The best way to spend 72 (game) hours in a mall!
Let me start by clarifying a few things for you people: i'm not a survival/horror fan. I tried playing Resident Evil 2 Platinum a long long time ago and i thought it was a great "door-opening sim" but i never felt motivated enough to return to the series or genre for that matter. So why am i bothering to write a review for a game in a genre i have little interest in? THIS. GAME. ROCKS.
Game-play
Premise: spend 72 game hours trying to find out as much as you can about the tragedy affecting the small town of Willamette. What you actually wind up doing is far more than that. There are over four dozen survivors in this mall that need to be escorted to safety. You don't want to save em all, you don't have to. Most are side quests that you can take or leave but ALL quests are time sensitive. Main quests, or CASES have to be followed or the trail of the story runs cold. (You can choose to continue killing zombies and exploring the mall or going after achievements without any time constraints.) Most of the quests require you to get from point A to point B in X amount of time. Sounds tedious, i know, but never in my life has simple escotrt missions been so much fun. Picture this... You are traveling through the mall looking to get to the security room with three survivors following you and one on your back when you enter the main enterance plaza only to find that you are in the cross-hairs of three psychopaths wielding hunting rifles. You place priority on keeping your survivors safe by telling them to stay put in the back of a clothing store's dressing room while dodging rifle rounds as they zing past your head. oh, yeah, you have to face off against faster moving, smarter, better armed HUMAN opponents as well.
Difficulty - unadjustable
But thats okay. The difficulty is just right. Oddly enough, this game is harder earlier rather than later and not because of a learning curve. Your character (Frank) is a pretty weak and wimpy guy at first: small ammount of life, short throw distance and only a few punches and kicks to keep you alive. Spend a few (game) hours with him and all of a sudden he can carry more stuff, tackle zombies, walk on their backs, and most important, live longer.
Skills Somewhat Explained
Without increasing Frank's skills you are zombait. Frank can gain experience in a few ways: taking pictures, rescuing survivors, or, of course killing zombies. Although the biggest boost comes from rescuing survivors and taking pictures of them at the right time. You can level all the way to Lvl.50 but the game incorporates an interesting way of letting you keep your experience and level when you end up as a zombie's warm lunch. When you are killed, you are presented with two options: reload from your last save point (and throughout the entire game you only get one save game slot and although it is possible to save yourself into a corner, i never made that unfortunate mistake) or you can save all of Frank's experience and restart the game. I will admit i used this mechanic to cheat a bit, but it enabled me to progress through the game a little easier in the beginning when the game is hardest.
Graphics
I first bought this game in its original week of release and since then games are looking better and better for the 360. Dead Rising had arguably the best graphics of the summer and at that time i was playing on a SDTV squinting to read the text at the bottom of the screen (more on that later) and sitting amazed at the detail and sheer number of zombies on screen. The graphics have stood the test of time so far (seven months) and look great on my new Samsung HDTV. And the text messages at the bottom of the screen are SO much more legible now (yeah i'll explain later). The mall is very detailed and store signs and advertisements are rich and persuasive. The zombie dismembering devices look as they should and overall the game deliveres on the visual side of things. Sound
Wow, the foley work on this game is superb. Ever wonder what a hunk of meat sounds like when it hits a zombie in the head? Play this game and you'll find out. The weapons sound just like their real life counterparts (just throw a can of paint at a zombie's head and tell me it doesn't sound real) or drink a gallon of orange juice and immediatly you'll understand. Might be the best sound in any game. Now that i'm done gushing about the sound effects, time to move on to music. Not much music to speak of. Just the music you'd expect to hear in a mall during business hours. Some stores have their own exclusive tracks and out in the mall's courtyard you'll actually hear the game's only real atmospheric soundtrack, but for the most part you won't miss an overt orchestral score for this title.
Weapons
Without going into too much detail, i'll only list a few of the many (many) "weapons" for you to bash against a zombie's skull. There's the requisite sharp objects like knives and swords, but a good rule of thumb is that if you can pick it up, you can use it to ruin a zombie's day at the mall. That means benches, store signs, displays, etc. You also have a limited selection of firearms like a handgun, shotgun, and sniper rifle (hunting rifle w/ scope), and later a machine gun , but they are better suited for the game's human enemies. You are encouraged to use mele weapons against the undead since the guns have small clip sizes. Mele weapons can also be thrown (please throw the lead pipe at a zombie early in the game. I mised out on that one for a while) and will do slightly more damage depending on Frank's throw distance. Other than firearms, weapons fall under categories like sports (baseball bats, golf clubs, skateboards) construction (2x4, lead pipe, sledgehammer) entertainment (tv's, chairs, benches) bladed (knives, swords, axes) and some even overlap, like a saw blade is construction and bladed, or adam's amall chainsaws are construction, entertainment, and bladed (hint hint). This knowledge comes in handy when you figure in a weaon's durability (or number of swings/throws that make contact with a zombie) and a skill book modifier. You can increase the longevity of a baseball bat by keeping a sports book in your inventory, or heal yourself more efficiently by keeping a cuisine magazine and drinking some coffee creamer. One thing you must do if you decide to purchase or rent theis fine, fine game is to head over to the Home Saloon (kina like a Home Depot) and check out the excavator. Never gets old.
Flaws
Even the best games have imperfections (remember the Xen levels in Half-Life?) and Dead Rising is no different. The standout flaw is that the game's text is almost unreadable on a SDTV (i played on a 21" SDTV poor, 36" SDTV readable but fuzzy, and a 32" HDTV best.) and after a while it made my eyes hurt from straining to read the fuzzy text. This wouldn't be such a problem if most of Dead Rising's dialogue wasn't text based. Most of your side quest or "scoop" info is relayed to you in this manner and it makes things difficult when you have to spend extra time trying to decipher the language at the bottom of the screen. Which brings us to the next complaint. Although not as large of a problem, the time constraints for some of the CASES and SCOOPS seem impossible if you are a save fanatic. What i mean is, you only get one save slot for the entirety of Dead Rising. This means you must save over your previous data every time you chose to save the game. The chance to save Frank's stats and start over helps greatly here and aleviates some of the pressure to get things right the first time but you may need to repeat a lengthy ammount of time to return to the point that gave you trouble. Anoher problem is saving yourself into a corner by saving your progress ahd not giving yourself enough time to complete your task. I never had a problem with this since i just used the autosaves after each CASE as a starting point, and again, the "save Frank's stats and start over" option balances things out nicely but since all other reviews i read included this as a minor grievance, so too shall mine.
Fun Factor - Through the Roof!
Small list of complaints but i never truly felt any of them detracted from the game. The acheivement list alone can keep you busy for days and the rewards will help when you decide to save all 52 survivors, or attempt to tackle survival mode. The fact that Dead Rising is an exclusive title to the X360 is reason enough to pick up this wonderfully fun, gaming experience but in case you need more persuasion, if you have a 360, you should have Dead Rising.