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Zombies + Mall + mayhem & carnage = bloody fun time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 95 / 100
Date: August 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Capcom's Dead Rising stands as one of the most fun titles to come out for the Xbox 360 since its initial release in late 2005. From the makers of the Resident Evil series for past console systems, Capcom has taken a new approach in adding to their growing library of zombie titles. Dead Rising is a semi-freeroaming action-horror game which takes the classic premise of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead --- survivors trapped in the mall teeming with flesh-eating zombies --- and makes a fun and exciting game.

The game takes place Willamette, Colorado, population 53,594 where nothing exciting happens in town outside of visiting the local mega-mall which seems to dominate the entire town. Dead Rising uses a time-based mission system and the intro cutscene in the beginning of the game hints at this. You play as freelance photojournalist Frank West, who never fails to mention that he's covered riots, wars, and all sorts of dangerous events, who gets a tip from an unknown source that something big is happening in little old Willamette. The intro both introduces Frank West, flying over the town to bypass the military blockade and cordon of the town, and the controls for the photography mechanics of the gameplay. It's in this hands-on tutorial part of the intro that we see a bird's eye view of the crisis that has befallen Willamette. From there you're dropped onto the roof of the Willamette Mall where you meet one of the few survivors of the town. The rest of the game moves on from there at a very frantic pace.

It's the game itself that shines for Dead Rising. Despite a save system that could've been done much better (more on that later), Dead Rising's gameplay mechanics has quite abit in common with Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto games. From the get-go the player as Frank can just go down into the mall and begin killing zombies left and right, and everyway from Monday through Sunday. All manner of items stocked in the mall walkways and stores can be picked up and used either as a weapon, a change in clothing attire, and/or food. This is where Dead Rising will get most of its mention for being fun. When Capcom programmers decided to allow the player to use anything that could be picked up as a weapon they meant it. It's been reported in many sites and gaming publications that there's over 250 useable items to be picked up as a weapon. These items range from the gore-inducing lawnmower (an homage to Peter Jackson's Dead Alive zombie film), chainsaws, and excavators (a garden tool that has one of the bloodiest and funniest killing animation) to the ridiculously funny use for CDs, shower-heads, novelty masks, teddy bears and skateboards. There's also the more traditional weapons such as a pistol, shotgun, submachine gun, machine-gun, swords and axes. Being a game developed by Capcom, Dead Rising has more than a few wink-wink acknowledgement to other Capcom games such as Mega Man and Resident Evil.

One could spend all their time just killing zombies, but the strict time-based missions in the game might make zombie-killing take a backseat to actually solving the mystery of whats caused the zombie outbreak in the town. There's two types of missions Frank could try solving. There's the mandatory Case missions which deal directly with him trying to solve the mystery with-in the 72-hour time limit. Each case mission must be solved in a linear order to open up the next case. The second set of missions are named Scoops and act more as sub-missions that can be taken on and accomplished or ignored. They really don't affect the availability of further case missions. What they do give Frank are prestige points that can go a long way to levelling him up to gain more skills and abilities. Most scoop missions usually entail finding scattered survivors within the mall and leading them back to the safety of the security office near the roof. Some survivors could be armed with extra weapons Frank carries and defend themselves when attacked, and some survivors are so incapacitated that Frank must carry them to safety. While carrying a survivor Frank will be unable to use a weapon so this type of mission usually takes several tries before the player figures out the best path to safety. Like most game AI, the survivors need abit of constant attention from the player to make sure they're actually following you and not stopping every second to fight the closest zombie. It's not a gamebreaker but the survivor AI could've used abit more tweaking to make them follow much better.

As mentioned above Frank can level up to a level cap of 50 by acquiring prestige points (called PP in the game). Prestige points can be acquired through many different ways within the game. Taking pictures of different nature and quality will give Frank prestige points as high as several tens of thousand. Shots with poses that follow a certain genre gives more points than those that are just generic poses. Such genres that shots can be taken of are shots of burtality, horror, outtakes, drama and erotica. Erotica shots are pretty much just photographs taken of survivors and zombies (abit creepy) in sexually-suggestive poses. Brutality shots are usually pictures where extreme violence and fighting poses are framed and photographed. Horror is pretty much self-explanatory. Drama shots usually involve pictures with survivors and main npc characters in dramatic poses. Outtakes usually entail photographs taken of survivors and zombies involved in any sort of funny situations. Usually them slipping and falling down or wandering around aimlessly with novelty masks over their heads.

