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.