Games

There appear to be two basic points of view when it comes to making a sequel to a popular videogame. The first is to use it as an opportunity to address the strengths and weaknesses of the original game in order to build on its success and provide gamers with an even richer and more engrossing experience. The second is to use it as an excuse to simply give gamers more of the same. Take a peek at the rating at the bottom of this review and see if you can guess which of these two approaches Polish developer Techland has taken with Dead Island: Riptide…

Picking up directly after the end of the original Dead Island, this sequel quickly strands its clichéd cast of characters on yet another tropical island overrun by the undead. And while there a few new types of zombies to kill, plenty of new weapons play with, plus a new gameplay wrinkle that forces you to defend a base from zombie hordes at key moments in the story, ultimately it's just more of the same repetitive mix of zombie killing and fetch-and-carry quests. Heck, most of the technical glitches from the first game remain unfixed here. All of which means that Dead Island: Riptide feels less like a true sequel than a piece of DLC (downloadable content) for the original game that has somehow been granted a life of its own on shop shelves as a full-price release.

Dead Island: Riptide, Deep Silver, Xbox 360/PS3/PC, £35 Approx
HCC VERDICT: 2.5/5