NEWS: Dead Island Gameplay Update!

More word on the Dead Island game that after it's successful trailer released a little while back, got a few tongues wagging...


According to testers, Dead Island is perhaps not going to be the dramatic survival horror the trailer promised, instead it will be "zombie zombie zombie all the time" so say the developers. Instead, it follows Dead Rising where you can basically pick up anything, combine and upgrade it, and make it become a bad-ass weapon. Except as you guys know from my review of Dead Rising, it was somewhat of a chore.

It's also completely ripped off Left 4 Dead by giving you a 4 player co-op option, but worse in that once you pick your character, you stay with it. This leaves out the 'pick-up-and-play' aspect that made Left 4 Dead so popular in the first place. If you're going to rip off a game, why leave the best aspects?

Apparently, part of the story is that you're immune to the zombification, meaning that if you're bit you don't have to worry about turning (or finding Zombrex), but instead can worry about the fact you've got a chunk missing from your arm. The game is a fast-paced, balls out shooter which is more cartoonish than dramatic. For those hoping for a more intelligent, Heavy Rain feel to the zombie genre, I'm afraid you might have to wait a little bit longer because it looks like Dead Island might as well be another Dead Rising in the form of an FPS.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Video Review

Where else will you see Michael Jackson attacking children? OJ as a KKK member? Sharks attacking zombies? In a review for Undead Nightmare of course! Click on the link at the right for the FULL write up with a more detailed analysis.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare DLC

Red Dead becomes Undead in this new DLC that successfully combines the Western genre with Horror so that shooting zombies never looked so cool

Rockstar have graced us with an odd add-on that takes the original game and completely changes it by adding zombies into the Wild West without taking itself too seriously. You start as John Marston again on his farm as his dead Uncle attacks his family and turns them into zombies. After tying them up, he vows to find a solution to help them and so the action begins.

Rockstar have taken advantage of the current Grindhouse trend and given this a B-movie cult horror genre feel by exploiting it in all the right places and being completely self-aware. The zombies move realistically and can only really be put down with a shot to the head and when you do shoot, instead of a typical gaming 'blow-up' head shot, instead only that part of the head is blown away giving the game a physicality not often achieved, especially with such fodder as Dead Rising 2. As you save town after town trying to uncover the truth, you bump into the characters from the original story making it a bit of a nostalgic trip as well. Similar to the original game, you have to help strangers along the way, find missing people and other small missions but essentially you're trying to find out what's behind all this.

As fun as it was to play, saving town after town by giving survivors ammunition (something that is scarce at first but builds up rather quickly) becomes a bit of a ball-ache. You have to go up to one survivor and then head to the others giving them ammo before finishing off the zombies. Trying to negotiate a way to get up to these survivors can be taxing to say the least, especially with zombies biting at your tails. However, once you've saved all the towns and done the main storyline (with a great 'few months later' epilogue) I'd imagine unless you're a completist you'd probably leave it there.

They also cleverly use the zombie factor as an excuse to include zombie animals as well as special 'Apocalypse' horses that if you catch, give you a certain special power. Though my Pestilence horse which was supposed to be impossible to kill, died almost as soon as I got it by falling off a cliff but yet I survived, so that was a bit of an anti-climax. However, there are Sasquatches, unicorns and more to find should you wish to do so. But as fun as it was, saving the towns occupied a lot of my time and soon became annoying. Also the final onslaught in a cave wasn't the big finale I expected it to be, instead it fell quite flat. It's also worth noting that you can still use your Red Eye slowing down time meaning you shouldn't really become too overwhelmed with zombies at any one time. The good thing is there is more than one type of undead, you have the normal ones, you have little fast spider like ones, spitting ones and big boulder-like ones. Therefore, it can keep the killing fresh by mixing it up with an assortment of the four. Weapons are also customised for zombie killing including a gun that shoots dead flesh back at them.

The game still sticks to it's open world sandbox roots, with certain Ranked missions, Treasure hunting and outfit collecting so there is something for everyone here. I couldn't justify spending enough time on it to complete it 100%, but doing the main storyline with bits afterward took about 8 hours, perhaps a bit more, and that's saving all the towns as well.


For a downloadable pack, this is great but I still felt they should have eased off saving all the towns constantly and concentrated more on doing missions. It's a nice, strange 'ending' as such with Red Dead Redemption and a great alternative to the Western feel of the original game. It's unique, brave and has successfully won over a lot of the audience, it's also due to come out on disc form in the near future as well. Rockstar have also announced that a Red Dead bundle will come out at the end of November with this and all the other DLC available in one big package. I recommend you buy this, especially if you loved Red Dead Redemption and it's a great DLC but again it's not perfect. Great idea, great gameplay, but felt like there could have been more to the story and saving all the towns became more of a chore as it went along. I'd love to see a DLC to this DLC (if that makes sense) which just opened it out a bit more, but for such content, depth and originality, it's one of the best DLC's out there. Go forth and enjoy - dead or undead.

