Although I prefer FPS (first person shooters) to the 3rd person adventure games, I loved the latest installments of the Lara Croft and the Hitman series games. As of this writing, I have completed Dead Rising in the 72 hour mode and am now replaying the game to try to earn all of the achievements.
Dead Rising is a brand-new genre for the Xbox 360. It's closest cousin is Condemned, a first person horror adventure game but Dead Rising has a number of unique features that set it apart. First off, you can pick up just about anything in the area and use it as a weapon. Potted plants, lawnmowers and even an electric guitar are all at your disposal. There are easily hundreds of potential weapons in this game and part of the fun is discovering new ways to fight off zombies with what you have available at hand.
Adding to the distinct style of Dead Rising is the ability to customize your character. As you make your way through the mall, you can try on new clothing available from the various shops. Cool suits, fashionable glasses and, yes, even women's and children's apparel is fair game to put on. Besides wearing it as you battle the zombies, your character will also appear as you have dressed him during the video cut-scenes, which is a nice extra touch I was delighted to see. Food has also been given special "abilities" in the game. For example, you might find a frozen or raw food somewhere in the mall. If you eat it, you earn one or two points of health. But pop it into an oven before you eat it, and it will completely fill your health meter. Likewise, you can mix certain fluids in a blender can make an extra powerful energy drink!
If you can't tell by everything I've already mentioned, this game is deep. I've only touched the surface to avoid revealing any spoilers, but trust me when I say you can get totally wrapped up in this game. The plot, the game and every little thing (be sure to check out the bookstore!) in the vast mall has been developed with so much detail that you'll find yourself enthralled by it.
However, when undertaking such an ambitious project, there have to be some downfalls. The absolutely worst is the save game methodology. The developers have decided that you must find a restroom or a couch to save. While this seemed cute and clever at first, it quickly became frustrating and enraging (when you couldn't find one right before you got forced into a boss fight). Every player on the planet will find this feature problematic, I guarantee.
One thing that other reviewers haven't mentioned is that some of the level bosses (called "Psychopaths") are redundant or unfairly matched. For example, often you'll be faced with enemies with devastating long-range weapons when all you have is a knife or 2x4 to try and knock out your opponent with. In another boss attack, I literally started at a save point and had to go through two full levels to face a boss who would inevitably defeat me and then I'd have to start all over again. These opponents often have a move that will completely incapacitate you in a single swipe, even when you have full health. This, combined with the fact that you will often have to run halfway across the map (where your last game save was) to repeat the battle, makes the game incredibly annoying. If you could ammo up, then save right before the boss battle, the game would be considerably more enjoyable.
Another item, although mentioned by others in a different light, is the text-based mission objectives. Many reviewers have stated that the text is almost unreadable on smaller, standard definition televisions. However, my biggest complaint in this area is that the text is used at all. This game, by its very nature, is immersive. When you're trapped in a mall and having to fight zillions of zombies, you shouldn't have to stop to read the text of another character. I honestly wish Capcom had spent a little extra time and money to change all of the text interactions to spoken instructions. Not only would this have solved their biggest technical problem with the game, it would have also helped keep the suspense.
Finally, there's a lot of "load-screen-itis" in this game. And by that, I mean that you'll be seeing a lot of the loading screen. Granted, the mall is a huge environment, and the load times are a snappy 5-6 seconds, but it gets annoying when you walk into an elevator and wait, walk down a hallway and wait, turn left and wait... You get the picture.
There is no online component to allow multiplayer (which would be awesome!) but Dead Rising does have downloadable content from Xbox Live. It was available just days after the game released and consists of eight "keys" which unlock several new outfits for the main character, available at no charge. As you'd expect, the game also supports Xbox Achievements, with 50 of them to earn, each worth 20 Gamerscore points. You'll have to spend hundreds (if not thousands!) of hours in this game trying to obtain all of these objectives and I don't consider many of them a "walk in the park."
