The Way a Prologue should be. Top Notch DLC.
For starters, what better way to get your audience ramped up for a new upcoming title then to release a fully playable prologue a few weeks before the release of the full game. Not only did it allow us gamers to get used to the mechanics and features of the new Dead Rising, but it also gave us a well detailed prologue with some solid background to the overall story. Why it even makes us think the developers might actually give a s#@! about the storyline content of the game!? Amazing, ( and thank you Mr. Inafune-san!).
That said lets talk about a few features of the game.
When you get to the first real playable section of the game your tasked with finding the first and only administrable dose of zombrex that Katy your infected daughter will need to survive. This is a constant task you must complete every 24hrs in the full game to continue proceeding through the story line, but once you have the first bottle here you don't really have to worry about any other doses, so its on to the fun stuff.
Work sheds and benches.
Thats right just like Ash in the Evil Dead you'll be able to make your own array of awesome undead killing machines in a few quarantined locations throughout the map. Simply find any objects with the wrench symbol to know they are combinable and take them to the nearest bench and bada bing, you got yourself a fancy killin thing. Figuring out the different combinations is fun and there are tons of them.
Then theres the experience.
As you kill incremental numbers of zombies, save survivors, and complete kills with style, you gain PP. Dead Rising's form of experience you may be familiar with from the first game. As you level up you get more health boxes and inventory slots. Its paced out pretty well so your not leveling constantly but your not trying to reach the next level for ever either. Saving the survivors scattered throughout the map can give you 3-5k PP depending on which case you complete.
Theres a Pawn Shop.
Where you can go to buy rifles, and a few of the other custom weapons. The shop can only be accessed after saving the shop owner who is marooned on top of a van outside the safe house. You can also buy zombrex from him which makes it nice if you need that extra bottle to save the survivors.
The achievements.
Twelve available as per usual and not all of them can be gotten in the first play through forcing you to get your moneys worth out of the title if you want to collect all of the achievements. Thankfully they are not all just collection quests and some of them will have you searching till the last second before the "military arrives." Yea watch out for those guys, they want your daughter!
Overall.
This arcade game is tons of fun for 400 points and will have you playing for hours and most likely multiple times through to completion thanks to all the odds and ends included. It also gives you a well versed introduction on what to expect from the full game.