Other ways to gain prestige points will be to finish case missions and scoop missions. The PP reward for finishing part or all of each mission usually range from several thousand to as high as 50,000 PP. The high amount of PP reward for taking on and accomplishing these two types of missions go a long way to levelling up Frank. The most fun way of getting PP, though not as much and takes a long time, will be to kill zombies. For every 50 zombies killed Frank gets 500 PP and everytime Frank reaches 1000 zombies killed he gains 20,000 PP. It's a much slower path to gaining PP but it's surely the most fun of the three ways.

The main storyline in Dead Rising was actually a very good one. Like most games outside of the role-playing game genre, storylines were usually the weakest of all the games had to offer. In Dead Rising, Capcom was able to create an intriguing storyline that didn't rip-off the Dawn of the Dead story that the game was usually compared to. There's conspiracies, betrayals and just outright weirdness to help tie together the mystery of why Willamette, Colorado has suddenly gone zombiefied and why the U.S. military and government were quick to quarantine the whole area. There's not much that could be said as scary about Dead Rising. The game itself leans more towards comedic horror than outright horror. There were some cutscenes and plot developments that were downright creepy and scary, but most of the time you'll just laugh in glee at all the carnage you're causing within the mall. The characters of Frank West and those npcs he has to deal with in the context of the case missions were pretty well drawn both in animation and personality. As the game progressed and certain characters were put in danger it was hard not to feel saddened by such tragic events. It helps that the voice-acting in Dead Rising was pretty high quality. The spoken dialogue during the cutscenes were pretty well done and one could sense that Capcom wanted to really capture the cinematic tone they were going for with Dead Rising.

Now to the one glaring negative in Dead Rising. The save system in this game could be called unforgiving and that's saying it lightly. The game only allows for one save per memory unit. This means that you can only save the game once if you only have the 360 HDD as your memory unit. This means that once you save over a previous save then thats it. If you're current save doesn't give you the chance to finish your current case mission then you pretty much have to start the game over. This would sound terrible if not for one saving grace. Dead Rising allows the player to start the game over with all skills, abilities, levels and PP acquired to be transferred over to the new game. This lessens the impact of having to start the game over. It also helps in power-levelling Frank to a level high enough that you can breeze through the case missions. Starting the game over and over with stats and skills included also gives the player a chance to try different methods of solving a case until finding the one thats easiest to do. I know of players who have done nothing but just kill zombies and try on a few case and scoop missions to gain PP to level up then start the game over then repeat the cycle again. This makes the game much easier in the long run, but also takes time.

The graphics in Dead Rising is top-notch and really makes use of the 360's graphical power to put as many zombies on the screen as possible. There's barely any slowdown in frame-rate as the action on the screen gets heavy and crowded. The animation is not on the same level as Bethesda's Oblivion and Tecmo's Dead or Alive 4, but what lacks in near, photorealistic graphics it more than makes up for the high level of figures on-screen. The look of the mall itself was also well done. Each store and utilitarian room has their own unique look with most items rendered with enough detail to be recognized as either weapon, sustenance, etc...Dead Rising looks great when played on a HDTV-capable TV or computer monitor. The game itself utilizes Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and each sound has a distinct quality to them that you can tell the difference between an acoustic guitar smashing noisily a zombies head into pulp to one where you use an electric guitar instead. The sound effects of zombie-killing makes great use of all the squishy, gooey, and splatter noise effects horror movies have been well-known for.

Overall, Capcom has created a great game with their action-horror/comedy Dead Rising. With a choice to either play the game in the free-roaming style of Grand Theft Auto to a more time-based, linear mission-style of an action game this game more than makes up for unforgiving save system its developers decided to give it. With summer time being the dead zone of new game releases, it's been a breath of fresh air to have a game like Dead Rising to play and take up hours of time before the start of the holiday season. Outside of the save system which keeps this game from reaching excellent status, Dead Rising is a great and fun game that should remain fun to pick up long after the player has finished its main mission.

