Prepare to feel outnumbered...
You copter steering buddy decides to drop you off on top of the ever-popular “Willamette Park View Mall.” As he lets you down, he tells you that he will return to pick you up in 72 hours. The only question is: Can you survive that long?
As you get into the mall, you see that everyone has barricaded the door shut, a smart move. Unfortunately, a foolish old lady decides to knock down the wall of junk to get to her little doggie that is trapped outside. From here, the undead push their way into the massive mall, and the massacre begins!
Once you make it to the security rooms, you find the games other main characters. Brad and Jessie. They are both DHS agents, and are trying to track down someone within the mall.
The security room is basically the only safe space in the game, and you will travel back to it many times. But the second you leave its cradle, prepare to have to kick some zombie tail…a whole lot of zombie tail. One cool thing about Dead Rising is that basically the whole game takes place inside the huge mall. Within it’s walls there are roller coasters, a movie theatre, and a whole park that the mall surrounds. With five plazas, 79 stores, and all of the space between, I think you will find enough to do here for many hours.
The Dead Rising storyline focuses on the remaining survivors, and Frank trying to get his get your story all fit and ready to hit the print. Dead Rising actually has a very good story that thickens as the game progresses, and you feel deeply satisfied by the end.
The game runs off two things in the way of missions, Cases and Scoops. Cases are basically the meat and potatoes of the single player, and the thick of the game. In order to complete the game, you have to get all of these done. Scoops are side missions that you receive by a guy named Otis. Otis is a grumpy old guy who sits back at the security room and tells you what he sees on the monitors via your hand radio. All these are optional, and they mostly involve saving lucky survivors strewn throughout the mall. However, the Scoops can also differ to include some really great boss fights that you won’t want to miss! Despite the interesting set-up of the game, it’s built on an awkward time structure. We know from games like Majora’s Mask that being on time isn’t really a fun gameplay mechanic. In that respect it’s sort of annoying that it’s seen here. If and when you make it late to one of the games Case missions, that’s it. Game over. You have the undesirable choise to just keep playing until the helicopter comes to get you, but when it does you will only wind up with a let down ending, and a violin.
All of this could be aided, but the game only has one save slot. Just one. If you are foolish enough to save where you don’t have enough health, or you current case doesn’t have enough time clocked in on it, you basically screwed. Although I never really had a problem with Dead Rising’s structure and save system, I can see the average gamer getting deeply aggravated.
Dead Rising also features a really great leveling up system. The only way to fill your level bar up is to credit yourself “PP points.” Killing zombies, taking down bosses, saving helpless survivors, and taking pictures, can achieve these. As Frank progresses in level, he will learn truly awesome hand-to-hand moves. In no time he will be karate chopping limbs off, doing roundhouse kicks, and ripping the organs right out of a zombies abdomen! There are 21 skills you can learn, and they are all really, really great. Taking pictures is a lot more fun then it sounds! Just pull the left stick, and you will enter a first person camera perspective where you can drain you batteries on whatever you want! (And yes, you will have to stop at a camera store to refill you film). Your snaps are sorted into horror, outtakes, and erotica. There are a few other little categories that are given for poor shots and otherwise great ones as well.
There is a mess of other optional gameplay mechanics too. You can take any of the malls food (which is normally used to heal yourself) and stick it in a blender and see what comes out! For example, mixing two bags of chips will give you spitfire. If you unequal your weapon, you can then spit in a zombies face, and he will drop to the floor dead…for the second time. You can also read any of the malls books, and you will advance your skills. Some teach you how to do tricks on a skateboard, and some even teach you how to speak Japanese! This becomes helpful when a bunch of foreign tourists are trapped, and you can’t tell what they are saying. Along with pictures and books, you can also change into any of the clothing the mall has to offer. Dresses, children’s cloths, a big horse hat, if you can name it, Frank can wear it. Also, you current outfit will carry over seamlessly into all of games cut scenes, and this can be downright funny.
I have mentioned that you will be killing zombies, and that is pretty obvious. But, the game doesn’t limit you to that. Some of the malls workers have gone insane due to the outbreak, and they all want you dead. Throughout the game you will find absolutely insane storeowners, a Vietnam solider who believes Frank to be a communist, and a crazy chainsaw juggling clown named Adam. All of these tormented souls are extremely well developed, and will make you shudder at how crazy they all are. The duels in which you fight these maniacs in are some of the best boss encounters around. The intensity of some of the fights can be shaking, and you are guaranteed to eat up every second of it.
