Welcome to the paradise island of Banoi. You’ll love the our sun-drenched beaches, crisp blue oceans and hordes of bikini-clad undead monsters ready to eat you alive. Hope you enjoy your stay!

That’s the basic set up for first person open world RPG, Dead Island. The holiday island of Banoi has become infected, overrun with mindless zombies and you’re the only person who can help. It’s like a cross between Lost and 28 Days Later.

The meat of the game entails running errands for other survivors dotted around the resort. As your character is immune to the zombie virus, that makes you the island dogsbody, running (or driving) about collecting  essential items such a teddy bear or a lost necklace. Combat with the zombies is basic, mostly based on smashing up zombies with shovels or crowbars. Guns are scarce, but there’s fun to be had mowing down the evil corpses in 4x4s. You’ll also need to forage for items to upgrade your limited weapons with. Like a beefed-up rag and bone man, most of your time is spent trawling the island for tat. There are so many abandoned suitcases and cupboards to open on Banoi, with each one containing some ‘scrap metal’ or some ‘nails’ it soon becomes a chore. You’d have more fun battling an IKEA bathroom cabinet than spending an hour ransacking a beach hut for some duct tape for your cracked baseball bat.

Fighting off one or two zombies is a doddle, buy when a whole gang attacks, it’s almost impossible to fight them off. This means dying is a frequent and frustrating experience, rather than a frightening one.

Sadly, that’s Dead Island’s biggest flaw. It just isn’t very scary. The holiday setting isn’t enough to differentiate it from similar zombie slashers like Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead, and the non-playable characters are clichéd potty-mouthed bores.

Dead Island is a fun game that gets receptive very quickly. With no strong plot to keep your attention, there’s little else to do but bash up undead hordes with a meat cleaver. Which isn’t a bad way to spend half an hour. But ultimately, Dead Island lacks the same stuff that zombies do – brains.