An exciting new genre for the 360, but plagued with old problems

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 124 / 140
Date: August 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Although I prefer FPS (first person shooters) to the 3rd person adventure games, I loved the latest installments of the Lara Croft and the Hitman series games. As of this writing, I have completed Dead Rising in the 72 hour mode and am now replaying the game to try to earn all of the achievements.

Dead Rising is a brand-new genre for the Xbox 360. It's closest cousin is Condemned, a first person horror adventure game but Dead Rising has a number of unique features that set it apart. First off, you can pick up just about anything in the area and use it as a weapon. Potted plants, lawnmowers and even an electric guitar are all at your disposal. There are easily hundreds of potential weapons in this game and part of the fun is discovering new ways to fight off zombies with what you have available at hand.

Adding to the distinct style of Dead Rising is the ability to customize your character. As you make your way through the mall, you can try on new clothing available from the various shops. Cool suits, fashionable glasses and, yes, even women's and children's apparel is fair game to put on. Besides wearing it as you battle the zombies, your character will also appear as you have dressed him during the video cut-scenes, which is a nice extra touch I was delighted to see. Food has also been given special "abilities" in the game. For example, you might find a frozen or raw food somewhere in the mall. If you eat it, you earn one or two points of health. But pop it into an oven before you eat it, and it will completely fill your health meter. Likewise, you can mix certain fluids in a blender can make an extra powerful energy drink!

If you can't tell by everything I've already mentioned, this game is deep. I've only touched the surface to avoid revealing any spoilers, but trust me when I say you can get totally wrapped up in this game. The plot, the game and every little thing (be sure to check out the bookstore!) in the vast mall has been developed with so much detail that you'll find yourself enthralled by it.

However, when undertaking such an ambitious project, there have to be some downfalls. The absolutely worst is the save game methodology. The developers have decided that you must find a restroom or a couch to save. While this seemed cute and clever at first, it quickly became frustrating and enraging (when you couldn't find one right before you got forced into a boss fight). Every player on the planet will find this feature problematic, I guarantee.

One thing that other reviewers haven't mentioned is that some of the level bosses (called "Psychopaths") are redundant or unfairly matched. For example, often you'll be faced with enemies with devastating long-range weapons when all you have is a knife or 2x4 to try and knock out your opponent with. In another boss attack, I literally started at a save point and had to go through two full levels to face a boss who would inevitably defeat me and then I'd have to start all over again. These opponents often have a move that will completely incapacitate you in a single swipe, even when you have full health. This, combined with the fact that you will often have to run halfway across the map (where your last game save was) to repeat the battle, makes the game incredibly annoying. If you could ammo up, then save right before the boss battle, the game would be considerably more enjoyable.

Another item, although mentioned by others in a different light, is the text-based mission objectives. Many reviewers have stated that the text is almost unreadable on smaller, standard definition televisions. However, my biggest complaint in this area is that the text is used at all. This game, by its very nature, is immersive. When you're trapped in a mall and having to fight zillions of zombies, you shouldn't have to stop to read the text of another character. I honestly wish Capcom had spent a little extra time and money to change all of the text interactions to spoken instructions. Not only would this have solved their biggest technical problem with the game, it would have also helped keep the suspense.

Finally, there's a lot of "load-screen-itis" in this game. And by that, I mean that you'll be seeing a lot of the loading screen. Granted, the mall is a huge environment, and the load times are a snappy 5-6 seconds, but it gets annoying when you walk into an elevator and wait, walk down a hallway and wait, turn left and wait... You get the picture.

There is no online component to allow multiplayer (which would be awesome!) but Dead Rising does have downloadable content from Xbox Live. It was available just days after the game released and consists of eight "keys" which unlock several new outfits for the main character, available at no charge. As you'd expect, the game also supports Xbox Achievements, with 50 of them to earn, each worth 20 Gamerscore points. You'll have to spend hundreds (if not thousands!) of hours in this game trying to obtain all of these objectives and I don't consider many of them a "walk in the park."

