Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch

In recent times we have had a big wave of games with the premise of surviving in an inhospitable environment, exploring open worlds, setting your own goals and priorities, hunting, gathering and crafting new items and equipment. Radiation Island arrives on the Switch ported from a game that had reasonable success on smartphones… But that perhaps should have remained exclusive to the mobile market.

Story: 6

Radiation Island presents only a basic structure that we can call a story, so the game’s focus is clearly on survival and exploration and not on its motivations or the history of this world.

All we know at first is that you worked on a secret project and end up being transported to an isolated island. You soon realize that this inhospitable place is actually separated from your reality, and that strange events are unfolding there. The huts and military buildings found around the island suggest that strange experiments were (and perhaps still are) being conducted there. There is a constant threat of radiation poisoning and you soon come across zombies and mutant creatures, most likely the results of research and tests that went wrong.

Mechanics: 9

The focus of Radiation Island is on its survival mechanics, and this becomes quite clear within a few minutes of play. After a short cutscene and few explanations, you are greeted with a lean, direct tutorial and then left to your own devices… With nothing more than the clothes on your back and the rudimentary tools you have just learned to build. You constantly feel vulnerable and absolutely unprepared for the dangers lurking around every corner and in every shadow of this cursed place.

At your disposal are only the resources of nature itself (animal, vegetable and mineral), and it is up to you to obtain them and build the tools needed to develop an arsenal that keeps you minimally safe. The crafting system is quite simple and direct, presenting the full list of everything that can be created and indicating the ingredients needed for each. Thus, the game’s focus moves away from experimentation and research into materials and tools and turns more to exploration and survival, with special attention to gathering resources and managing your (extremely limited) inventory.

The game has 3 difficulty levels: one that eliminates almost all the world’s dangers and lets you explore and discover the story of the Philadelphia project, another that balances difficulty and narrative, and finally one that should only be chosen by those who wish to taste all the oppression and harsh reality of surviving abandoned on an island full of dangers and terrors.

Despite offering a good selection of short- and long-range weapons, Radiation Island does not offer a good combat experience. Its movement and attack animations are choppy and make even encounters that are supposed to be simple quite difficult. But even this “flaw” contributes to building a hostile environment, where everything and everyone presents a real danger, no matter how well prepared you think you are.

The game shows an icon in the upper left corner to indicate the proximity of life forms, and uses different images to express the degree of danger. In addition, you need to worry about your health, your hunger, exposure to radiation and low temperatures, requiring you to seek shelter or prepare specific clothing to deal with each situation. Overall, the game conveys well how brutal the experience of being a castaway stuck on an island is, where the environment and nature themselves are obstacles to your survival… Plus the addition of radiation and mutants hunting you.

The game also has a journal, which compiles the notes you find around the world and other information about your progress. It is a good way to build some story and explain a bit of what happened and what is happening, as well as helping to define and organize your goals in the game. In addition, the presentation of this journal also matches the game’s style and helps create the atmosphere of survival in a place of extreme danger.

Audio and visuals: 6

The game constantly plays quiet, low music, and does an excellent job of creating constant tension. In addition, in certain places and moments there are strange, almost alien sounds that disturb you and put you on alert. All the sound effects work in harmony to keep you attentive and stressed.

Unfortunately the visual work does not have the same finesse. All the models and settings seem to be made with a very low polygon count and use equally poor textures. And still, more distant objects and buildings are only rendered as you get closer, so certain things “pop in” in a space that looked unoccupied. The Switch has already shown it has the power to handle good graphics even when there is a lot of information on screen, so the impression is that the engine used in Radiation Island was very poorly adjusted for use on the Switch. The visual experience ends up resembling that of games from two generations ago.

Final thoughts

Radiation Island has an interesting proposal and manages an excellent job creating an inhospitable and oppressive environment. The environmental threats, the crafting system and the upkeep of your health are well-established mechanics that fill you with the desire to dive headfirst into this world and test your survival skills.

Unfortunately the unpolished gameplay and outdated graphics spoil the experience a lot, and should make a good part of players walk away from the game in search of a similar but better adventure.

Score

Story = 6

Mechanics = 9

Audio and visuals = 6

Overall: 7

Played on the Nintendo Switch version.