When IGN first reviewed Dead Island back in 2011 we gave it a score of 8.0, for "great." We had this to say about it:

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“ The sunshine ray effect alone sometimes caused me to pause in wonder.

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“ I'm not one to obsess over framerates, but it’s not up to par.

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“ Few first-person games have had such satisfying melee combat.

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"Dead Island probably won't win any game of the year awards. It's got visual bugs, the controls take a bit to feel normal, and the presentation in general isn't up to snuff. But the game gets a lot right. There is a huge world to explore, thousands of zombies to kill, and tons of side quests to take. Here on the other side of a 25-hour playthrough – where I skipped a lot of side quests after Act 1 – I'm anxious to get back into Dead Island, and despite the game's flaws, that's not something I say often."Two years later, we were less kind to the quasi-sequel Dead Island: Riptide in our review . "It’s a fun time, but there are no surprises or killer new features to make it an impressive package." It scored a 7.2, for "good."These concerns rarely dampened the fun I had with both games. The bugs, too, while not totally extinct, usually only bothered me when some zombie got stuck on a beach chair or something. This is certainly the best version of Dead Island for newcomers to jump into, and it certainly doesn't hurt that the base game enjoys many of the interface improvements that came with Riptide.When I did start to get bored, it was more from the unchanging design of it all. The stories and acting in Dead Island and its quasi-sequel Riptide have ever been the stuff of 1:00 AM B-movies, and the quests never really amount to much more than kill this, fetch that.As a returning player looking for new content, I had the most fun with the 16-bit sidescrolling beat 'em up that comes with the collection. It's called Dead Island Retro Revenge, and it features a Jack Black-soundalike trying to save his cat by rushing down what looks like Venice Beach with zombies. (It sounds a hell of a lot like the setting for the AWOL Dead Island 2, at least judging from its trailer from E3 2014.) Retro Revenge itself is fun enough, although its combat and settings are highly repetitive. (In other words, it's a lot like Dead Island.) It's a lane-brawler that automatically shuttles faux-Jack along as he taps out the proper kicks and punches for this or that type of zombie, all while hitting them at the right time for multipliers. In practice, it feels a little more like playing Guitar Hero than Double Dragon. It's simple stuff, but it was the best time I had with the whole package.