Honestly, it seems like I'm spending a lot of time picking on the problems of this game, but they will plague you as you try to play through the levels. But when it comes right down to it, this game has all 5 "Es" that make it a powerhouse: Exciting plot, Engaging environments, Enlightening characters, 360 Exclusivity and Encredible customization! (OK, that last one wasn't an "E" but you'll have to forgive me, just like you'll have to forgive certain flaws in this game!) In short, you should definitely pick this game up, but love it for everything it accomplishes while forgiving it for the technical problems that it has. I give it a solid 5 stars for fun, but a 3 star rating for the inherent problems.

Great game, even with a few bumps...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 40 / 54
Date: August 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well, I have been enjoying Dead Rising for a week now and I can't honestly think of a game out there that is more fun than this one. While I do agree with everone else that the small font puts a damper on the mood, I have just learned to move on with it. I can read it but it is tough on the old eyes. I have a standard def 36" WEGA and while it is small, it is legible. I will try it on my parents 61" Hidef this weekend to see any difference. I can only imagine what the graphics look like if they look this great on my standard def TV.

This game is very deep. The save feature is disappointing and you will find that you will learn to constantly bring up the map to check for save points. After you play for a hour or more and die and have to replay through it, you quickly learn. Another thing I don't care for is having to restart the game if you miss a "scoop" and it throws the rest of the game out. You can still play and do the missions, atleast for a while but you can no longer find the truth. This happened to me twice. The first time, I just plain didn't realize that it would happen and did not do the scoop missions in a timely manner. The second time I played through it, I thought I was doing great time and kept checking the watch (another feature you learn to do quite often) and when it said my next mission would begin at 3:00, I noticed that when it turned to 4:00, the missions ended and once again I lost the remainder of the scoop missions. Learn to watch the scoop timelines. They will slowly count down and turn colors to warn you. I guess I just had too much fun whacking zombies and lost track of the in game time.

The depth of this game comes from the many ways in which to dispose of zombies. You can pretty much use ANYTHING in the game to take them out. One spot had me pick up a power auger, which is used to dig post holes. I stuck a zombie and cranked the gas and watched him spin around. Then, I proceeded to walk through the crowd of zombies and take them out. In the process of this, the zombie spinning on my auger started to break apart. This was a great laugh. Again, you can use pretty much everything in the game and while most do eventually tear up, you can always find something else. Another fun part was walking to the other end of the mall through the Leisure Park and seeing a push mower/brushhog and mowing down the crowd of zombies.

I was completely impressed with the graphics of this game. While the zombies do tend to look a lot alike, the environment is just gorgeous. Capcom did a great job to put so many of the zombies onscreen at once. Later through the game, you will encounter bosses that can be difficult to beat. Just be sure to save before you fight a boss, although the first time around it is hard because you don't know when you will fight a boss. You enter a store and then wham, you have a boss fight. As you play through the game, you are encouraged to take pictures and help escort people to the security room, which is basically your home base. You will see that if you can capture pictures that pick up on drama or horror or even erotica, among others, will get you more points and these points along with the points for saving people will get you to level up which will help you increase your life or the amount of things you can carry or unlock special moves.

This is definitely not a game for the younger crowd as it is very gory. I think Capcom has a hit on their hands and hopefully they can work it into a sequel in some way with improvements to the aforementioned bumps but hopefully they will get a patch over Live to help correct the text problems. Most of the time during the normal text there is not much voice over work. During the cutscenes, which are nicely animated, there is no problem as their is good voice over acting, incredible good when compared to the Resident Evil series. You won't go wrong with this game. It is a great game to enjoy so long as you are old enough to understand that things that you can do in the game can't be done in real life. As dumb as that sounds, there are those out there who might want to recreate something they did in the game.

Enjoy this game and know that you will die often and have to repeat things over again but for the majority, it isn't a problem as things aren't often the same way the second time around, except for cutscenes of course. That is another great thing about this game, the repayability is incredibly deep. Forgive the text, the dumb AI and the lousy save functions and enjoy the game for what it got right.

Zombies!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 44 / 63
Date: August 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

To paraphrase a Marine Corps saying: "Killing zombies is easy and fun". At least, it is when you're playing "Dead Rising", the latest zombie title from Capcom.

