Dead rising

i was a bit reluctant about getting dead rising. I had heard good things, and i had heard bad things. After my friend telling me it was awesome, i finally got my copy for $35 at best buy. in dead rising, you play as frank west, a har-edged photojournalist looking for the scoop of a lifetime. he learns about the no-name town of willamette,colorado. the town has been shut off completly-communications,roads-and frank decides this is his chance. after landing on the roof of the towns local shopping mall, things get a little hectic for frank. In dead rising, basically everything is a weapon. seriously. soda cans? check. hedge clippers? check. baseball bat?check. the list goes on and on. hell, you even get to hit zombies with stuffed animals. of course, you got shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols......but you will barely use these compared to the elite melee weapons-chainsaws,katanas, and knives. this game really lives up to what it says on the box. "almost everything is a weapon" or something. the story is carried out through case files, which are like time-sensitive story missions. you have a lot of extra time between these missions, so the game decided to include scoops-optional non-story related kission that are also time-sensative-rather than make you run around killing zombies for an hour. these scoops are broken up into saving survivors, killing bosses, and saving survivors. thats not a typo. you save a lot of survivors. these missions wouldnt be so tedious if it werent for the crappy survivor AI. sometimes instead of following you they'll either kill(or push) zombies or walk straight into hordes of the undead. at least the game gives u a lot of points for them. on the other hand, sometimes u fight the bosses......called psychopaths...that have gone crazy because of the zombie incident. these guys range from a family of snipers to an evil clown who juggles chainsaws. by doing the games missions, saving survivors, beating bosses,finding the games plentiful easter eggs, or the biggie, KILLING ZOMBIES,you get prestige points, which are like exp. points that level you up to level 50. by leveling up you get stronger,faster, able to hold more items, get more health, and learn a ton of ridiculous wrestling moves. the moves ranged form roundhouse kicks to the allmighty disembowel move. this is all very engaging and assures that you will be playing until you get to lvl 50. after you get through the games main 72-hour mode(which will take you about 7 hours to complete)you get the overtime mode, and then the infinity mode in which its free for all. but about the 72 hour mode.....i seriously doubt you will beat it on your first try. heck, i didnt. the game only has one save spot, and you can only save in the security room and the mall's public bathrooms, so if you save in a bad spot, ur screwed, and you will have to start the game over again. the good news is when you start a new gam you keep the skills form before. there are plenty of little things to do in the mall. when you pass a clothing store, you can sample the threads. in book stores, you can take books, some of which greatly increase durability of certain items. i personally prefer the criminal biographies book(which affects all bladed weapons) and the engineering book(all hardware items). with some weapons, you can get 3 books for the same weapon, so you could keep the weapon for basiccaly forever. then you can get potions, which give frank superhuman abilities, like invincebility and super speed. all this stuff can be ignored, but it all makes the game more enjoyable. Dead Rising is one of games where either you love it or you hate it. i for one, love it. graphics- 4.25 design-4 gameplay-4.75 sound-5 overall-4.5