Dead Rising
by Capcom
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Product Summary
Brand: CapcomAudio: English (Unknown)
Published: 2006-08-09
Release Date: 2006-08-08
Platform: Xbox 360
Model: 13388330010
Publisher: Capcom
Product features:
- Real-time gameplay - Time marches on whether Frank is actively engaged or simply stationary
- Dynamic enemies - Record numbers of zombies will come at you & react to their environment -- each has unique behaviors and appearances
- The variety of stores will give you weapons aplenty - an endless supply of vehicles, makeshift weapons, and food are waiting for you
- Encounter other survivors along the way -- helping them will give you more clues as to what has happened and what you need to do to stop it
- Visual clarity - Playing in native 720p resolution allows for unprecedented detail and clarity in gameplay
Video Game Reviews of Dead Rising
Customer Review: Tedious and Repetitive...
Summary: 2 Stars
How many times can slashing up zombies be interesting before it gets very, VERY old? That is the question 'Dead Rising' asks it's players as you play as a photojournalist sent to Willamette, Colorado (which must not be too far away from Raccoon City) to investigate a zombie outbreak in the town that has centered around the shopping mall.
You're dropped off to the mall via helicopter and have a little over three days to investigate the "truth" behind the matter. Now, this game uses a Level-Up system to increase such abilities as speed and attack power as you kill more zombies, find out more scoops, rescue survivors, and learn more info about the outbreak. You level up via PP points. The good news is, you carry over these points for as long as you play the game, meaning even if you start all over again, or play it again after gettin gto the end, you'll still keep all of your power. The bad news is, the FIRST time you play it, you'll be so weak (and incredibly SLOW) that you won't get to find out the main storyline behind the game. This essentially makes you have to replay the whole thing over again just to be capable of playing the "true" part of the game.
As you spend days in the mall, you'll be tasked to save survivors and find out more about certain stories ("Scoops") that are going on within the mall. All of these are mostly optional, but the main storyline of the game is what you want to focus on. All of the scoops either involve saving trapped survivors in certain parts of this huge (and very poorly-designed) shopping mall complex or will be a boss fight between large and dangerous psychopaths who have gone crazy in the chaos of the zombie infection. The problem with ALL of these are the time limits, and the time limits are what KILL the fun you could've or might've had in this game. Although I'm sure some people like the 'challenge' of the time limits, the fact of the matter is, the simulated time in the game moves MUCH too quickly and the scoops that come by are way too many for you to handle without full Lv. 50 status, and even then, you won't be able to do too much more. You WON'T be able to save everyone or do everything in the very short amount of time given (especially when you play for the FIRST time and all of your skills are piss-poor). If you can't get to someone in time, you will miss out on being able to save them or get a good scoop. And when you first play, your poor skills will result in you missing virtually EVERYTHING! And when that happens, all you will have left to do is to cut and slash your way through a never-ending horde of zombies until your helicopter arrives to pick you up on Friday. I tried to be Superman and save everyone. But this only resulted in people getting killed by their own stupidity of not being able to simply follow you, or missing out on saving other people or doing optional boss fights against psychopaths. Or, in the most usual case, both.
The thing I hate too, is that the zombies NEVER stop coming! I mean, you can spend an hour clearing out a thousand zombies in one area, making it "safe" for when you have to go rescue someone, only to have twice as many zombies "re-spawn" in that same area! I mean, that's so stupid! It makes most of the killing pointless. I could understand if they came back within a few hours and in the meanwhile, the area would be safe for escorting people back to your security room base, but nope. It's never safe, and rarely ever easy. It wouldn't be so bad if the survivors' AI wasn't so, so bad. All they have to do is follow you, and yet, the AI can't even do that right, either not being able to run around simple objects like a desk, or being too stupid to follow you.
And like I was saying, the zombies never end, which I guess, some players might like. They say the town has 53,000 residents in it, right? So, assuming 90% of them get infected, you're dealing with roughly, 48,000 zombies in one oddly-constructed mall, right? So, you'd think if you killed, say, 10,000 of them (the game keeps a tally of how many you kill and rewards you a little bit for every 50 to 100 killed) it would make a difference, right? Nope. This is what makes the game as tedious, repetitive, and as boring as the game Crackdown. Just like in that game, no matter HOW many enemies you kill, it NEVER makes any kind of difference! And as the difficulity increases, the chances of being able to save people becomes even harder. But, this doesn't result in the game being 'challenging' or 'fun' as much as it does in being just plain old annoying and frustrating.
Could the NPC's in this game BE any dumber? You tell them six times to "Follow me!" only to have them stand there, like idiots, until a horde of ten zombies advance of them! THEN, you have to go back and save them, while more zombies advance on them, while they STILL stand around like idiots, NOT following you! This game has a LOT of problems like this! It can be annoying even with one survivor, but when you get to escorting five or six at once, it becomes close to impossible to keep all of them alive (unless you've got a good stock of Queens saved up, which kill a large group of zombies all at once). Sometimes, you'll have items that don't work right or AI that is beyond legally retarded. I mean, the only NPC's that this game actually got right are the zombies! Even your main character can't do much, as ALL of his moves are either useless, incredibly complicated to pull off correctly, or only good for when you're already being attacked. You'd be surprised how many combat moves you get for when a zombie's ALREADY attacking you and how few there are to PREVENT them from doing that in the first place! Other than the Knee Drop and Jump Kick, all of Frank's moves are really hard to pull off, and you end up almost never using them, which is just as well as Frank's melee strength is beyond weak, anyways. I also can't tell whether or not zombies get more aggressive as you level up and get stronger or as time goes on and they presumably start to get more hungry, but either way, zombies will soon go from being harmless and ignorable to vicious and aggressive in the way they attack you. This seems to be the only AI thing that actually makes sense in the game. They fail with everyone and everything else.
