Summary

For cheap satisfaction from a game, killing zombies is a pretty safe option. Not only are they malevolent, vile killing machines, they're killing machines using the bodies of your poor friends, neighbors, and loved ones as weapons of war. You can satisfy your bloodlust and your mercy with one swing of your machete. If you don't have a machete handy, you'll have to make do with what you have on hand, and this-- the most celebrated feature of Dead Rising-- is wonderfully executed. The sheer variety of available weapons, from the obvious (shotguns, chainsaws, baseball bats) to the less obvious (guitars, benches) to the wonderfully absurd (teddy bears, cans of cola), is delightful, and there's plenty of fun to be had from trying out all the different tools of destruction. It's a terrible shame that such a great mechanic for open-ended, improvisational gameplay is shoehorned into a game that rigidly follows a (lousy) formula.

It starts off well enough. The story, which follows freelance photojounalist Frank West through a Colorado mall during a mysterious zombie outbreak, is well-written and has its share of (fairly) unexpected twists and turns, and it's anchored by pretty good voice acting. It's not Pixar quality, but it's still better than the vast majority of games. The graphics are downright stunning, especially the astoundingly realistic facial models. You can count the pores on Frank's face, emotions look true to life, the animations look downright real, and staring a zombie in its empty eye socket will turn your stomach. Add in light political commentary, and this is a game you can really throw yourself into.

It's a shame the gameplay doesn't allow that. It's been called a "sandbox game," but the sandbox is basically a narrow, sand-covered path through the middle of a minefield. You only have a limited time to complete the core missions (there's a central story with unrelated side missions), which barely leave time to rescue survivors, let alone look for secrets or run over zombies with a lawnmower (which is fun). If you glumly accept that you can't do the side quests, the pace becomes tolerable, but games with deadlines still feel like work. The deadlines have another fatal problem: with the much-publicized wretched save system, which is far from the game's only glaring flaw, it's far too easy to save yourself into a game-ending corner. Seriously, if you use your one save slot at the wrong time you can't meet the deadline, and it's back to the beginning. (Being able to keep your status when you start over isn't much consolation, but at least it's something.) Either the save system or the time limits would be annoying on their own; together, they make the game almost unplayable.

The game's best and worst come together in the boss fights. Psychopaths-- survivors who have lost it under the duress of the zombie apocalypse-- give the game some of its most wonderfully twisted moments. Take the much-screenshotted (?) fight with the chainsaw-wielding clown. The cutscenes are will make you laugh even as you soil yourself in terror. Too bad they're interrupted by a stupid boss fight. Actually, the clown is one of the less obnoxious bosses, but it's still a matter of dying and reloading until you discover the Magic Formula. Also, like most video game bosses, his head is somehow bulletproof. This destroys the immersion, and immersion is pretty crucial in an atmospheric game like this. As games get more and more realistic, the rules of boss fights should really be grounded in reality. Please? The other boss fights are worse. The guy with the .50-caliber sniper rifle is unstoppable until you figure out that a hockey puck to the knees is more fatal than a 9mm round to the face. (Braining zombies with hockey pucks is good horror-comedy; knocking off armed terrorists with them is just stupid. But hey, that's the Magic Formula.) The final boss was inane enough that I sold this piece of crap back without even finishing it-- minutes from the end-- and that's just not something I do. He has abilities that you lack, including the ability to make himself basically invulnerable. You don't have any defensive abilities except to run away. Most games got away from this a decade ago. I might have put up with all that, but the fight is preceded by twenty minutes of gameplay without a single save point. Most of the other bosses require powerful weapons, which completely kills the joy of improvised warfare. See? The game's best feature is a total afterthought.

Looking at the game objectively, it does have a lot in its favor. I can't overstate how beautifully sick the cutscenes with the clown are, and clobbering zombies with a Stratocaster never gets old. The gorgeous graphics and solid story could have made for a decent horror film. I really want to love Dead Rising. Unfortunately, the gameplay slowly overwhelmed me with its badness until I felt like releasing a zombie outbreak in Capcom's headquarters. Zombie-slaughter is still fun as hell, but you can get your kicks with the downloadable demo-- you still get plenty of unlikely weapons (red-hot frying pans never get old), but it's free and doesn't make you suffer through terrible game design. There's a sequel in the works, and Capcom might get away from the lousy formula and make good on the concept's potential. If the game-killing flaws rise from the dead, though, the developers deserve to be crushed under a cash register.

Summary

Well... here we go again.

This is one of the games that I really looked forward to playing on the 360. Judging the game from videos and screen shots I would of thought of it as the funnest game ever. Unfortunately, in this instance it wasn't so (at least for me).

Dead Rising will have to be put in the category or "either you love it, or hate it". If you just love guts and blood and could careless about how a game controls, then this is definetely your game. However, if you're like me and get frustrated with bad controls, bad layout of buttons, this may be a game you should pass up.

I really wanted to love this game from the beginning, however after 3 hours of straight play I decided that I was glad I rented it.

It's really difficult to give games an overall rating. I believe that they should have ratings for every thing you can think of. Well... I'll give it a shot to explain the weaknesses and strengths of this game.

*Graphics: 7.5 (game time) 9.0 (cut scenes)
*Controls: 6.0 (sluggish)
*Fun Factor: 8.5 (Killing Zombies is fun)
*Replay Value: 6.5 (once you get fed up, you may not come back)

Strength

*Interesting cut scenes from the beginning sink you in the story.

*Lots of weapons! (virtually everything is a weapon)

*Take pictures of the massacre you've created and get points for it. (like a mini game in itself)

*Fun ways of killing zombies.

Weakness

*Your health items are mixed with your weapons. (sometimes you'll accidentally use a health snack without meaning to and it's very frustrating!)

*Sluggish controls (difficult to aim your jumps or attacks to certain areas)

*Not enough save points. If you die you'll have to start too far back and lose zombie kills.

*Dying also means you'll have to reselect the HDD as your loading device, because the game is to dumb to remember the first time.

*Frustrating parts of the mall where there are too many zombies and NO snacks!

*Got old too quick

*Achievements are impossible to get.