Honestly, it seems like I'm spending a lot of time picking on the problems of this game, but they will plague you as you try to play through the levels. But when it comes right down to it, this game has all 5 "Es" that make it a powerhouse: Exciting plot, Engaging environments, Enlightening characters, 360 Exclusivity and Encredible customization! (OK, that last one wasn't an "E" but you'll have to forgive me, just like you'll have to forgive certain flaws in this game!) In short, you should definitely pick this game up, but love it for everything it accomplishes while forgiving it for the technical problems that it has. I give it a solid 5 stars for fun, but a 3 star rating for the inherent problems.
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Expectations can basically make or break this game. The problem I had w/ it and I think most others do is the fact we wanted to freely roam the mall while killing off as many zombies as we wanted with all the cool weapons avaliable. There would be a story to follow, but not in the annoying way it was implemented.
What CAPCOM delivered is slighly different from what most expected. The game takes place over 3 days, and within those 3 days you have to follow the game's main storyline within set time limits. Let clarify on that... you MUST get to certain story events within a certain time or you will loose out on the main story of the game. Side quests are avaliable, but you must pick and choose a few to do here and there because if you spend too much time on them, you will end up missing the main story. The game is made in such a way to MAKE you replay it two or three times atleast if you want to explore all the side quests and try to find all the cool weapons and things to see.
The issue with saving the game goes right along with the above... the developer didnt want you to be able to have multisaves and say take a different path or what not... they limited you to ONE save per XBOX360 profile. Everytime you save, you overwrite the last save. No other option. You can only save at the bathrooms and the safehouse. There is usually one save spot near each area, but it makes it a pain to save your progress.
Escort missings are a pain aswell as the people you try to save are extremly stupid. They try to fight zombies (and usually loose) and take forever to get where you call them to. You have to call for them over and over to try to direct them to safety.. again not so much fun.
The above reasons make you feel like the game is somewhat "job" like as it forces you to adhere to these requirements it has forcefully. It takes the edge off what could have been a five star game.
Why is the game still great? Well, it's extremly fun to go around killing zombies w/ just about everything you find along the mall stores (hedge clippers, chainsaws, bats, purses, etc..) and the game runs fast and smooth w/ nice looking visuals. Going around killing batches after batches of zombies just doesn't get old! Facial expressions look great and the zombie/weapon/voice sounds are perfect for the game. The voice acting great too IMO... its a shame that the few people you see in the game dont talk, you simply recieve subtitles for them.
I think the demo of the game also lead people to believe the game would be more free roaming that it actually is (fooled me) and that also plays a part in the initial dissapointment many are experiencing. Once you get over the fact that the you tied down by the clock and the subpar save system, you will enjoy the game though! Recommended!
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Well, I have been enjoying Dead Rising for a week now and I can't honestly think of a game out there that is more fun than this one. While I do agree with everone else that the small font puts a damper on the mood, I have just learned to move on with it. I can read it but it is tough on the old eyes. I have a standard def 36" WEGA and while it is small, it is legible. I will try it on my parents 61" Hidef this weekend to see any difference. I can only imagine what the graphics look like if they look this great on my standard def TV.
This game is very deep. The save feature is disappointing and you will find that you will learn to constantly bring up the map to check for save points. After you play for a hour or more and die and have to replay through it, you quickly learn. Another thing I don't care for is having to restart the game if you miss a "scoop" and it throws the rest of the game out. You can still play and do the missions, atleast for a while but you can no longer find the truth. This happened to me twice. The first time, I just plain didn't realize that it would happen and did not do the scoop missions in a timely manner. The second time I played through it, I thought I was doing great time and kept checking the watch (another feature you learn to do quite often) and when it said my next mission would begin at 3:00, I noticed that when it turned to 4:00, the missions ended and once again I lost the remainder of the scoop missions. Learn to watch the scoop timelines. They will slowly count down and turn colors to warn you. I guess I just had too much fun whacking zombies and lost track of the in game time.