Weapons in the game are okay, but some are mostly useless. You get blunt objects, sharp objects like knives and swords, firearms, and heavy/large objects like benches and trashcans that you can't carry around with you. Your objects go into your stock, but so do your food and health items. Once you use up a weapon (which is rather quickly with most of them), you automatically are given the next weapon in your stock to use. Sadly though, both weapons AND food are in the same stock! The stock system is poorly designed, so I can't even begin to tell you how many times I accidentally used a food item with full health because they switched me over from a weapon that just broke. I'll be slashing zombies, then switched over to my orange juice and accidentally drink it! This happens SO often! Plus, Frank is SO slow with actually using the food items! You know how many times I've died during a boss fight because I couldn't use my juice or food in time? You have to sit there and WAIT for him to drink it all or eat it up before it heals you. This takes like, three seconds. And instead of that animation just being skipped when it's interrupted by you being hit, it just cancels out! So, yes, you can die quite easily because Frank is too slow to drink something up! These are the small problems in the game that quickly add up!
You know what else is slow and takes too long? Your scoop messages. That Otis guy is so annoying! During the heat of a zombie fight, you may get a call on a scoop. But when you take that call, you have to sit there and wait and wait and wait for the guy to give you the info. Again, if you skip it, it doesn't count, and he'll call again, telling you how it's "rude" to hang up on him. Well, I'm sorry if that's so rude that I don't have time to wait for you for a full thirty seconds to get some useless scoop info while fighting off 100 zombies! You know, a text message would be so much simpler and convenient. How could they not see this as annoying? Waiting for his slow, insane rants about someone needing help for so much time during a few thousand zombies coming at you in the mall?
The main storyline, once you're actually strong enough to go after it, seems to be written as something that sounds greater and more epic than it really is. But, once you actually sit back and take it all in, you realize that a zombie outbreak connected with the American beef industry actually makes no sense, at all. One thing they do get somewhat right, is making you feel for the characters given. Some people will survive and others will die, and when your allies die (the non-mall survivors) you really feel a little sad for them, given how much time you've spent with them. Not to give too much away, but the "true" ending is probably less desirable than the "B-Ending" where you just make it out of the mall after 72 hours, because of what happens to Frank during the 'true ending'. And just to bring it up, they misspell "true" a lot in your achivements! At first, I was like, what's a 'ture ending?' Isn't that hilarious? How could they not spell check something like that?
Extra things in the game include you showing off your photography skills via Frank's camera. You get points for how good a photo you take, that range in the genres of Drama, Horror, Violence, Comedy, and Sex. If you grab the right books in the game (mainly, the Visual Cue book), the photography can be quite fun. Especially when you're trying to snap the elusive "perfect" photo during a boss fight or survivor conversation. It's fun to use the camera, but I also haven't played any other photography video game since "Pokemon Snap".
Overall, this game is just tedious and often times frustrating, with too many game design flaws and poor gaming decisions. Like, dying for example, means actual death. There are no "checkpoints" or "continues" or anything, and you have to reload from the last time you saved or you'll just stay dead. Interstingly enough, in a game where timing counts for everything, you'd think there'd be a manual Load screen in the options or something for when you make a mistake. But there IS no Load screen! (Who ever heard of that, before?) If you mess up, you either have to intentionally die or log out in order to restart, and you'll likely be doing this a lot, so not having a Load Saved Game option is pretty bizarre.
This game seems to try to be good, given the multiple endings, the variety of weapons and items, the photography minigame, and even the different outfits, so I'm not going to say that Capcom didn't at least try. They even have some really good songs in here (the rare times you get to hear any). However, the problem is that they just make too many mistakes and the over game ends up being more annoying and frustrating than fun and survivor-horror-esque. The zombies aren't as scary as much as they are just a pain in the behind. This game is NOT in the league of "Resident Evil" even, and that series, while popular, isn't even the BEST zombie video game out there.
"Dead Rising" is maybe worth renting, if you're a zombie/horror game buff. Or if you like taking photos and investigating useless scoops and news info. I'd say the game is worth 2.5 stars. While there is some interesting gameplay to be had here, like investigating the "True" story behind the zombie outbreak, the time limits, NPC flaws, playing on weak level, and simple game design mistakes just suck all the potential fun you could've had out of this. Unless, killing endless zombies is enough to thrill you. Navigating the mall is also annoying, as no kind of real architect could've POSSIBLY designed a mall this inane and oddly constructed. What kind of mall only has ONE entrance/exit, anyway?
The best thing I can say about 'Dead Rising' is that the storyline is a bit unique and the characters are somewhat worth caring for. The worst thing I could say about 'Dead Rising' is that the least-talented people at Capcom HAD to be the ones who designed and created this game as this is far below Capcom's usual quality. If they make a 'Dead Rising II', then hopefully the numerous mistakes and bad game designs will be taken care of and the game will end up as the fun, horror-genre title they probably envisioned while originally making this.
Description of Dead Rising
Dead Rising follows the harrowing tale of Frank West, a freelance photojournalist after the scoop of a lifetime. In a small suburban town that's overrun by zombies, he escapes to the local shopping mall, thinking it will be safe. Now it's a standoff, with zombies unable to get Frank, but him unable to get out & escape. Fortunately, he's got an entire mall at his disposal. Utilize everything you can find to fight off the flesh-hungry mob and search for the truth behind the horrendous epidemic.Action Games
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