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Reader review by scrarecrow
August 25, 2006 When I first heard of Dead Rising I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Now that I’ve had a chance to spend some time with the game I’m only slightly disappointed. The game drops you into the shoes of Frank West, a photojournalist looking for his big scoop. He gets more than he bargains for when he’s dropped off at the local mall where a zombie outbreak has occurred. From that point he has 72 hours (not actual game time) to get his story.The sheer number of zombies on screen at any given time is just awesome. And the game gives you nearly as many ways to dispatch them. You can use almost anything as a weapon: trash cans, chain saws, umbrellas; you name it and your almost sure to find it some where in the mall. And most weapons have their own unique animation and sound. Bust a electric guitar over a zombie’s head and you’ll hear a riff. The mall its self offers a huge environment to explore. As you would expect there’s a wide variety of stores to browse and the game rewards exploration. You can find books that will improve your stats, clothes you can change into, and hidden weapons.
This brings up one of several missteps. I can’t understand how a game that offers so much to explore doesn’t allow you to do just that. The cases that you are following all occur at certain times. So you have to allow yourself enough time to get to certain points within the mall. Meanwhile you also get side missions to tackle and these missions are also time sensitive. Though you don’t have to complete these side missions, they reward you by leveling Frank up. Giving him more health slots, weapons, and moves. So you have to juggle both the main and side missions at the same time. But if you miss a mission in the main story line your screwed. Once you miss one case the whole story line goes cold and you have to start the game over.
That’s right folks you have to restart from the beginning. This brings us to the most glaring problem in Dead Rising: you only have one save slot. You see if you miss a mission die you have to either load your last save or start over. So if you save at a point that doesn’t give you enough time to get to you next case you can’t finish the rest of the story. You can choose to keep playing but you won’t be able to see the “real ending”. Granted if you do start over, the game saves all your stats and you’ll begin the new game with them. This seems to be an attempt to add replay value to the game. And though Dead Rising is replayable I’d rather decide for myself rather than let the broken save system do it for me.
The game’s controls offer problems as well. Aiming a gun is just ridiculous. You have to pull the right trigger which brings up a new camera that may or may not be pointed in the direction you want it. Then you have to use the left analog stick to aim, which moves so slowly that by the time you get it positioned you’ve been tasered by a three hundred pound cop. Some of the special moves you earn require odd button presses; making them difficult to pull off as well. Taking pictures though is actually fun since the game rewards you with points depending on the type of picture you take. The story of Dead Rising is nothing great to be sure but the characters actually take the plot so seriously that it’s funny at times.
Dead Rising certainly has some problems and can be frustrating at times. If you can look over them there is a lot of fun to be had. Dead Rising could have been a great game. Instead its just good.
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