But let me clarify the above point a bit. When I say "easy", I'm talking about dealing with individual zombies or small groups of them. As one character tells you in the beginning, "The good news is, zombies are slow and stupid!" The bad news is that what the shuffling undead lack in speed and smarts, they make up for in sheer numbers. Dealing with one zombie is easy, dealing with 20 is a whole other matter.

"Dead Rising" puts you in the shoes of Frank West, a freelance photographer who gets wind of something going down in the secluded Colorado town of Willamette. After bypassing military roadblocks by hiring a helicopter to ferry you in, you touch down at the local mall to investigate.

The early stage of the game is peppered with quite a few cutscenes, but they are surprisingly engaging and set up an intriguing storyline. The character models are alarmingly realistic, right down to those wispy hairs women have on their cheeks, but there are quite a few uncanny valley moments.

As Frank explores the mall, you will discover vast array of zombie-killing implements, each with their own unique effects. In just an hour or so of play last night, I used a lead pipe, a 2x4, a baseball bat, a golf club, a cleaver, a sickle, and a pistol. The sickle was particularly satisfying. After Frank buries it in a zombie's neck, he dislodges it by bracing a foot against its chest and kicking it off, which has the effect of decapitating zombie in a gush of blood. I guess that why they say sickles really satisfy.

But even zombie-hacking would get old after a while, and so it's to Capcom's credit that they've designed a deeper and more engaging game. Frank's real objective is not to mow down endless numbers of zombies, but rather to uncover what the hell has gone so horribly wrong in Willamette. He does this by tracking down survivors and piecing together information from a couple of apparent government agents also trapped in the mall.

Frank also has to document what is happening by taking photos. The game walks you through a tutorial that instructs you on how to compose pictures with horrific, dramatic or erotic compositions. The more of those elements you can squeeze into a photo, the more "player points" you earn and the faster your skills improve.

There are also plenty of side missions, from checking out mysterious developments to rescuing other characters and leading them to safety.

I do, however, have two complaints. One is about the camera. Instead of staying right behind Frank all the time, he can rotate in your field of view so that what he's looking at isn't necessarily what you're looking. Sure, you can reorient the camera behind him with a click of the thumbstick, but it's still annoying, especialy when you're beset by a dozen zombies coming from all sides. It also makes it hard to use aimed weapons like the pistol.

The other complaint is about the save system. Basically, you have one save slot, and you can only save at your "home base" of the security room, or in the mall's bathrooms. Unfortunately, you can find yourself quite a ways away from those places while carrying out a mission, and if you die, you've just lost a good chunk of progress. Also, from some of the reviews, the single save slot can also be problematic because many of the missions are timed, and if you save at the wrong point, you may not have enough time to complete the mission, requiring a total restart.

Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to some good old-fashioned zombie bashing, with a bit o' "X-Files"-style conspiracy thrown in to boot. If you're antsy for some good 360 action during the summer lull, it'd be worth your time to check out "Dead Rising".

frustrating bosses almost destroy an amazing experience

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: July 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

From the time you start a new game on Dead Rising, you see the cinematic camera angles and great voice acting, you know they put some time into this one. the game controls like any third person action game. the left stick is for character movement, and the right controls your camera. i just wish jumping and attacks weren't so sluggish. im not sure if its supposed to be realistic or what, but its annoying when you're being surrounded by hourdes of zombies, only to take to long to knock them back, resulting in being eaten alive. everything is very solid and controls well other than that. as you explore the mall, so many things can be used as a weapon, its unreal. i have used anything from sledge hammers and lawn mowers to shotguns and soccer balls to a shopping cart and a pair of hedge clippers. every character you encounter has a unique and relatively memorable personality. you can find countless hours of fun just exploring the mall and hacking away at the undead, especially because you gain experiance which causes you to level up RPG style similar to Crackdown. and believe me, to finish this game, most of you will need to start over a few times and build up your level before farther in the story (your stats carry over to a new game) The photography section adds some more variety to the game, given the countless things to take pictures of, which also adds to your level building. This game was designed for multiple playthroughs (i have started a new game 4 times now without ever finishing the story) its near impossible, if not completely impossible, to do everything in this game in one playthrough.

but while all this is great fun, this game can be very frustrating at the same time. trying to help navigate survivors to the safety areas can be a pain as they are quite stupid. they tend to stand there and try to fight off zombies instead of running with you're character as you call out. which to me is frustration due to some bad game design and stupid AI, and not extremely difficult gameplay. The bosses, on the other hand, are some of the most annoying and unforgiving things ive ever seen in a game. you thought the bosses in Devil May Cry 3 were tough? you havent seen anything yet. dont get me wrong, this game is really fun, its a game everyone should experience, but its deffinitely no walk in the park.

