Dead Rising

Dead Men Walking Here!

Hey, I love a good zombie slaughter-fest as much as anyone else. What could be more fun than beating the crap out of some dudes who shouldn't be able to defend themselves? (Ask my grade-school bully - he knows.) And hey, a game like "Dead Rising" seems like the perfect kind of game for that. Within the first ten, fifteen minutes, I was (literally) mowing down zombies with - yeah, you guessed it - a lawnmower.

And yet, I was feeling distinctly upset about it. Why? Well, for some reason, pressing the control stick left made the mower go right, and vice versa. Plus, you know, sometimes it didn't stop when you let go. By the time I figured that out, I had gotten myself killed. And back to the last save point to try it all again. What should have been a gleefully gory moment was frustrating. And so it goes with "Dead Rising." What should have been a great game turns out to be, well, not.

It's not that the game steals its premise from old-time zombie movies. Zombies attacking humans in a mall - yeah, like I've never heard that one before, but never with a guy who's "covered wars, you know." That would be Frank West, easily one of the least engaging protagonists I can remember in any video game.

But this ain't about the hero. If games were, Halo would have sucked, right? Let's see how this plays out, I tell myself. Turns out, it played out pretty badly. This is due in large part - ah, forget it; this is the reason the game is getting three stars rather than five - to the controls. One thing that sticks out for me is the gunplay. Of course, you'd think getting a gun would be a good thing, but it's too hard to use. Using any weapon requires pressing the X button; aiming a weapon, like a gun, is done with the right trigger. Putting aside the fact that this is not how any good shooter does it, you cannot imagine how infuriating it was when I pressed down the right trigger to aim my not-so-trusty sidearm, only to have Frank the photog aim in a completely different direction than what I wanted, leaving me disoriented and open to zombie bite marks. The gun is a weapon you want to use as little as possible; when I wanted a zombie dead, I grabbed a baseball bat, lead pipe, or nightstick (I do like the nightstick) and button mashed my way to victory. Maybe I wasn't exploring the game's possibilities, but when that's how the basics play, you ask what there is that can turn it around.

Plus, there's the photo aspect, which feels like an even bigger waste of time. I mean, I get it, Frank's a photographer, but come on - am I really going to snap a pic of the oncoming horde when I should be working on running AWAY from them? Not to mention that aiming the camera is a tiresome, difficult process which takes about as much time as aiming the gun. That I could have done without.

I really wanted to love this game - I got it because I kept hearing how awesome it was. All I have to say is, "ugggggggggh uuuuuunnnnnhhhhhh?" Which is, I think, zombie for "what the hell?"

Killing Zombies and taking Pictures of them with LEGOS on there head... UBER!

Alright, if you aren't aloud to play zombie games, your too young to be on here, and if you don't like zombie games, you don't deserve to have video-games. Your a photographer that is taking pictures of zombies doing stuff, and he goes into a mal full of zombies, blah, blah, blah, who gives a crap about the story? Just go slap a lego head on a zombie and take a picture! There are so many zombies I can't even count, it beats any Resident Evil game. Now, all they need to do is get it on PS3!!!!!

A Zombie Game Done Right

When I first got this game, I was skeptical about how good this game would be, after hearing some bad things from my friends about it. But once I got past the first zombie breach section after killing over 200 zombies, I was hooked. For the next two weeks, I carved and hacked my way towards the end of the story mode, the thrill of almost endless zombie slaughtering filling me with the feeling that I was almost unstoppable. Even though I only achieved the "C" story ending (due to my many hours slaughtering roughly 100,000 zombies and ignoring most of the quests), I liked the game for almost every aspect of it. The only problems that I had with the game was that most of the people (who I had reluctantly chosen to save) are total IDIOTS. They either get themselves lost into a mob of bloodthirsty zombies which kills them before you can reach them, or they try too hard to help kill zombies and get brutally mobbed to death. The story is nice, so too are the graphics, but after my 5,000th zombie kill, the sense of repetitiveness sank in and I felt bored. Other than that, this game will forever live on in our hearts as one of the best zombie games to date.

PROS: Addicting gameplay, amazing graphics, total zombie ownage, and interesting story mode.
CONS: Repetitive gameplay, too much great zombie ownage can lead to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, dumb AI.

Everything but the kitchen sink....

Okay, so this isn't that great of a game. But it succeeds at what it is; an off-the-wall zombie splatterfest inspired by Grand Theft Auto and Dawn of the Dead. There are literally hundreds of weapons to use on the hordes walking dead, including everything from potted plants and bowling balls to chainsaws and lawnmowers. And I do mean hordes of walking dead, as the number of zombies on screen is staggering at times. Of course, the novelty of butchering zombies eventually wears off, and then you're stuck with the actual storyline. Basically you have three days (or a couple hours of real time) to do scripted missions on time and get out of Dodge on a helicopter. You also have the option to save survivors scattered throughout the mall, although they're only marginally smarter than the zombies and an absolute headache to escort back to the safehouse. The time issue is unnecessarily annoying and stressful at times, and your janitor friend from the safehouse is constantly calling and providing text that is so small you either need a microscope or 100-inch TV to read it. The bosses are completely over-the-top lunatics and provide some laughs, but other than that the main 72 hour story mode is pretty dull.

Dead Rising Review

I freaking love this game. i can't even explain it. for a zombie game it is not scary at all. (which is good for the faint of heart that still want a good game) even when it becomes night time it aint scary. it has a very very high replay rate. it has 7 different endings and awsomly challenging achievments and awsome unlockables. sense it's made by Capcom (they made Megaman) u can unlock mega mans real gun and the whole mega man outfit. U play as Frank West a free lanse photo journalist eho got a tip that something big was going down in that little town of willamete. In a hellicopter u get dropped off on the roof of the shopping mall u head into the mall and witness zombies break in to the mall. Safe back in the security room, there are a couple of people fighting to survive just like u. Bascialy u can do wat ever u want either do the case files which are the missions or go around fighting physco paths (bosses) or finding and saving people. Or all of them! u can level up to level 50 each time u either get a boost in health, stock, speed, strenght, throwing distance, or u get a new move. The moves are very entertaining to use there are moves such as suplex, wall kick, and round house kick. U can take pictures of varies things a genres of things such as out take, horror, and erotica. u can a certain amount of pp points for doing varies things such as pictures and saving people. PP is wat levels u up. I strongly recamend this game and it is highly entertaining and very very fun. 5.0 THANK YOU FOR READING