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Set the mood with these three songs from Dead Island
When the zombie apocalypse strikes, it will be of utmost importance you set the appropriate mood, and thankfully composer Pawel Blaszczak knows exactly how to do that. Blaszczak wrote the spine-tingling soundtrack to Dead Island, and he's now sharing a few tracks so we can prep our survival kits accordingly. You'll want a melee weapon -- baseball bat, crowbar or frying pan -- for the slow walk down a deserted hallway at the 20-second mark of "Surrounded by Zombies," and a well-stocked crossbow for the panicked rhythms in "Zombie Rising." The "Main Theme" will play when you awake from a coma, exit the shower or begin walking to work to find the world overrun with the undead. Because that's how this stuff works, even on islands.
Dead Island co-op trailer kills zombies with teamwork (also: knives)
There seems to be only one rule when it comes to successfully escaping the dead island of, err, Dead Island: Leave no man behind. Unless, of course, that man has already been turned to the ranks of the shambling dead. Then you leave them behind with something sharp in their brain.
Dead Island novel brings dead people to dead trees
It's not that you don't want to play Dead Island -- of course you do. You love mangling zombies as much as the next thumbstick jockey. It's just ... what if she's there? You know ... the one from the trailer? It's bad enough that little Zombie Stephanie haunts your nightmares, but what if you should meet her in-game and have to stab her with a garden trowel? Shhh, it's all right. We've got a solution for you: the Dead Island novelization arriving alongside the game from Bantam. The author, Mark Morris, is a successful horror writer in his own right, but he's also written novels featuring Doctor Who and Torchwood, so playing in someone else's world is nothing new for him. We can't promise the little girl won't make an appearance, but at least if she does you'll be able to close the book and go get some warm milk. That's right, just set it down, walk to the kitchen, open the fridge -- OH GOD SHE'S IN THE FRIDGE! ... Sorry, she's not. Zombie Stephanie's not in the fridge. We just couldn't help ourselves.
Pre-purchase Dead Island on Steam, get free DLC and weapon
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Ripper (no relation). As our more astute readers have no doubt already noticed, the Ripper is a baseball bat combined with a rotary saw. It's available for free to those who pre-purchase Dead Island on Steam. The Bloodbath Arena DLC is another pre-order bonus, and pits players against multiple waves of zombies. Players earn cash and XP in Bloodbath Arena, all of which is carried over into the main campaign. The arena also includes a new weapon, the Sonic Pulse Grenade. Dead Island is asking a $50 entry fee on Steam -- or, if you've got three reliable friends, a four-pack will set you back $150, essentially knocking the individual price down to $37.50. But can you really put a price on a baseball-bat slash power-saw thing?
Watch game trailers and short films on an NYC rooftop
Kill Screen magazine is hosting a short video game film festival in the skies of NYC on July 30. The festival will include entries like that one Dead Island trailer, Super There Will Be Blood, and an excerpt from Mojang: the Story of Minecraft. And since it's on a rooftop, maybe Batman will show up!
Amazon makes you relive the Dead Island apocalypse with pre-order art book
When the zombie apocalypse is over and you're burning the decomposed, emaciated bodies of your friends and family in the smoldering wasteland of your former neighborhood, you'll most likely want an illustrated reminder of the horrific events that led you there. Amazon has you covered with its Dead Island pre-order exclusive, a digital art book featuring the undead, the survivors and scenery from the game. So you never forget.
Dead Island trailer wins Gold award at Cannes ... advertising festival
Remember that excellent Dead Island teaser that spawned a nontroversy over its lack of gameplay footage? Well, it just won an award in Cannes. But in the interest of clarity, we should note: This Cannes award isn't for the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival; rather, it's for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a "global meeting place for creative professionals in the communications industry." Yeah, it's an advertising award, not a film award, but that's okay – it is an ad, after all, and the Cannes event is a major focal point in the ad world. The Axis Animation-developed short won a Gold prize for Internet Film, alongside massive brands like Google and Skittles. Not bad for a zombie game by an unsung Polish developer, Techland, and a relatively unknown publisher, Deep Silver.
Dead Island preview: Surviving together is three quarters of the fun
If you ain't plannin' on dying together, you'd best get learnin' to fight together. We got our first bite of Dead Island's co-op at E3, which adds a lot more dimension to the overall game than the single-player experience we had before. Getting the zombified elephant out of the room first, though, publisher Deep Silver says the game's animations and combat feel aren't yet finalized yet. A good thing, since many of the melee weapons still aren't satisfying. For a game that has three of its four core characters focused on beating the infected stuffing out of the undead, the melee looks like chaotic slashing and feels incongruent with the effort put into the rest of the game. That's not to say all the melee weapons feel awkward, which makes the whole situation even more bizarre to explain. The baseball bats actually seem to have a heft to them, so when you're attacking a zombie there's a reaction. You'd expect the same kind of look from a heavy metal rod, but it just doesn't seem to jive. Whether it's the animations, zombie reactions or something I'm just not pinpointing, the melee combat still needs work. I didn't have an opportunity to try out a gun, but Dead Island if very focused on melee combat being core to the overall experience. As for the co-op of Dead Island, now that's something worth possibly getting stuck on an island of the undead for. %Gallery-125726%
Dead Island welcoming tourists on September 6
Sure, you could spend a weekend at Bernie's this fall, but Deep Silver and Techland are hoping you'll choose to pay a visit to Dead Island instead. The publisher-developer duo has just announced a September 6, 2011 release date for the game in North America, with the rest of the world getting it on September 9. As one partygoer finds out in the latest trailer for the game, being a drunken fool on an island resort during a concert is a great way to ensure a rough morning. Rather than the usual hangover and list of regrets, though, he wakes up to an island-wide zombie infestation. Sorry dude!