DLC Rating: 9/10

Call Of Duty: Black Ops

CALL OF DUTY! One of the most successful game franchises ever returns with lots of stuff you've seen before and much more that you haven't.

For those who didn't know, both Call of Duty 1, 2, 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 were by Infinity Ward whereas Call of Duty 3 and World At War was by Treyarch. Confusing enough? Well it doesn't matter now because Infinity Ward has pretty much disbanded leaving Activision solely with Treyarch to keep the series afloat with Modern Warfare 3 stuck in development hell.

It is often argued that where Infinity Ward was obsessed with making things look 'cool', Treyarch wanted to make the games more story-based and bring an emotional depth that is somewhat lacking in Infinity Ward's action-packed sagas. But it has cost Treyarch the big dollars as people see them as the underdogs of the Call of Duty series, lacking real scope and bogging things down with story with a much lesser focus on multiplayer. So whichever opinion you have, I would imagine for most of the gaming public all they care about is that this is another Call of Duty and does it raise the bar? Most definitely.

Firstly, most of the game is set during the Sixties / Seventies with missions in Kowloon, Cuba, Vietnam, Russia and more. At one point you're cruising down a river shooting the Vietcong while listening to the Rolling Stones - clearly 'Nam films have had a huge impact on the game. The sheer scale and globe trotting nature of the game, not unfamiliar with the Call of Duty series, goes above and beyond what has been done before. It includes every setting you could possibly want from a war game, whether you're escaping from a huge jail or playing Russian Roulette Deer Hunter style, it never ceases to keep you on the edge of your seat.

The graphics look incredible with faces, textures and landscapes making you almost forget you're playing a game. I'd love to see what this looks like in 3D as fortunately the game is 3D compatible! Let me know if I can come round to see it on your 3D TV because I imagine it'll blow your socks off. The voice acting adds even more to the experience with impressive casting including Gary Oldman returning as Reznov (from World At War and an important character in the game), Sam Worthington, Ed Harris and Ice Cube as the main roles, but the overall sound is amazing. The score is epic and changes according to what's happening onscreen, subtle yet deeply affecting. The sound effects , background noise and how it all changes according to your environment is mind-blowing, every detail here has been thought about.

So what about the actual gameplay? My opinion is that it is the smoothest I've seen in an FPS yet. The normal controls are still there but whether you're on a boat, helicopter, motorbike, car or whatever, the controls work very simply and very effectively. You do not need to 'enter' vehicles, the game just smoothly puts you in them and the same goes for entering cut-scenes, you could be riding your car, then get a flash of bright white light and in the second you think you've crashed and died, it's actually part of the story, this is how smooth the game works. There's also some cool 'bullet-time' sequences that trigger automatically, sporadically and spontaneously, unlike when 'breaching' doors in the previous COD, the bullet time could happen at any point making it's surprise even more cooler. The weapons work well and are varied enough to keep you interested but the developers realise you just want to point and shoot and not get too bogged down customising your weapons (which is more for multiplayer use anyway). The game might also be too linear for some, but FPS's aren't supposed to be too sandbox, you are on a mission after all. The whole thing clocks in at about 8 or 9 hours as well, perhaps a bit more, which means it's more than enough to sink your teeth into without getting too bored either.

The story is the first in the Call of Duty series which I actually thought 'Wow' - not in the same way America was getting blown apart in Modern Warfare, or the Russian airport sequence in Modern Warfare 2, but a character piece that would make some Hollywood movies blush. You play different characters, but for the most part you are Mason, some poor operative who from the very menu sequence before the game has actually started, is holed up in a torture room surrounded by TV's and made to listen to a sequence of numbers. 'What do these numbers mean?' someone from another room is shouting at you, but poor Mason hasn't got a clue, so they delve into his memories to try and uncover the truth which is how you 'flashback' to the missions.

I don't want to ruin it by saying too much, but it seems like Mason is losing his mind. He keeps hallucinating and can't seem to rid himself of these Lost-esque numbers rattling around in his head as you control him in key moments of his life and try and uncover the secret of Nova 6. Even when you think you're approaching the end of the game, something else opens up (in a good way) and the second time you play it through, you'll definitely have a new perspective on it. This adds not only replay value, but it's the first CoD game where I vaguely know what's going on and I vaguely care. They haven't detracted from Modern Warfare's gameplay, but they've added a depth to the game people often criticise it for lacking. I'd argue that, perhaps people might prefer the advanced technology and faster pace of the Modern Warfare series rather than this, but I'd say they're missing the point. This is a whole new Call of Duty experience and one that should definitely not be missed - and this is merely the Campaign mode!

