Dead Rising

Title: Dead Rising
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: August 8, 2006
Date Played: June 2012
Time Played: 30 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5




Opinion:
Dead Rising played a huge part in transitioning me from an exclusively PC gamer to a Console enthusiast. It was E3 2006, Zombies were the next big thing and Dead Rising was making gaming headlines with it's sandbox gameplay and the ability to go anywhere and use anything as a weapon. Zombies numbered in hundreds, and textures (graphics in general) were as good, if not better than blockbuster PC titles of that year.

Prior to seeing  trailers and interviews for Dead Rising I didn't really care about the Xbox. But finding out that it was going to be an Xbox 360 exclusive changed my mind rather rapidly. It looked amazing and unique, and the gameplay style seemed to be right up my alley. I had to get it one way or another.

The basic premise of the game is this. There is something weird going on in the town of Willamette, the road is blocked off by the military and you (journalist Frank West), hitch a ride the only way you can, via a helicopter. You get dropped off at the local mall and tell the pilot to come back for you in 72 hours. From that point on, Dead Rising is whatever game you want it to be. You can explore the mall, you can go looting stores for cool things to use as weapons, you can follow the in game "cases", which are sort of main plot threads, each of which can be failed or completed successfully and depending on how you do it will lead to different threads and endings. While doing all or none of the above you run into other survivors, whom you can rescue, kill or simply abandon. Sometimes you run into psychopaths, which are non zombie enemies, usually presented with a cutscene, and also usually pretty messed up in the head. The psychopaths can be incredibly tough and are considered to be the "bosses" of the game.  Dead Rising gives you an unprecedented amount of freedom when it comes to style of gameplay, and the half a dozen or so endings greatly complement that by giving you different outcomes based on your actions.

Like My Pinpin Suit?

It is 2012, it has been nearly 6 years since this game came out. If I was so excited about it, why did I wait so long to play it? Well, I didnt. I tried playing Dead Rising in 2007, and then 2008, and then 2009, then 2010, and after that 2011, and finally in June 2012. Say what? You may say... and to that my friend I will respond with "Dead Rising is a freaking hard game!" This is evident by the fact that it is made in such a way that you are meant to die again and again. Because you see, it has RPG elements. Frank will level up, gain new skills and generally becomes better at things (more health, more weapon slots, becomes faster and stronger), all of this comes with levels (cap is 50, which I reached). Once you die, you get to keep your level and skills. So you are meant to level up a bit, die, restart, level up a bit, die, restart and so on. In general this is not an issue because it is very fun to just run around and kill zombies without worrying about quests, survivors, or story, and that is exactly what I did. I screwed around like that until I got to about level 30, which tripled my health and inventory. It also made me a lot faster and gave me access to better weapons (Mega Man blaster.) And even at that level I ended up dying a few times during the campaign.

Is that it you may ask? Nope... you see back in 2006 we were just beginning to standardize controls, so of course seeing how Dead Rising is from a Japanese developer (Capcom) the controls are super weird. Your right trigger+left stick aims, which is the complete opposite of modern day standard of left trigger + right stick. X accelerated and A brakes, which nowadays A accelerates and B brakes. Is that it? Nope! The health system is based on food items, and starting out with 4 blocks of health at level 1 means that you better make it to somewhere that has some food without being touched or shot at by someone more than 3 times before getting there. But you can just quicksave when you know you are heading into a dangerous situation right? Nope! You can only save in a very few places in the whole game, and if you are at 1 or 2 health and the save point is across the game world, welp you better cross your fingers that you will not run into a psychopath or be mauled by a horde of zombies on the way there. Items break extremely fast if you do not have specific magazines (power ups) to make them last longer, which do take up extra inventory slots. Bottom line is, Dead Rising is a freaking hard game. Fun, very fun, in fact a total blast once you get the hang of it and have some levels under your belt, but still hard. It is this difficulty curve what kept me from playing it extensively all these years. I would find myself putting it in, playing for a few hours and being frustrated with the controls and deaths, and just giving up. What I did differently this time is that I gained a bunch of levels and then headed out to be a detective and solve the mystery of where the zombies came from.

One major problem with Dead Rising is it's AI. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to escort a survivor in this game. They constantly get mauled by zombies and seemigly purposefully run into giant groups of them instead of just running around. It got to the point where I got fed up with them and basically decided that if they cant follow the path I cleared then they deserve their fate. As such I ended up rescuing 14 people out of the possible 50ish. I will say this though, there are very few people in the world that have rescued 50 (there is an achievement for that). Overall though the survivor AI is the only major issue with Dead Rising. The control issues are to be expected from a Japanese game of that era (nothing they could have really done at the time), and the difficulty, saving, health and all that stuff although could be frustrating, it actually complements the game by creating tension the entire time you are playing. You always feel threatened, and that in my opinion is exactly how one should feel when surrounded by 53594 zombies (population of Willamette).

Dead Rising is a great game! It does suffer a bit from being (at this point) nearly 6 years old. Nevertheless it still looks great, in fact it looks better than a lot of games that come out today, and once you get used to its intricacies (controls and other systems), it can be a great deal of fun. I had an absolute blast with it, and here is an invaluable pro tip to anyone that wants to check it out. First thing you do is go to the parking garage, get in the car and get 53594 zombie kills, this will yield you the Mega Man blaster, which will make the difficulty curve not nearly as steep, especially when fighting the psychopaths. Do not try to beat the game on the first playthrough, you will just get frustrated, instead get some levels first (killing 53594 zombies will get you to level 30ish).

Dead Rising remains a fairly unique game. It can be great in a party athosphere where you run around the mall and for the lack of a better word "dick" around. Or as an engaging thriller game where you try to solve the mystery behind the outbreak. Either way, I would definitelly recommend Dead Rising.

PS - Thing of note, Dead Rising has incredible replayability value. Once you beat the game you unlock Infinity Mode, goal of which is to survive as long as you can, scouring for food and doing your best not to get bitten. The longest time anyone ever survived was a bit over 17 days (34 real life hours.)

Finishing the 72 Hour Mode