Great Horror Fun for a Mature Gamer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 22
Date: October 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you're a fan of horror movies, Dead Rising is probably right up your alley. You play a photojournalists trapped for 3 days in a suburban mall full of zombies.

This game is a mixed blessing. Let's start with all the good aspects. The game is FUN. We've all seen the movies with zombies staggering around, and we've all hung out in malls, feeling bored. Put the two together, and voila! You can walk into any store and grab things to bash the zombies with. Run them over with a lawnmower! Pick up a piece of wood and start swinging! Or, my personal favorite, grab an electric guitar at the music store, whip it around like a fast-moving samurai sword, and hear the TWANG when you make contact!

The food system actually makes sense here. You go into food court shops! If you find the food in its base form, it's mildly healthy. If you take the time to cook it, it's even better for you.

There's an interesting plot to go with it too. I love that the various humans have names and that you actually learn about them, see their interactions and connect with them. You really care (or at least I do!) when you screw up and they get killed. It gives you a lot of incentive to replay the game to try to get everybody out. If you save a husband and his wife, they have a joyful reunion! It really draws you into the game.

So there is definitely a lot going for this game. However, there are a few signs that the game could have used a few more months in testing before it was released. First, we have a large high def TV, so we don't have a problem "seeing things". However, I've heard from many of my site visitors that on smaller TVs it's nearly impossible to read words or to understand the text messages. That's just unfair. They should have made the game easily playable even on non-high-def or smaller TVs.

Plus, why have to read dialogue at all in a horror game? That really interferes with the immersive quality. If you're knee deep in zombie fighting, you don't want to have to puzzle out what a victim is saying to you. They should just yell it out to you in real time so you can keep swinging while you listen.

The real killer here, though, is the loading screen. You take 5 steps. LOADING. You turn around. LOADING. You go up the stairs. LOADING. Good God!! With all the other HUGE map games out on the market that load seamlessly, there is no reason that a mall-based game could not do the same. It might have taken a month of coding time to work that in but it would have been WELL worth it.

Also, the save system is questionable. Only one save? One save at all? What if a friend comes over and wants to play forward for the weekend, but you want to be able to have your save spot for your own play after he leaves? You can't? Having just one save spot, in a world with a massive hard drive of storage, is nonsensical.

Still, you can deal with those issues, and the game really is a lot of fun. Remember though that it is a MATURE game with zombies with exploding heads and a lot of gore. So if you're a mature gamer who enjoys horror, definitely pick this one up!

Unplayable on most TVs and sucks anyway.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 24
Date: August 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First off, as many other reviews have noted, the game text is unreadable due to its small size unless you have an HDTV. Perhaps Capcom will offer a patch via Live, but until then the game is largely unplayable.

And, even though it's a lot of fun to kill zombies with random stuff, the game sucks anyway. The save system is worse than Resident Evil, the time constraints pretty much kill off your ability to explore what would otherwise be an interesting environment and the gameplay is lousy.

I'd advise most people to just rent the game, have fun killing zombies until that gets old, and save about $50. If you really must buy it, you can probably just wait a few weeks and it'll be $25 for a used copy at EB/Gamestop since so many people bought it and can't play it.

UPDATE: Capcom will not be patching this game (9/13/2006).

Expectations... Be aware of what to expect in Dead Rising

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: August 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Expectations can basically make or break this game. The problem I had w/ it and I think most others do is the fact we wanted to freely roam the mall while killing off as many zombies as we wanted with all the cool weapons avaliable. There would be a story to follow, but not in the annoying way it was implemented.