Dead Island box art needs longer incubation
Dead Island nailed its first cinematic trailer, and followed up with an amazing preview. Comparatively, the box art looks a bit lifeless. A fresher concept that took us two minutes to create can be found after the break, along with official box images.
Dead Island gameplay tour trailer
Be sure to watch this audio-visual version of our Dead Island preview experience for a deeper look at the zombie survival RPG's gameplay.
Dead Island trailer piles on the sadness
The latest trailer for Dead Island is just as sappy and pianoed as the first. It's as pretty and poignant as the game's startling debut, but we're worried it might not match the tone of the actual title. For instance, if there's not a "cry over your dead family" button, we'll be sorely disappointed.
Dead Island preview: Reality bites
Following our initial look at Dead Island back at GDC, I recently got our first chance to play the game for real. And "real" is the appropriate word here. Despite the zombies, wacky weapon combinations and a creepy Lost vibe, Dead Island does a lot to emphasize the reality of your admittedly unbelievable situation. It starts right away in the demo, with an opening first-person cinematic that has my character living it up at one of the island's clubs, as signs of the big Z start to appear at the corners of my blurred, drunken vision. Is that woman just resting in the booth over there or is that blood near her head? Wait -- did that man just bite his date? Eventually, I'm too drunk to tell or even care, passing out in a nearby corner. This is when the game proper starts. %Gallery-123630%
Dead Island's Sam B. wonders who you voodoo
Techland has dropped a handful of new screens from Dead Island, showcasing a character by the name of Sam B, a "one-hit-wonder rap star of fading fame." It seems Sam came to the Royal Palms resort to perform his hit song "Who Do You Voodoo?" which, of course, reminds us of the babe.
New Dead Island screens get up close and personal
Ever wondered what it would be like to be a brain in the head a human who's about to be picked apart by a raging, undead horde? This latest batch of screens for Techland's Dead Island affords us just such a perspective -- a brain's-eye-view, if you will.
New Dead Island screens to make you scream
Re-introduced in one of the most memorable trailers in recent years, Techland's undead-filled action game Dead Island was looking great when we saw it at GDC. Now the dev has dropped three new shots of its blood-soaked environments and a giant zombie in a straight jacket. See 'em after the break.
Dead Island preview: Paradise in shambles
Last month's debut of the emotionally-charged trailer for Dead Island, a game completely forgotten (if ever known at all), instantly rocketed developer Techland's zombie vacation nightmare into the spotlight, spawning a number of homages and an absolute thirst to know: Could the game possibly be as good as the cinematic teaser? After witnessing an all-too-brief gameplay demo at GDC this week, I began to answer that question for myself, likening Dead Island to a mash-up of Dead Rising 2, Borderlands, Breakdown and, to a much lesser extent than you'd think, Left 4 Dead 2 -- oh, and even some Far Cry 2 sprinkled in there. That sounds a bit chaotic, sure, but this is a zombie game. Dead Island begins shortly after the zombie emergence depicted in the dramatic trailer, with players controlling one of four possible lead characters, each representing a different class. In the demo I was shown, the developer played as the "tank" character -- powerful, but slow. %Gallery-118289%
Dead Island trailer gets literal
You need an excuse to watch the Dead Island trailer yet again. It's getting obsessive and your coworkers are starting to stare. We get it. Thus, we bring you the literal version of the trailer. "No, no, this is a funny version. I'm not obsessed," you'll say. If you play it right, it just might work.
Dead Island meets Minecraft, bites it right in the neck
If you thought the evocative debut trailer for Dead Island would have been more effective had it been rendered completely in textured blocks -- no, you didn't think that. Nobody could have, except for Vareide Productions, who whipped up the Dead Minecraft trailer below.
Dead Island movie rights not yet sold [update]
Update: Dead Island publisher Deep Silver states that, contrary to earlier reports, the rights to a film adaptation of Dead Island have not been sold -- though it claims to have received "a vast amount of inquiries" following the game's buzz-building trailer. "We are looking for quality above all else for a movie based on Dead Island," says Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media (parent company of Deep Silver). "We want to do it the right way as film realizations of games (or vice versa) usually fail to deliver what the fans were looking for." The goal, according to Kundratitz, is to "work with someone who already has a proven track record with blockbuster movies." That doesn't necessarily rule out Union Entertainment, which was rumored to have already purchased the rights, but it sounds like the IP-holder is still evaluating all potential silver-screen suitors. As mentioned in the original story below, you're not likely to see any Dead Island movie (if there is one) until well after the game's launch later this year. How about holding your horses for a bit, Hollywood? Original story: Though Techland has already gotten a popular film out of its upcoming Dead Island game -- it was called "the trailer" -- one can presume that Hollywood's looking to sell something a bit longer (and more chronological, the test audiences will insist). The Wrap reports that the movie rights were already secured by the Sean Daniel Company and Union Entertainment in 2009, years before the zombie-infested horror game stepped back into the spotlight. Union Entertainment, a talent management and production company focusing on video games, helped facilitate the creation of the first game based on The Darkness comic book series. It was also involved with The Red Star, a PlayStation 2 game based on the graphic novel of the same name and, according to The Wrap, currently holds the movie rights to Techland's Western shooter, Call of Juarez. Dead Island is connected to producer Sean Daniel (Dazed and Confused, The Mummy, Pootie Tang), but there's no indication that it's progressed enough to even warrant a script writer yet. In other words, we'll find out if the game is as good as the trailer well before we decide whether the film ... is as good as the game.