The depth of this game comes from the many ways in which to dispose of zombies. You can pretty much use ANYTHING in the game to take them out. One spot had me pick up a power auger, which is used to dig post holes. I stuck a zombie and cranked the gas and watched him spin around. Then, I proceeded to walk through the crowd of zombies and take them out. In the process of this, the zombie spinning on my auger started to break apart. This was a great laugh. Again, you can use pretty much everything in the game and while most do eventually tear up, you can always find something else. Another fun part was walking to the other end of the mall through the Leisure Park and seeing a push mower/brushhog and mowing down the crowd of zombies.
I was completely impressed with the graphics of this game. While the zombies do tend to look a lot alike, the environment is just gorgeous. Capcom did a great job to put so many of the zombies onscreen at once. Later through the game, you will encounter bosses that can be difficult to beat. Just be sure to save before you fight a boss, although the first time around it is hard because you don't know when you will fight a boss. You enter a store and then wham, you have a boss fight. As you play through the game, you are encouraged to take pictures and help escort people to the security room, which is basically your home base. You will see that if you can capture pictures that pick up on drama or horror or even erotica, among others, will get you more points and these points along with the points for saving people will get you to level up which will help you increase your life or the amount of things you can carry or unlock special moves.
This is definitely not a game for the younger crowd as it is very gory. I think Capcom has a hit on their hands and hopefully they can work it into a sequel in some way with improvements to the aforementioned bumps but hopefully they will get a patch over Live to help correct the text problems. Most of the time during the normal text there is not much voice over work. During the cutscenes, which are nicely animated, there is no problem as their is good voice over acting, incredible good when compared to the Resident Evil series. You won't go wrong with this game. It is a great game to enjoy so long as you are old enough to understand that things that you can do in the game can't be done in real life. As dumb as that sounds, there are those out there who might want to recreate something they did in the game.
Enjoy this game and know that you will die often and have to repeat things over again but for the majority, it isn't a problem as things aren't often the same way the second time around, except for cutscenes of course. That is another great thing about this game, the repayability is incredibly deep. Forgive the text, the dumb AI and the lousy save functions and enjoy the game for what it got right.
Honest reviews on Dead Rising - Xbox 360
I'm going to get straight to the point. This game rocks, but has a few SEVERE flaws. Really dissapointing becuase this COULD have been the greatest game ever made. Unfortunately, it falls short, yet i still recomend it. I'm sure you are reading a lot of negative press, maybe even a lot of positive too. So if you are trying to decide what to do, my opinion is despite all the problems, this is a must have game if...
You like zombies (games, movies, etc)
you like the resident evil series
you want a fun game that will last you a long time
Really, there is a lot of good, but i will actually cover the bad, i'm sure none of this will be new judging by other reviews but here we go!
The VERY bad....
1) Saves...???? what were they thinking? ONE spot? Come on, it's not a cartridge game for crying out loud! I don't want to start over and over and OVER again because the bosses are insanely hard.
2) THAT STUPID CELL PHONE DOESN"T STOP RINGING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and it won't either until you answer it, THEIR IS NO HOPE SO JUST GIVE IN AND DO IT OR ELSE IT NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER stops ringing. I wish you could just kill otis and feed him to the zombies and keep ringing his phone while they eat him, see how he likes it. That is BY FAR the MOST ANNOYING aspect of the game, BY FAR
3) The people you have to rescue are RETARDED! They DO NOT follow commands and it is EXTREMELY frustrating having to continuosly backtrack to rescure them from a swarm of zombies only to have the other person you are trying to rescue die because of it. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!
Why are they so stupid? Take my advice, never try to rescue more than 2 people at once. Forget it, just leave them to be zombie food. It's not worth it!
4) I'm not wearing a telescope on my head, I am not a human magnifying lens, and I don't own a TV as big as a house so WHAT GIVES WITH THE SMALL SUBTITLES? Would it have killed you to spend five extra seconds working on it? This is a 360 not a NES, why not just have the characters voice it out? It's SUPPOSED to be a next generation game isn't it?
