Video games labeled as being in “improvement hell” hardly ever launch in a state anybody would need to experience–if they launch in any respect. With Useless Island 2, nevertheless, Dambuster Studios kicks away a decade of dev hell issues like they’re a zombie lunging for its throat to ship an undead RPG that’s absolutely imperfect, but in addition gratifying and even ingenious.
Useless Island 2 is a first-person action-RPG set towards the backdrop of the identical zombie plague that brought on mayhem within the unique sport’s story. It strikes the collection away from its fictional island of Banoi and brings it to Los Angeles–which, chances are you’ll recall, is unquestionably not an island. It is an odd transfer given the franchise’s title, however a forgivable one as soon as you start to discover, because the semi-open world of the sport’s story and setting show to be one among its biggest points.
Not one of the sport’s many places are huge, however a number of of them are large enough, and no matter its measurement, every zone is filled with secrets and techniques, facet quests, and loads of causes to stray from the principle path. Useless Island 2 shirks a real sandbox-style open world in favor of smaller however extra authored locales with far fewer repeating parts. It is finally a profit to the sport, because it tends to strike an engrossing steadiness between width and depth.
The sport’s world design depends on oblique routes. Whereas exploring the pier, fences will trigger you to duck via the arcade and previous the bumper vehicles to get to the opposite finish, creating new set items and protecting you zig-zagging via the unpredictable world. On the seaside, storefronts are sometimes explorable, rewarding you with nice weapons, money for upgrades, or different non-obligatory secrets and techniques. There are few straight paths via LA, and round each nook you will discover extra monsters and the treasures they loom over. Backtracking is frequent, particularly when tackling the sport’s 40+ facet missions alongside its 24 fundamental quests. Your first time via any zone, you will not be capable to see and do all the pieces, and the numerous locked doorways you will go away behind make retreading your steps a rewarding effort, as facet quests open up new avenues constantly.
Getting via the world of “HELL-A” is not nearly strolling the Venice Seashore boardwalk or trekking down the lavish Beverly Hills. Mainly, it is about bludgeoning, beheading, maiming, or in any other case decommissioning the numerous zombies who get in your method. Useless Island 2 does a wonderful job of evolving its first-person fight by the use of each ample enemy and weapon selection, in addition to a satisfying fight system that feels weighty and well-considered. I used to be nonetheless discovering new weapons even after I beat the principle story, together with some named weapons that symbolize the sport’s finest loot obtainable. Every weapon, be it a firefighter’s axe, a wrench, a baseball bat, or one among many others, feels completely different, and the crafting system comprises dozens of blueprints that may customise every weapon a number of occasions over, giving them acquainted however nonetheless thrilling standing results, in addition to buffs to your chosen “Slayer” of the sport’s roster of six heroes.
With a lot weapon selection, the zombies do effectively to match. The early distinction between walkers, runners, and shamblers would not take lengthy to provide option to hulk-like crushers, disorienting screamers, and way more. Dambuster stays true to the mythos of the unique sport by reintroducing lots of the similar lessons of zombies, albeit now with extra selection of their distinctive immunities, like electrified screamers who cannot be killed with electrical energy since, effectively, that is already their complete deal. Even then, the sport additionally introduces a number of new sorts of undead not beforehand seen within the collection, too.
![Even the game's narrower, more linear zones feel full of stories to uncover.](https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_super/1632/16320660/4126361-belair.png)
Including weight and selection to the fight is nice, but it surely’s probably not new to the style. Useless Island 2’s secret weapon is its extremely detailed injury model–something Dambuster can dangle its hat on. Each single enemy within the sport exists just like the world’s grossest onion, with every layer in a position to be peeled away through katana, mallet, or anything you will equip.
Smash a zombie with a baton and the cranium will crumble away to disclose the mind, or maybe their jaw will dangle unfastened like keys on a lanyard. Frying them to a crisp with electrical energy or melting away their pores and skin with an in-universe sludge referred to as Caustic-X will present markedly completely different outcomes. This makes it so not solely do it is advisable take into account how and the place to inflict injury upon each single enemy within the sport, however each slash, gash, and bash will probably be accounted for. It is in contrast to something I’ve seen in a zombie sport, and I’ve performed dozens of them. I’ve by no means actually been into gore for gore’s sake, however even I am going to admit that there is a particular sort of aptitude to punching a gap via the pinnacle of a zombie with selfmade Wolverine claws that you just simply do not see within the style very a lot, whatever the medium.
