA seems less and less inviting all the time. 😂
It finally happened … I searched “fully ramblomatic dead island 2” because I honestly forgot this was a ZP
I absolutely adored Days Gone, but that might be the first proper chuckle I've had all day.
Of the 3 new ‘AAA’ games we picked up this week, Dead Island 2 has proven less buggier and less disappointing than either Redfall or Jedi Survivor, it’s not an amazing game, but it’s competent and was the cheapest of the three to boot
i like the immune part because it makes getting bit in gameplay make sense unlike other games or like state of decay where getting bit is not that bad
nicholls scoop with a split pin FTW! throw that in ST: Vagabond weapon wheel
I need Twats and a Zombie to be a Broadway musical so bad.😆
Ah, I completely forgot about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. What a film.
I think it'd be cool if they have a zombie game (Perhaps one big open world or some small open worlds) in which theres a finite amount of zombies and things change the more you kill. No grinding bullshit, just find weapon use weapon, occasionaly maintain weapon (Like RDR2's gun cleaning) All you need to do is manage your hunger, thirst and ammo count.
You clear out a few blocks of zombies, awesome now the NPC's will work to keep them from re-infecting that area and that community grows as you clear out the undead.
Maybe have a system in which there are opposing factions who may get jealous if you choose to help just the one faction and they up their prices when you wish to trade with them or maybe turn hostile against the faction you're trying to save the most.
I guess it's hard to innovate on something with zombies but hey... any idea can be a good idea with a competent team
pretty sure LA is one of the few places where you can set up an oil rig in your backyard
I can understand the fatigue, especially for a game reviewer... But dead island 2 is exactly what I want out of a zombie game. The combat is incredibly satisfying and the game plays/runs/looks great
hey yazhee mate I have been watching you for shit I don't know how long and I want to say a big thank you for keeping up the quality content I was watching you shit a long time ago I am old now haha. keep up the quality content mate!
Funny how it still runs better than Jedi: Survivor and is better made than Redfall.
Well this did have the flesh system which was fun I spent most of my time seeing just how much I could fuck a zombie up and have them still be alive.
Yeah, sounds about right / what I was expecting.
That was weird, I JUST finished writing a comedy sketch about dentists and flossing and this video comes out with a similar joke :O
"Last of Us was Zombies with Mushrooms"
I can only guess that was what Neil Cuckman was smoking when he made TLOU2...
Sadly that game is disappointed in story side than previous one which totally care about it which turn out well.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to go hug my mother's St Bernard Satie
‘Zombies and a Twat’ is a perfect name for Days Gone
“Twats and a Zombie” also perfectly fit Last of Us 2
Hang on I had to pause the video as I imagined the zombie crafting survival game where your crew of survivors is the Rat Pack. Dean Martin's gonna be pushing for a lot of booze raids.
Wait... Dead Island 2 came out? In 2023?
First I'm hearing of it...
The gore system though, is BEAUTIFUL!
Bog standard 'fire + oil = field of fire,' and 'water + electricity = field of pain Electric Boogaloo' is not environmental combat. It's used in so many games it's basically expected/required when messing around with stuff like fire and lightning. It's as ubiquitous as explosive barrels in a shooter.
Real environmental combat would be 'pick up literally anything as a weapon,' like Dead Rising, or giving the player prompts to messing with the surroundings, like destructible scenery to remove or create cover.
Does the Z in Zero Punctuation stand for Zombies.
Maybe.
I'm content with DI2.
It's beautiful, dynamic, and works actually really well, even on ps4, which is something pretty rare nowadays ; the Devs are actually competent.
Now, I'll admit there's almost no real build variety, since all 6 characters are the same, save for like 8 skill cards they all share with at least one other slayer...
And the level balance is a little harsh, too, with how underleveled weapons deal almost no damage to zombies, while fully upgraded one's almost one hit anything...
The story is short, too.
I don't understand the criticism of the game not being open world, since DI1 and Riptide weren't open world either, they just had bigger zones.
The inventory system is a little lacking, with how you can't store infinite items, and how the pitifully small storage is shared across all characters.
Side note, Dani and Jacob get access to the serial killer skill card, but it's graphic depicts Ryan, who doesn't have access to the card. This is a remnant of an older build, probably. Related to the firefighter that eventually was iterated into Ryan.
I wonder what other elements are taken from early builds.
Also, Sam B isn't supposed to look like that, and his relationship with Emma is forced at best.
Would recommend, but maybe don't play as one of the two tanks first, their gameplay is a little slower than the everyone else's.
5:20
Wtf I just saw that book today in the library in my school