Dead Island Riptide: Finish Her!

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Finally deciding it was time to continue the main quest, we journeyed to the dock lands which doubles as the quarantine zone on the island. Despite the high, secure fencing which the zombies still managed to cross, we required an exploding bulldozer to plow our way in - fighting through a bunch of specials that weren't very dangerous since we had a full team. It really was like a curtain call as every type of zombie made at least one appearance.

Eventually we reached the warehouse laboratory that was making the not-quite vaccine. I call it that because upon finding Harlow we see she's been injected and it's not making her better, it's making her crazy... crazy enough to attack us.  For a smallish female she was doing a decent job of knocking us over (hey she managed to kill us a little) and eventually plugged even more mutagen into her to make her more powerful. The only way to beat her now was to do the same, after which we promptly raged on her and tore the stupid, weak and insignificant bitch into pieces.

How Harlow ended up.

Conveniently, there was another boat docked there so we took it just as Serpo came to try stop us. Not sure how he got there unarmed and all, but we didn't listen to his yells this time and left him to be zombie chow. We then went to pickup the rest of our team before escaping out to sea, only I suppose a whole bunch of them died either in the fort defence or the run to the boat because other than the immune we only had the bearded fellow, the doctor and the food lady on board. Nice to point out we didn't actually go back for anyone else, leaving them to their crunchy and hideously gruesome fate. With that we wave so long to Palanai and to the zombies as we sail into the sunset like true zombie survivor heroes... at least until the next expansion. ;)

Dead Island Riptide: Serpo Derpo

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Once all the dead are still, we decide that our next task is to try capture Serpo (if he survived the crash) to then force him to evacuate all of us. Of course his helicopter crashed on pretty much the opposite end of the island meaning we had to trek a fair distance (made longer by the D/C issues that plague this part of the game) before reaching the fort. During this there was a small highlight of me in a rage, sucker punching a wrestler zombie so hard that he went flying... to the moon.

We eventually found the downed chopper. A trail of blood walking away from the crash led us on our merry way to the interior where we eventually found the wounded pilot telling us that Serpo was up in the tower, and also that Serpo should die. No arguments there. Sure enough the suit wearing Serpo was at the top of the tower and we greeted him with a good number of bullets - only the man seemed impervious to them, he must be wearing a bullet proof suit! Instead he just told us that he had captured Harlow previously (when she went missing) and now she's a liability that could spread the disease if she escapes the quarantine zone with the not-quite vaccine mutagen. He promises to get all of us out of there if we stop her first. Why do we keep listening to this idiot?

There's a face you can trust.

Anyway, the rest of the NPCs do another quick cut scene run and this time all survive the trip to the Fort which they patch up as their next base. We on the other hand, decide to piss of Serpo by not going after Harlow and instead doing other things on the map. Just out of spite.

Dead Island Riptide: The Henderson Disconnect

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Henderson at last. Our first task was to push through to a nearby cinema in hopes that it could serve as a base camp, and given the high number of zombies on the tightly packed streets this took longer than usual. Also the disconnects from the game in this city were ridiculously frequent for one of my brothers. Obviously the game wasn't well designed enough for him to play. Still, he persevered as we kept on trucking and finally reached the theatre.

After clearing out the undead patrons we found a French lady named Jacqueline, the owner of the place living off bleach and fumes in the projector room. She was so attached to the theatre that she didn't want to leave, zombie apocalypse or not.

At least she let the rest of our crew in, but when they arrived Harlow was missing. We figure she got chomped along the way though Juris uses his spoilerific prescience to inform us otherwise. Our rest is pretty short as Colonel Hardy sends us out to try make contact with a Major Briggs at a nearby military facility to ask for evac though, so once again we are wading through the zombie filled streets, chainsawing thugs, rams and wrestlers, bashing drowners, and shooting screamers as we go. I should mention there's a ton of side stuff to do here, but we skipped a lot of it due to the previously mention disconnection inconvenience.

Soon we arrived at the outpost and surprise, surprise - the place was overrun. How the heck could a well fortified position with a lot of supplies, mines, wire fences and artillery fall to simple zombies? Oh, because it's a French base. That explains it. I suspect some of them fled like little girls. *twirls moustache*

Dead Island Riptide: Criminal Scum deserve Death

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

With the tunnels drained it was finally time to descend into the darkness to light and clear the way for the rest of our NPC team. The zombies were to be expected, but the gun wielding smugglers at the very end were a welcome surprise. Between the four of us they were easy to defeat and as a bonus provided us with some much needed firearms.

Upon reaching the exit we radioed back for the rest of our people to come through but obviously some zombies respawned on them as Wayne had not only been bitten, but he'd also been pushed into some deadly chemicals by Harlow in an attempt to protect the group. He rapidly mutated into what the game calls a "wrestler", which in my opinion was an improvement - too bad he had to die for us to progress. Took a fair bit to kill him though as he survive a full fuel tank of my chainsaw on him plus a few rounds of rage.

So THAT'S where wrestlers come from.

Once he was out of the way we could progress to the nearby ferry dock which was held by escaped convicts. They were surprised that anyone could survive coming through the tunnels, because obviously only tough customers could accomplish that feat. As expected they then tried to rob us (because criminals are morons) ignoring the fact that we had guns trained on many of their men during the whole conversation.