Combining all the thrilling weapons with the extremely assorted hordes of zombies makes every encounter a aware effort. Not often is it the case the place you may flip your mind off and bash via a group of undead to get to an goal they’re blocking. Every battle takes a concerted, considerate approach–and to my shock, it stays powerful during.
All this reward is just not with out some caveats, nevertheless. For one, that problem can generally wade into feeling unfair. Enemies spawn rapidly, and the sport hardly ever enables you to relaxation. Within the sport’s two- or three-player co-op, that is normally high-quality, as you’ve gotten serving to fingers, and it offers the world a way of insecurity {that a} zombie plague ought to present. However in single-player, a number of the encounters, in addition to the relentless enemy-spawning, might go away you feeling such as you’re swimming upstream in a river of blood and viscera. Generally a selected enemy would be the focus of your goal, and although the sport does effectively to telegraph this, it may be powerful to push via the horde to get to the one whose re-death will truly halt the horde from persisting.
Secondly, none of my reward for the sport’s melee fight could be utilized to its gunplay. Weapons begin to crop up within the sport a couple of third of the way in which via the story, and although there’s additionally loads of selection in these weapons–made deeper by player-driven customizations–guns are unwieldy and sometimes really feel like a legal responsibility. Oddly, they really feel higher to make use of when fired from the hip relatively than aiming down their sights.There is a cumbersome unpredictability every time the sight is used, which creates a discrepancy between the place you have been focusing on from the hip and the place chances are you’ll then be focusing on from the sight. It behaves like recoil that happens earlier than you’ve got even fired a shot. This slows down gunplay because it means continually re-lining up photographs everytime you select to intention within the first place, and although that ought to at the least imply the shotguns of the world are high-quality since they hardly require aiming, they at all times felt underpowered.
![Melee combat and gunplay represent the game's best and worst parts, respectively.](https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_super/1632/16320660/4126362-venice.jpg)
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The sport’s finest gun, the searching rifle, was my go-to once I felt like I had to make use of any firearms, however even then I would just attempt to line up headshots from the hip, realizing that aiming greater than that might seemingly simply trigger me to waste ammo. Nonetheless, you may feasibly beat the sport utilizing few to no weapons in any respect, and chances are you’ll be higher off for it.
Exploration, fight, and upgrades all shine, which is useful when the story is so forgettable. Although the sequel is written by a special crew than the unique, Useless Island 2’s writing suffers from issues that tie them collectively like a well-known bouquet of unexplained motivations, grating dialogue, and a nasty remaining act that races previous a would-be charming stage of campiness and crashes into groan-inducing territory.
I might be hard-pressed to call almost any character apart from my chosen hero, Amy, or Sam B., who reprises his function from the primary sport. A fictional actor named Emma Jaunt performs a central half, too, and a shadowy legion of anti-heroes routinely pops as much as mime narrative intrigue, however none of it quantities to something.
The spirit of the story is enjoyable in a Grand Theft Auto form of method, in that it targets, above all others, wealthy American socialites because the butt of its jokes. Although a few of these characters are made out to be good individuals, the writing typically revels in sending zombie tooth barreling for the jugulars of streamers, actors, and others deemed to be the vapid rich elite. However that is merely the air of storytelling. It lets the world really feel lived in, and it truly makes a number of the many collectibles gratifying to learn, however every time cutscenes would threaten to inform a narrative, I discovered myself groaning just like the undead.
For a sport in improvement for greater than a decade, it is a minor miracle for Useless Island 2 to come back out in any respect. The truth that it is arrived in such a state that gamers can have enjoyable with it all through its story and beyond–even as that story itself is an afterthought–is a testomony to the crew that acquired it to a once-unlikely end line. Together with the lackluster story, poor gunplay and a few balancing points damage Useless Island 2, however its deep melee fight programs and wealthy setting make it a greater sport than the unique, which is possibly crucial factor I can say about it after all the pieces it has been via.