5)Aiming with a handgun, or any gun for that matter...UNFORGIVABLE. What happened to the resdient evil auto aim?
Despite these MAJOR flaws, which I guarantee will SEVERLY upset you and bring the overall experience down, I still highly recomend this game. It was my first 360 game and even though it needs work I love it.
I'm sure with capcom this game was a "test run" for a new resident evil, but if you make a sequal PLEASE GET RID OF THAT STUPID PHONE, and be kind enough to fix the flaws. Remember, the consumer who buys this pays YOUR salary, so have a little consideration
Now go out and get this game, don't be scared because of the flaws. You may end up liking it after all, I did. Still makes me mad though. ALMOST PERFECT!
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To paraphrase a Marine Corps saying: "Killing zombies is easy and fun". At least, it is when you're playing "Dead Rising", the latest zombie title from Capcom.
But let me clarify the above point a bit. When I say "easy", I'm talking about dealing with individual zombies or small groups of them. As one character tells you in the beginning, "The good news is, zombies are slow and stupid!" The bad news is that what the shuffling undead lack in speed and smarts, they make up for in sheer numbers. Dealing with one zombie is easy, dealing with 20 is a whole other matter.
"Dead Rising" puts you in the shoes of Frank West, a freelance photographer who gets wind of something going down in the secluded Colorado town of Willamette. After bypassing military roadblocks by hiring a helicopter to ferry you in, you touch down at the local mall to investigate.
The early stage of the game is peppered with quite a few cutscenes, but they are surprisingly engaging and set up an intriguing storyline. The character models are alarmingly realistic, right down to those wispy hairs women have on their cheeks, but there are quite a few uncanny valley moments.
As Frank explores the mall, you will discover vast array of zombie-killing implements, each with their own unique effects. In just an hour or so of play last night, I used a lead pipe, a 2x4, a baseball bat, a golf club, a cleaver, a sickle, and a pistol. The sickle was particularly satisfying. After Frank buries it in a zombie's neck, he dislodges it by bracing a foot against its chest and kicking it off, which has the effect of decapitating zombie in a gush of blood. I guess that why they say sickles really satisfy.
But even zombie-hacking would get old after a while, and so it's to Capcom's credit that they've designed a deeper and more engaging game. Frank's real objective is not to mow down endless numbers of zombies, but rather to uncover what the hell has gone so horribly wrong in Willamette. He does this by tracking down survivors and piecing together information from a couple of apparent government agents also trapped in the mall.
Frank also has to document what is happening by taking photos. The game walks you through a tutorial that instructs you on how to compose pictures with horrific, dramatic or erotic compositions. The more of those elements you can squeeze into a photo, the more "player points" you earn and the faster your skills improve.
There are also plenty of side missions, from checking out mysterious developments to rescuing other characters and leading them to safety.
I do, however, have two complaints. One is about the camera. Instead of staying right behind Frank all the time, he can rotate in your field of view so that what he's looking at isn't necessarily what you're looking. Sure, you can reorient the camera behind him with a click of the thumbstick, but it's still annoying, especialy when you're beset by a dozen zombies coming from all sides. It also makes it hard to use aimed weapons like the pistol.
The other complaint is about the save system. Basically, you have one save slot, and you can only save at your "home base" of the security room, or in the mall's bathrooms. Unfortunately, you can find yourself quite a ways away from those places while carrying out a mission, and if you die, you've just lost a good chunk of progress. Also, from some of the reviews, the single save slot can also be problematic because many of the missions are timed, and if you save at the wrong point, you may not have enough time to complete the mission, requiring a total restart.
Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to some good old-fashioned zombie bashing, with a bit o' "X-Files"-style conspiracy thrown in to boot. If you're antsy for some good 360 action during the summer lull, it'd be worth your time to check out "Dead Rising".