Once you've completed the game, you unlock a new 'Zombies' level (you can play another zombie level immediately if you so wish) where you play JFK in the war bunker of the White House. For those who loved the Nazi Zombies of World At War, Treyarch have turned Zombies into a more advanced beast altogether, realising that fans had a lot of fun shooting the shit out of Zombies (aren't Zombies everywhere these days? Undead Nightmare? Dead Rising? Walking Dead?) and includes split screen, co-op and all the stuff that you loved and more.

Treyarch have said that the multiplayer is incredible but unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to do so as it has not been officially released, meaning I can't log on to the server. I can walk about the maps by myself though or do some split screen action (if I had friends) and from what I've seen, it's impressive. For me, Call of Duty's success relies heavily on how it works as an online battleground but I haven't been able to test this as of yet, which is why the marking excludes multiplayer, as this can be a whole new game all together.

Overall, Black Ops is a great step forward for Call of Duty, it doesn't hold back on plot, set pieces, environments or character and it'll take a hell of a lot to beat this game. As much as I enjoyed Modern Warfare, it's not exactly Vietnam is it? I mean, war back then was cool right? Do yourself a favour and go and buy it. Some may prefer Modern Warfare, but I think this was a lot more fun. It absolutely desecrates Medal of Honor and puts it in it's place, which is at the back. It just goes to show you can ooze style and still have more than enough substance to match. It is your duty to buy Call of Duty.

Rating: 10/10

(excluding multiplayer mode)

Survival Of The Dead

George A. Romero's new zombie flick goes back to it's roots. But is it still alive and kicking or dead on it's feet? The Wild Bore finds out.

I don't even think this got a cinema release and instead went straight to DVD. I remember the time when the Romero trilogy was something that could never be surpassed by a zombie film. He rewrote the playbook and was truly the King of the Undead. However, once horror started coming back to the fray, and Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake did well at the box office, Hollywood decided to bring Romero back from the grave to continue his zombie franchise and he brought to us Land of the Dead. Problem was, it bombed. With a fair amount of money behind it, some top actors including Dennis Hopper and a decent PR campaign, this looked like it might do well. Unfortunately, not many people liked the idea of zombies forming an army and invading a human city - it just seemed a bit ... stupid. I thought it was OK, had some good bits and followed the path that Romero set up in Day of the Dead where zombies were starting to evolve. But instead Romero's comeback became rather timid. However, he followed this up with Cloverfield cam-in-hand style Diary of the Dead which was probably the most awful zombie film I've ever seen. So anything after that had to be better than his previous attempt, and so comes Survival of the Dead ...

The story picks up from the army guys who invaded the truck in Diary of the Dead. They decide to go their own way and go to an island off the coast where two warring families once stood. One side wanted to kill all zombies, the other side wanted to keep them around in case a cure is found - they couldn't bare the thought of killing their loved ones and so drove the zombie killing ones away - which is how the army guys find the island. Right, so that's the story but is it any good?

Oddly enough, you can see Romero has tried a bit with this one. The shots, characters and inevitable zombie onslaught are similar to his first trilogy but there are a lot of problems. Firstly, you're not sure who you are supposed to sympathise with, which might be good if done right, but here it just feels like the script asks too much of the audience to keep switching sides. Secondly, there's not that much of a zombie presence, the final frenzy is rather short and unsatisfying. There is also a dire case of bad CG at work, and compared to today's standards, it looks totally whack shack Iraq. Also, why do all these guys on the island speak Irish? It makes it feel rather inbred. Which it probably is seeing as there's apparently only two major families on the whole place!

The army protagonist also just acts a bit too macho, to the point where it's a bit weird and cardboard. The lesbian soldier also first comes on-screen by, well, cumming. Why she is masturbating in front of everyone when they're supposed to be looking for zombies I'll never know. You're also not sure why it's called Survival of the Dead. Is it because they're being kept alive? Or because they're being trained to eat something that's not human so they can survive? The title promised so much more. It's also a story about pride and family - but not really. It's a meek attempt to add some backbone to a lifeless piece. The boy who wants to be a man is just an annoying storyline to keep the young un's in with someone they can relate to, they've got the token minorities in there and an old wise man but it just doesn't cut it. Even the gore looks a bit strange and way too 70's - not in a good way either with bright red paint, I mean blood, and a classic post-Nam 'isn't war so silly' kind of vibe.

Overall, this film is a pretty poor attempt to get back on track. Romero has lost whatever it was that he had and even though this is a LOT better than Diary of the Dead, then unless you are fans of his previous work, you won't want to watch it, and to be honest you shouldn't. There was enough to keep me entertained, but it's definitely for fanboys only.

Rating: 4/10