What CAPCOM delivered is slighly different from what most expected. The game takes place over 3 days, and within those 3 days you have to follow the game's main storyline within set time limits. Let clarify on that... you MUST get to certain story events within a certain time or you will loose out on the main story of the game. Side quests are avaliable, but you must pick and choose a few to do here and there because if you spend too much time on them, you will end up missing the main story. The game is made in such a way to MAKE you replay it two or three times atleast if you want to explore all the side quests and try to find all the cool weapons and things to see.

The issue with saving the game goes right along with the above... the developer didnt want you to be able to have multisaves and say take a different path or what not... they limited you to ONE save per XBOX360 profile. Everytime you save, you overwrite the last save. No other option. You can only save at the bathrooms and the safehouse. There is usually one save spot near each area, but it makes it a pain to save your progress.

Escort missings are a pain aswell as the people you try to save are extremly stupid. They try to fight zombies (and usually loose) and take forever to get where you call them to. You have to call for them over and over to try to direct them to safety.. again not so much fun.

The above reasons make you feel like the game is somewhat "job" like as it forces you to adhere to these requirements it has forcefully. It takes the edge off what could have been a five star game.

Why is the game still great? Well, it's extremly fun to go around killing zombies w/ just about everything you find along the mall stores (hedge clippers, chainsaws, bats, purses, etc..) and the game runs fast and smooth w/ nice looking visuals. Going around killing batches after batches of zombies just doesn't get old! Facial expressions look great and the zombie/weapon/voice sounds are perfect for the game. The voice acting great too IMO... its a shame that the few people you see in the game dont talk, you simply recieve subtitles for them.

I think the demo of the game also lead people to believe the game would be more free roaming that it actually is (fooled me) and that also plays a part in the initial dissapointment many are experiencing. Once you get over the fact that the you tied down by the clock and the subpar save system, you will enjoy the game though! Recommended!

A slightly different zombie game from Capcom

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 21
Date: August 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Dead Rising does a lot right, and has a lot of unique things going for it. Yet, at the same time, it seems to do so many easy and fundamental things wrong that, at times, they make the game hair-pullingly annoying. While these problems don't kill Dead Rising, they do severely hinder what could have potentially been the game of the year.

The graphics and sound in Dead Rising are both fantastic, even on an old CRT and 2.1 speakers. The characters look amazingly life-like, and the texturing on their clothing/hands etc. is absolutely fantastic. Light and shadows look very nice, and the game -- thankfully -- does not use over the top bloom effects. The sheer number of zombies on screen is a feat in and of itself, and they all look fantastic as well. Killing them makes them erupt in geysers of blood that are also quite nice looking (if that's at all possible). Occasionally, there are some problems with the frame rate -- usually with the baseball bat connecting with a large number of zombies at once -- and some clipping on a few costumes, but the game is pretty much glitch free. Oh, and the Havok physics make for some interesting zombie deaths. Naturally, the physics engine isn't that realistic, but it's still really neat to watch a zombie fly 15 feet after you nail him in the face with your Louisville Slugger.

I won't ruin the story for anyone, but I can say that I throughly enjoyed it. It is serious, yet remains "tongue in cheek," never getting too melodramatic or anything of the sort, meaning it's quite entertaining. The voice acting is excellent across the board, which really adds to the game's story a lot. Some dialogue isn't voice acted, and instead pops up on screen as text, which is awful, since the font size is tiny, making it almost unreadable on non-HDTVs. Bad move by Capcom.

The gameplay is refreshing, which is a surprise, considering that Dead Rising is essentially a beat 'em up. The main reason for this is because of the sheer number of items you can kill zombies with. Nothing says business more than a katana slicing three undead in half. Or shotgunning five zombies in the face, blowing off their heads. The list could go on nearly ad naseum, but needless to say, there's a lot of cool ways to kill zombies. Controls are mostly good, but the aiming system is kind of wonky for guns. It's fine if you aim using the right trigger, but if you don't, Frank seems to just fire in a random direction. I've also seen shotgun and handgun blasts go through zombies that were standing right next to me, which is a frustrating problem when you're trying to clear a path for yourself. These are minor gripes, however, and the number of different ways to kill your enemies ensures that the game remains entertaining throughout.