Now, something Dead Rising is known for, and everyone wants to hear about are the weapons. Can you really pick up everything? No, you can’t, but you can pick up a whole lot of it. Dead Rising boasts the usual suspects, like knives, hammers, shovels, and guns. These alone are really awesome, but you will soon find that the weapons get a little bit more interesting. You can also desecrate the dead with bowling balls, baseball bats, skateboards, golf balls, hockey pucks, and de-tongue them with cloth hangers! Then, things get even odder. You begin to kill you enemies with dinner plates, potted plants, chainsaws, dumbbells, fences, buckets, brooms, and so much more. You can also use useless things, but things you would find in a store none-the-less. These include teddy bears, jewelry, soccer balls, Frisbees, and water guns. If all else fails, you can also just throw a cabbage at an enemy’s crotch, take that, zombie! Through all of Dead Rising’s 200+ weapons, there are a few that are just so great; they deserve their own paragraph. I don’t want tell you all of them, but just a few. The lawn mower is amazing. Start this baby up, and plough through tons of zombie meat, while the blades reject bone matter and guts out the side. The next is the excavator. This is normally used as a digging drill, but you decide to use it as an instrument of death! You can rev it and plunge it through a zombie, and hold him up in the air as he spins around on the drill. His body parts break and fly off in every which way. Gears of War is known for it’s infamous chainsaw bayonet, but I can tell you that the excavator in Dead Rising is 10 times more cool. My friends…this is pure gaming nirvana. All of the weapons in Dead Rising feel really great to use, and they all feel unique. Some of their effects will have you pissing your pants they are so imaginative. You know its Dead Rising when you can clock someone in the face with a TV. To back all of the great weapons Dead Rising has to offer, it even has some unlockable weapons that are really freaking cool. Some of these will have long time Capcom fans shrieking with joy…but I wouldn’t want to spoil those.
From a technical stand point; Dead Rising is a near masterpiece. The graphics and textures seen here are very well done. The mall looks and feels like a real one, and all of the stores differ from each other. The different plazas in the mall also serve to change up the art style, and it really does. As a side note, Dead Rising has some spectacular looking blood. When a zombie’s head is crushed, brain matter and crimson is spewed everywhere, hitting the walls and floor, and even splashing onto Frank! It helps the game to feel that much more brutal.
However, the game isn’t perfect, there are some clipping issues where objects seen in the game world will stick out through walls and floors. It’s not a real big issue though. Also the AI on the survivors you will have to rescue can sometimes be really terrible. Although they all act different, (depending on their age and physical standing) they are all generally stupid. They will mindlessly run into a group of enemies and ignore your orders. However, I never really found a real glitch, so that is definitely something that you don’t have to worry about. The frame rate on Dead Rising is pretty outstanding. You will sometimes be in a space with 800+ zombies on screen, and not notice a hitch. This sort of tuning really sells the whole outnumbered thing. The cinematic movies in Dead Rising are superb. The camera shots they sport really draw you into the story. You will sometimes feel like you are watching a high-end action movie as these scenes roll. They are really that good. The voice work is also very good. Each character has a distinctly different voice, and this supports their personality. This is good because all of the main characters in Dead Rising are glowing with personality. This is mainly seen in the psychopath bosses, and Frank himself.
Dead Rising’s audio is among the best my ears have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I don’t know how they got it to sound so good, but the burst of a zombie’s head is perfect. A mower tearing through flesh is satisfying to the teeth, total perfection here folks. Dead Rising also features an alternative/hardcore soundtrack that mainly plays during the boss encounters. It really brings the ferocious fight even closer, and fits the brutality of the title very well. The Achievements in Dead Rising are all very good. They require you to go back through and play following the completion of Dead Rising’s 12-15 hour single player. They ask you to do some very challenging, but doable things, and some are even worth a chuckle.
So what else is there to say? Dead Rising is one of the best action/adventure games ever. It is one of the few games to do almost everything right, and do it well. This is the complete package, and the real deal. With a lengthy single player, unlockables, and some fun achievements, Dead Rising will wander back into your drive time and time again. (Not to mention Dead Rising’s continuation after the single player, which I don’t want to spoil!) At the end of the day, Dead Rising is not only one of the best games on the Xbox 360, it’s one of the best games ever made. Brimming with blood, guts, gore, and a whole lot of personality. You would be a total fool not to have this game in your collection, buy it and enjoy!
Final Score 9.6/10