Clunky yet fun
User Rating: 7.7 | Dead Rising X360
Dead Rising is for zombie fans that often fantisize of the day when the dead walk the earth. Where an entire town is consumed by the undead. Inspired by the movie Dawn of the Dead, Dead Rising follow's Frank West, a photo journalist, into the bowels of a Colorado town where a virus outbreak is spreading. Turning the living into zombie's. Capcom has the player fetching after different objects and weapons similarily found in other games like Resident Evil, in order to progress through the game - but less monotonous. The environment and atmosphere of Dead Rising isn't as spooky as I once thought it would be. It's more anticipation than anything else. The gameplay, at first, is clunky and unforgiving. Sometimes the bosses that are in the game won't let you get back up when fallen to the ground. They'll either use a vehicle to do donuts of the chest of Frank West, or by hitting him when he's finally able to get back up. Sometimes this process will happen over and over again until the player die's. The Y button, for instance, is used to call out to other survivors that is found within the shopping mall to lead them to a safer area. The problem with this is you would think that someone would write a better code for the AI characters, not just in Dead Rising but in other games also. The surviving characters are as dumb as brinks, sometimes forcing the player to literally hold their hand throughout the mall. One look at a zombie and the surviving character will stop and cry. Seriously, they'll stop and cry. Even after giving them a weapon they'll still sit there and won't move. The right trigger allow's the player to aim while the X button is to fire or throw the weapon or object. The downside of this is the character can't move while aiming, leaving the player temporarily vulnerable for open shots by bosses or an open opportunity for zombies to latch onto the character from either the side or back. The game isn't a total disaster though. Frank West is able to pick up various different weapons from shotguns, night sticks, katana's, battle axes, and objects such as park benches, manquins, and car batteries to use them as weapons. The player can even mix different juices together to form different effects to help Frank fight off zombie attacks. Dead Rising also has RPG element's to the game which has the player racking up skills and attack moves. To build up said skills and unlock different attacks the player will need to collect Prestege Points which will then help the character to level up. By collecting PP ( Prestege Points) the player will either need to save survivors from zombified doom, or by taking pictures of dramatic situations or action events such as snapping a shot right when someone get's eaten. The graphics is spot on - almost real. The gore effects could of been a little bit better but then again the technology used in today's console's isn't there just yet in terms of realism. The sound is great especially when smacking a zombie across the face with a lead pipe can be a little nasty to hear at times. And the amount of depth that is put into this game is amazing. Although the frustrations of Dead Rising can get a little overwhelming at times, it's best to take a break and trudge through till the end. It's worth it.
