My first review in a long time...and it's about *BAM*......Dead Rising.
Gameplay:
The very FIRST thing you will notice about Dead Rising, is that it's not what you expect it to be. I know what you're thinkin; I'm gonna' be running around killing zombies over, and over, and over, and over. NO! Despite what you think, Dead Rising is very story driven, telling a tale that applies to the real world around us. You take up the digital camera of Frank West: photojournalist extrordinare. Trapped in a mall full of Zombies, your objective is not to fight...but to survive. The Controls are tight, easy to use if you posses all ten fingers. Although Frank does tend to move like he wears concrete boots it changes once you start leveling up. At your disposal basically...is an entire mall of weaponry. Anything can be a weapon: baseball bat, sledgehammer, gardening shears, swords, axes, guns, your own two hands, ANYTHING. If you can imagine it, you can probably bust a zombie skull or two with it. I honestly have two major gripes with Dead Rising. First, the save stations are placed too far apart...there's nothing more aggrivating like eviscerating 1,000 zombies, leveling up learning a new skill, then having your trachea ripped out of you by a dead-head that was hiding behind that next hard left. Once you get a game over, only two things are happening; you either load your last save...or save your stats and restart the WHOLE game, an option that becomes frustrating once you reach the higher cases. What's the second gripe you ask? The bosses are TOO HARD. Not only are most of the bosses almost superhuman in most regards, but you can only kill them using firearms. Aiming with the multiple guns you'll be using can be a bit tedious thanks to a terrible auto aim system, and a slow but accurate manual aim.
Graphics:
Dead Risings visuals are not going to dethrone Bioshocks or Gears of Wars graphical power anytime soon. It's not all bad though. Textures and locales look quite nice. Frank animates well for each weapon he posses, and the game makes good use of motion blur . What truly will amaze you however are the zombies. I don't know how they managed to pack so many zombies into the enviroment. There are some parts of the game where you will look out over a seemingly endless wave of undead citizens and go: "Oh..my..fu*king..God!"
Audio:
Here's where Dead Rising sadly lacks in performance. Voice acting is subpar at best. Although the zombies sound terrific. Endless groaning, moaning and snarling will have you on edge constantly, always on the lookout for that one rogue zombie that could break through your defense and wreak havoc upon you. Boss fights strangely have a metal song playing as you try to get the upper hand on your enemy. Honestly you can pop on your Ipod for most of the game.
Overall:
Dead Rising is defintely a different game for the new generation of consoles. The rough spots will occasionally piss you off to no end, but unfortunately it's just something you gotta deal with. It's a great experience with high replayability.