get ready for the bloodbath of the 21st century
There is a bundle of games that wanted to put you in the position of this specific plot, but where they all fail is the fact that there are to few zombies. The first thing that comes to mind is of course resident evil series. A couple of random zombies here and there, and some boss fights dont cut it. (just for the record, i love the resident evil games) Even though resident evil 4, did have a some more zombies to waste, there is still something missing. I am talking about hordes upon hordes of zombies!!
This is what you get with dead rising, all you can kill gore-fest.
The game puts you in control of a jounalist, who has got wind of mysterious events in a remote city. He hires a pilot to fly him in, because the city has been quarantined for reasons unknown by the army. The helicopter pilot drops you of on the roof of a mall, and you agree on meeting back in three days. So while trying figure out the mystery, you must fight youre way onward, using whatever means necessary, and capturing pictures on your camera as evidence, to make the story public. But you only have three days before youre pickup, so have to be quick.
Does it work? This is obliviously not a yes or no question. The fact that it is unique in its new found genre, says alot about the originality. Nowhere else will you quite get the experience that you do with dead rising.
The good sides, besides the ones that i have mentioned, is that you are totally pinned down by legions of brain hungry zombies, and you must do everything to survive, and you do. This means using everything you find in the mall as weapons, all including park benches, cd covers, potted plants, buckets, shovels....you name it. This is only naming some og the "nice" weapons, if you can find the hardware store...or the weapons store...you get the idea. Now you can really get mean...slice them up with samurai katanas, or carve them up with chainsaws, it doesnt get any bloodier than this. The kind of sickening paradox is that its actually fun, and it will never be to gruesome to watch, it never gets scary in any sense (yeah...it`s very wrong!). Unless you are faint hearted, and not used to the snuffy period games (and If you are, then you should stay away from the game)
The rather not so appealing aspects about the game, or just bad is as follows.
As mentioned, you have three days to get your story, and there is a main story to unfold, which you must follow at any cost, or else you will not complete the game. You have a wrist clock, which is always ticking without any concern about your current state (obviously). In the course of the game, there will be situations, where there are survivors, or other side missions that you can choose to complete, and to cut to the chase, there are always someone in need, and you will chronically have to battle the ticking clock to save somebody, or have time to do the side missions. To save time, you save more people at a time, and you end up escorting dozens. Now remember that there is legions of zombies, and the people you are saving arent as hardcore as you are in slashing your way forward, which means they will always slow you down, or even die, if you dont watch out for them. You could give them weapons to fight for them selves, and where there is a bunch of you kicking ass, its kind of cool and funny. But this doesnt weigh up for the negatives in escorting them in the fist place.
Another reviewer here on gamespot, coined the game "frustrating rising" which is really funny, while describing the game.
I dont want to be overly negative, but there are some other aspects that i also think is worth naming, though they do not influence the game in the sense of gameplay.
The voice acting, is, i wouldnt say bad, but i din`t always think that they match the horrifying experience of the involved main characters. During the opening scenes, and first encounters of zombies, which you will deliver horrible inflictions unto their bodys, the main character doesnt seem very bothered be this, but when in retrospect while in the midst of the game, he will respond with shock and disgust at some of the more trivial incidents in the story. This is also the fact with some of the other characters.
Also the text with some of the informations that are given in the game about some side missons and so one, are really blurry, especially if you have low pixels on your tv.
And lastly but not least, the final fight(s) are really lame. I dont want to reveal the content, but you will end up in a fist fight which is nearly impossible
To sum up, the game is sweet, and will give you much fun. The negatives is substantial in fact, but no so that it weigh negatively in the holistic sense