It was a brief but loud affair, one that saw all those fools put down like the animals they are. Having rescued a captive ferry man it was time to call the ferry, but this involved preparing some high level defences since apparently ferries are loud bastards that summon swarms of zombies. Not to mention that the ferry itself was carrying zombies when it arrived, including a new variety - a screamer, dangerous if you didn't silence her right away. Fortunately with the sudden surplus of ammo, none of this proved troublesome at all and soon we were finally crossing the lagoon to the city of Henderson.

Dead Island Riptide: All Kinds of Crazy

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Finally we reach Marcus Villa's house, only it is inhabited by some locals who deny our entry until we provide them with some medicinal bark. Geesh, we just can't catch a break! Once they are appeased we come in and trash the joint, finding the strange maps we needed. At that point we are called by Paradise camp to return post haste as Marcus Villa is there and acting weird. We get to see how weird when we arrive, with him stating that the immune should be eaten by the others to save mankind. I guess he's a cannibal then?

Since everyone refused the genius sets the entire place on fire, summoning another massive zombie attack which sees specials like floaters, thugs and butchers also participating. Fortunately Harlow arrives via boat after a few waves and everyone (at least I think everyone) escapes and relocates to the nearby fishing village base. At least this place has walls. Annoyingly though as Jim points out, there are no guns... still!

It's ok, maybe they have a battalion of zombie eating plants here.

On planning what to do next Harlow suggests we talk to a Dr. Kessler as he would know about the alternate path to Henderson as well. Why are you only telling us about him now? And where the heck did all these other boats come from? These mysteries and more shall hopefully be revealed in the next session!

Dead Island Riptide: That was a Dead End

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Once we had our hard earned boat we managed to get to the nearby bridge leading to Henderson, except it was broken! Dismayed that we had absolutely no way to cross the lagoon which blocked our path, we had to get our boat (which couldn't possibly cross a lagoon) and make our way back to the fishing village to ask for a different way around. They said this religious leader named Marcus Villa would be able to help, but he was currently missing. It was easy enough to actually find him but those people really didn't want to leave their compound.

After saving Marcus he told us of some maps that could help us cross the lagoon at his house, and as a bonus the fishing village actually let us into their safe zone which was great. We met more people who needed more things done, medicine (and some shrooms) related mostly, so we went and did those first. One of them was pretty bad in that the infected runners would not stop spawning in a particular area. Fortunately we managed to push through and collect whatever it was we were after (drugs I think) and that made them stop falling out of the sky.

Swinging by "Paradise" to drop off more gear and build more weaponry (most of which is ludicrous) we noticed that boats have begun popping up everywhere, including right beside the first base camp. We kinda want to kill Harlow now for sending us all the way across the damned island to build one. >:(

I guess we'll let it slide since she did pull us from the beach.

Dead Island Riptide: Deus Ex Machina

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Even though we cleared out the massive hordes and saved everyone at "Paradise" the place was just NOT defendable. To that end our priority became helping one of the women there go about setting up defences such as electrified fencing and creating mines. While we were out looking for components of those we were also picking up any canned food for the camp we came across. Interestingly every single one of the NPCs had side-mission fetch quests that would in turn boost their own rank, letting them create better gear to trade or maybe just fight harder.

All that and other weird jobs like saving a movie director's camera and fetching some pot head his drugs really kept us busy and a tad distracted from our "main" objective of finding a boat to get to the nearby city of Henderson. Harlow suggested we check out the nearby fishing village but all of theirs had already been taken. We had to go foraging much deeper into the swamp (monsoon season) before we came across one - the only one in the swamp apparently, and even then we needed to install an outboard motor on it.

Would be a lot less zombies if these were in the game.

 

Now's a good time to mention the zombies here are a good deal more dangerous than the ones on the last island. Sure they are all still the same types as we've met before but it seems our team is being downed more often on our expeditions this time around. Maybe there are just more of them? Also, I'm really loving this chainsaw we came across as it is really handy for chopping up the slow, tank type enemies who have trouble turning around.

Dead Island Riptide: Can't Escape from Paradise

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Previously on Dead Island, we escaped from a zombie infected island via helicopter along with random convict guy as well as most-likely infected native girl and specimen zero leaving everyone else who helped us out to their gruesome and crunchy deaths. It was a stroke of luck then that before our fuel ran out we found an Australian Navy vessel to land on where we were immediately arrested by one Colonel Hardy under the orders of the suit wearing man Mr. Frank Serpo. Unfortunately while being transported to holding one of the soldiers got bit by the native girl. Guess what happened next?

Here we go again!

Alone in the chaos of the zombie ship (solo mission only) I managed to escape the cell and fight my way through zombified scum to the bridge but was just too late to drop that anchor. With a sudden jolt the ship ran aground on some reefs and I found myself falling into the water. Eventually I awoke on the shore, saved by some girl named Harlow who conveniently saved all the other immune survivors plus the Colonel as well. She was telling us to be careful because some sort of disease was spreading on these islands (called Palanai) too and no, it wasn't Syphilis.

It was a good thing she saved all of us too, because all hands were needed once we arrived at the nearby "Paradise" beach resort as the zombies were attacking in full force.