Dead Rising

Besides Nazis and Aliens, Zombies are perhaps the most commonly used fodder in video games today. The living dead have made their menacing presence felt through a lot… and I mean a lot of action titles, and what they lack in speed (and I.Q), they generally make up for in huge numbers. Unfortunately due to graphical limitations none of the previous generation games could convey that feeling of dread that would wash over you if you were facing thousands of these undead buggers. Now, thanks to the power of the Xbox 360, Capcom has been able to deliver a game that’s capable of emoting the above mentioned dread, but unfortunately it’s marred by a whole load of problems that stop it from becoming one of the best Zombie games ever.

In Dead Rising, you’ll step into the boots of Frank West, a highly enthusiastic journalist who lets his enthusiasm get the best of him at times. In one of the above mentioned moments, he finds himself chasing the scoop of a lifetime in a small American town called Willamette. Now this town is probably like any other peaceful, idyllic town except for a small, tiny problem; it’s infested with zombies and the only place where Frank can get any sort of answer is the town’s not so bustling gigantic mall. Zombie genocide and some window shopping ensue…

For some weird reason, developer Capcom has added in stupid time constraints into the game so you’ll have only 72 hours (roughly translated into 6 hours) to unravel this mystery before your chopper AKA your ticket out of Willamette, comes back. Once you’re finished playing the game, you’ll unlock different modes that will allow you exploration at a more leisurely pace, but by the time you actually do that, you’ll be so bored of slaughtering the undead, you’ll probably get back to Gears of War (I can’t help it, I love that game). To make matters worse, the game doesn’t offer any sort of multiplayer action (co-op would have been nice); the only thing you can probably do is boast of your achievements on Xbox Live.
Even though the game offers you a certain amount of freedom, to unravel the mystery surrounding the infestation and progress along the story line, you’ll have to complete a series of cases to find out what exactly transpired in this town. In case you get bored of the story missions (which in all honesty, you probably will), you could indulge in some of the (many) side quests the game has to offer and by successfully completing them you’ll be rewarded with Prestige Points. Prestige Points (PP) are experience points of sorts that can help you level up your character-like increase his life bar or speed, as well as endow him with newer moves like zombie evisceration (ripping out its intestines), zombie head ripping, zombie ride (crowd surfing over a group of zombies) and so on. Prestige Points can also be earned by clicking photographs (you are a photographer in the game after all) and the juicier photos you click (like those denoting brutal violence or erotic situations like a female zombie chomping on the crotch of an innocent survivor), the more Prestige you earn.
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Ok, so you’re finally enjoying slaughtering the undead (more on that later) and you’re thinking, “Hey, this game is pretty cool”, when *BAM*, you’re hit in the face with the game’s highly anal save point system. In Dead Rising, Capcom has limited the number of areas you can save your game in so you can only save your progress at the security room at the start of the game or restrooms spread through the mall. Now you could defend their action by saying frequent checkpoints really hamper gameplay or over simplify a game, but let me see you feel this way once you’ve played for nearly two hours and get killed by a bunch of zombies or a stupid boss just before you reached the security room. If all that doesn’t annoy you, wait till you meet some of the highly retarded survivors you’re expected to rescue through out the game; most of the time they won’t be able to keep up with you, and for some weird reason they just love rushing head on into a group of hungry zombies. Something that’s even more annoying than the human brain dead idiots are the human psychopaths that are spread all over the mall (apparently the zombies infestation was too much for them and they all went loco); you have everything from a chainsaw juggling clown to a Gypsy King wannabe to an overweight obese policewoman making life miserable for you. Luckily, killing them is optional, so you don’t have to fight them to progress through the game’s story.

Now after all that, you’re probably thinking that I didn’t like the game a lot, and to a certain extent you’re right, but one major redeeming quality in its favor is the fun you can have while you’re slaughtering hordes of zombies using nearly everything the mall has to offer, like baseball bats, sledgehammers (using it to burst open a zombie’s head is the most satisfying kill ever), katanas, frying pans, golf clubs, hockey sticks, guitars, cash registers, scythes (wonder what they were doing in a mall), lawnmowers, bowling balls, CDs, TVs, chainsaws, soft toys (I kid you not), and the more conventional weapons like pistols, shotguns, machine guns and lots more. Killing the undead with all these unconventional weapons is fun no doubt, but that too gets a bit monotonous after you’re done killing zombie No 1000. Add to that some stupid unnecessary and annoying boss fights and you may get put off with this game quicker than you can imagine. If your health gets depleted while brawling with the undead, don’t bother looking for health packs, food is your best friend here and by chomping on (in a most annoying and obnoxious way) anything you can get your hands on, you’ll get your health bar right up.

Visually the game looks pretty good and an impressive feat is the fact that the game can render hundreds of fully interactive zombies without a loss in frame rate. For people who plan on playing this game on SDTVs I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the game’s very playable and it does look pretty good, but on the flip side, the in-game text goes for a toss and most of it is pretty unreadable (this is because Capcom has developed the game for HDTVS only). Audio is top notch and even though voice acting can get a bit over the top at times (I’m guessing B grade horror movies served as some sort of inspiration here), the game’s sound effects are simply mind blowing with zombie’s sounding pretty menacing and every time you kill one of them using a sledgehammer, you can’t help but wince at the brutal squishing sounds.

In the end, I wouldn’t recommend shelling out nearly Rs. 2500 on this game; it’s funny and entertaining in bits and pieces but is bogged down by way too many problems to become a must own title. Hopefully Capcom will sort out all these issues and more for the sequel.
Game sourced by Text 100