First-person platforming is always hit and miss (mostly miss), but somehow Dead Island-devs Techland managed to create something enjoyable in the face of adversity (people were still justifiably sore after Dead Island). By setting you up as operative Kyle Crane and pointing you in the direction of a criminal overlord is just the beginning, it's the injection of zombies into the mix that really shake things up. Open-world games truly excel when they manage to master verticality (remember Spider-Man 2?), and it's here when under the cover of darkness, more buffed-up shamblers turn into 28 Days Later sprinters, baying for your blood no matter where you go. It gives the fall of night the required jolt of pure horror, and when you're not trying to stay alive by clobbering the moaning undead with broken pipes and dropkicks, there's an original Assassin's Creed-like "I wonder if I can get up there" feeling of exploration that amps up the rest of the experience.
