The prison is offshore, you go to it near the end supposedly to get on a helicopter. This is some sort of island nation (or part of). It even has a name which I forgot already. Unlike everything previous where you can travel all over hells half-acre on foot, vehicle or those fast transport map thingies, once you go to the prison there's no going back. The guide needs to stock up some stuff in the city first. I assume that means trailing him around and keeping him alive. The character animations are surprisingly good, though not excellent by hollywood standards.

Kicking is good. After a certain point you can aim at a zombie's head after kicking it to the curb and stomp it. Most satisfying, though you are momentarily vulnerable to being attacked by other zombies. The weapons get better, but the zombies get tougher, faster, and better coordinated. Some even have weapons.

The big bad zombies are actually less interesting, and less dangerous once you learn how to kill them.

Also, you never actually die, you just get knocked out a lot.

That's a great weapon, and really good for killing thugs (kind of wasted on anything less). You don't actually need DLC to get one, you can build one quite early in the game from stuff that's lying around.

The key is to keep picking up everything, and repairing and upgrading your weapons as often as possible. Oh yeah, and keep topping up your health, it makes a huge difference in fights.

With all the stuff you can collect at once, I'd love to see the size of rucksack required to hold it all.

You can actually 'store' stuff, but there's no real benefit except possibly simplifying the list. Engine parts? WTF?

Are you lot talking about the old Dead Island still, or the new one (Dying Light, I think)? I haven't played either, just curious!

Has the new one even been released?

I honestly can't remember. I played for an evening with a bunch of friends but we'd all had enough after that one sitting.

Found this:

Ace, will try that out later. Bedtime now!

Yeah, can generally be found for your local equivalent of about £20 or so now, so I guess a couple of months at least. Supposed to be good!

So I finally finished DI after about 90-hours of play. The ending was kind of disappointing IMO (spoiler alert)
The final 'boss battle' was easier than many of the tougher creaturers already encountered e.g. the RAM, the floaters and even the thugs. In fact the 'boss' was a glorified thug who ran around like one of the maniacal, screaming infected. He didn't even have a weapon. So with loads of ammo you have to just keep spraying him with bullets, getting knocked out, rinse and repeat. After a few such cycles, it finally succumbs, you get on a helicopter and fly off to a ship with your virtual playmates. The end.
Anyway I started into the sequel, DI Riptide. It almost overwhelmed my meagre gpu and ran in slomo until I dialed down all settings, and resolution to 1440x900. Loads more detail and taxing fx. In general apart from a protracted initial shibboard battle, it feels like a polished clone of the original, same characters, same island, same zombies. In fact based on that initial shipboard battle, I was hoping it was going to an all-guns-all-the-time kind of game, which would be really different from slowly building a cache of suitable weapons. But that was not to be...

90 hours?! :-O

Is that the level of commitment I've got to put in to completing this game? Damn. Or is the 90 hours made up of doing every sidequest and checking every nook and cranny for energy drinks?

"Or is the 90 hours made up of doing every sidequest and checking every nook and cranny for energy drinks?"

There's a 7-second delay to recover everytime you get knocked out. Do the math.

Ok.

90 hours x 60 = 5400 minutes in game.
5400 x 60 = 324000 seconds.

324000 / 7 = 46285 knockdowns.

Not sure what the point is, but if you've been constantly knocked down that many times, you have a commitment to this game I can't relate too.
 

I probably got knocked down a few hundred times. The rest was spent running from, kicking, stomping, bludgeoning, shooting, slashing, hacking, stabbing, incinerating and/or blowing up living dead; fixing, upgrading, building and selecting weapons; listening to assorted characters' monologues; hanging out at the beach catching some rays; recklessly destroying countless vehicles; surfing, girl-watching, eating in restaurants (mostly fish), and waiting at the airport to get through customs.

Oh and I picked up a gamepad (logitech f310), so I'm going to see how that works (supposedly keyboard & mouse are superior for fps, just want to try it out since I used to play original Ghost Recon with a joystick and that definitely worked better than kb+m). Interestingly, to get the gamepad to work on xp, you have to install ms xbox controller drivers: http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Logitech-G-Controllers/Logitech-F310-Windows-XP-32-bit-Service-Pack-3-My-installation/td-p/619074

Fixed.

Consider it a service.
 

If you have any trouble with it get an xbox controller (for pc). I LOVE my controller.

I find it very interesting, fascinating even. Why, don't you? (drool)

The logitech is half as expensive. I decided to try it out because this game seems to require a lot more keyboard interaction what with kicking, picking up stuff, opening doors and such like. Also driving around is a bit hurky-jerky. Thing needs cruise control.