So far, so good...right? Unfortunately, the design of Dead Rising is severely flawed. Interestingly enough, the problem is not so much the save system, which has been the bane of many a reviewer's existence. Rather, the problem is with the 72 hour mode. Capcom pushes the player from mission to mission, rarely giving them the chance to go and do anything else. For a game touted as having so many possibilities/things to do, it's ridiculous that you can't do even a quarter of them in a playthrough. There simply isn't time to go and save more than 15 (maybe 20, if you're really good or lucky) survivors, or track down and kill all of the psychopaths. Especially towards the end of the game (third day), the game is brutally unforgiving. In a way, this adds to the game's atmosphere, making it more tense and exciting. But all of that excitement dies hard when you fail a mission simply because you don't have enough time to make your way across the mall within the time limit the game bestows upon you. It makes for a frustrating trial and error experience.

The other major problem stems with the surivor escort missions. These make up the bulk of the side missions (probably about 90%, the other 10% or so being "defeat the psychopath (boss)" affairs). The survivor AI is, in a word, broken. They will stop in the middle of a pack of zombies and try to punch them. They won't follow you when you call them with the Y button. Sometimes they won't move at all, and simply just stand still as they are eaten alive. Even if you make it to the zombie free rooftop, you're not homefree. To get into the security room (which is the destination point), you must climb over a ledge. The survivors oftentimes will not climb the ledge, instead choosing to run back and forth in front of it. Now, remember, you're on a strict time limit, so spending a minute or two trying to coax them up is just impossible. And if you leave them on the roof (which has no zombies on it), they'll die. I had to leave two people I had brought from the opposite end of the mall, simply because they couldn't get on the ledge. The AI is completely and utterly busted, with not one iota of intelligence.

The boss fights range from cool to mind-bendingly cheap. Oftentimes, they [virtually] require you to have a firearm, which is not always possible, given the time limit in the game. A lot of boss fights devolve into trying to find a place where the AI cannot hit you, and then cheaply taking pot shots at them with a ranged weapon. It's too bad, since the bosses are pretty interesting characters in themselves -- it's a shame that they aren't more fun to fight. Once you level up enough, the boss fights become a lot easier and less long-winded, which is a big plus.

The game becomes significantly more fun after you hit level 20 or so. At this point, you can kill zombies in one or two hits from most melee weapons, and you have enough health to make it across the map and back without dying. You also have some useful hand to hand moves, which can mow down lots of zombies at once. These are especially helpful, since items break waaaaay too easily. You can only kill 20 or so zombies with a katana (and most any other melee weapon) before it snaps, leaving you with whatever other weapons you have.

Dead Rising features some other novel gameplay elements, most notable of which are the food and photography. You can mix together drinks to form super smoothies of sorts, which give you various abilities, including upping your running speed, temporary invincibilty and more. The photography is more of a gimmick than anything else, but you can take some really cool pictures, and get experience points for them to boot.

If Capcom had made an untimed story mode, with the 72 hour mode an unlockable challenge, Zombie Revenge would easily be one of the best games of the year. Hell, even if they had been more forgiving in the 72 hour mode, allowing players to explore et al., the game would be close to being the game of the year. Unfortunately, Dead Rising stands as a prime example of getting all of the little things wrong. Great graphics, great gameplay, great sound, great story, great level design, great characters...and an absolutely horrible mode that makes the game much more difficult, annoying and exasperating than it needs to be. Overall, while Dead Rising remains fun to play -- a testament to how GOOD much of the game is -- it is nearly undone by how excrutiatingly bad the time limit makes the game.

7.5/10

Zombies dead in the first ten minutes:228

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: September 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This might be the best video game I've ever played. Within the first ten minutes my zombie kill count was 228 (they actually keep the zombie kiil count in the bottom of the screen, awesome), and was using bat's, guns, poles, benches, and anything else I could find to slaughter hordes of zombies.
I actually found a lawnmower and was cutting zombies up like grass, a la Dead Alive, you can even use decapitated limbs as weapons. If your a old zombie movie fan, this game will appeal to you even more. The obvious comparison is to Dawn of the Dead, considering that your in a mall with thousands of zombies. Even has the creepy mall music playing the whole time.
If you like open world environment games and zombies, this is a must have.

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