+ Great story with some nice twists for fans of zombies and Capcom.

+ Memorable characters that feels really alive and have excellent voiceacting.

+ Unique and funny gameplay with the whole mall and stores thing and with the neverending masses of zombies in your way.

+ Soooo many ways to kill soooo many zombies.

+ Really great cutscenes. You really think "YES, another cutscene" evertime there is one. They are masterfully directed together with all of these great characters. Best cutscenes since Resident evil 4.

+ Superb musical score when fighting psychos. Some say they think the music really sucks. I think the adrenaline pumping Metalsongs with really heavy guitars is just what I need to defeat the bastards.

+ Sweet references to other Capcom games like Mega Man and Resident Evil.

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- The Savesystem together with the timepressure. The savesystem is a deathtrap together with the constant pressure of doing things on time. It may even force you to start the game all over again..

- The Timelimit together with the game´s layout. The Timelimit always gets in the way of you doing the stuff you want to and seeing the things you want.

- The timelimit continued: You never get that feeling that you want to go and see whats in all of the little stores because youre always pressed to get somewhere really fast.

- The timelimit continued: I really tried to like the constant pressure but i dont. I felt stressed throughout the whole game. Up to the point where i needed to play some relaxing Test Drive unlimited afterwards to calm down.

- The timelimit continued: You never really have time to just KILL ZOMBIES. You may be thinking that the game would let you browse the merchandise for weapons and then let you kill some zombies. It dont. It tells you to quickly hurry to the next objective and skip the masses of zombies anyway you can.

- The AI of the people you need to escort is horrible. You end up just saving young girls because you can either carry them on your back or hold their hands wich rids you of their stupid AI.

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Note about the final score. If you LIKE the constant timelimit and the challenging savesystem you can add another 0.5 to the score. Its really a Love or Hate thing. Unfortunately it came to hate for me.

Final Score: 8.3

You like Resident Evil, you like zombies, you like Dead Rising. You will play through it even if you have to start over due to the challenging layout of the game.

Tested on: X360 PAL, With HDD, 26" HDTV -720p,Dolby Pro Logic II with 5.1 Home Theatre Setup.

So I have a TERRIBLE cold since yesterday. I look pale as Michael Jackson, have red rings around my eyes and a nose thats red as Super Mario´s hat and running like crazy. I dont feel fit to really do anything and therefor im kinda forced down into my gaminchair together with a glass of Diet Coke, A cup of tea, a bowl of ramen and lots of tissues. This bring me to my point. Being sick forces you to spend alot of hours in front of the 360. Ive been playing like maybe around 8-9 hours of games a day the last two days (like 20 hours over 2 days) divided mostly over Dead Rising and Test Drive Unlimited. I go to the toilet now and then, watch my pale, sick face in the mirror and the red eyes that the 9 hours of gaming has triggered and then go back to play some more. Because, well, I dont have stenght to really do anything else. So. Im almost done with Dead Risings 72 Hour Mode and Ive gotten like 15 Achievements out of Test Drive wich has taken me to Expert-status. I just bought my first Corvette and my 2nd house (a nice cabin-like villa on the north side of Oahu with really cozy interior and a 6 slot garage. I think i paid around 250.000 for it.

On a sidenote. Im a huge Family guy fan. I think its the best animated series ever to be aired on TV. The humor in that series is JUST my kind of humor. I can laugh until I cry watching a good episode of Family Guy and i just found the following clips on YouTube. Its Seth MacFarlane, the genious behind it all, holding a great speech at Harvard in what looks like some really sweet weather. He holds the speech as himself, Peter, Stewie and Quagmire. Ill let you watch for yourselves. If youre a Family Guy fan (wich you are if you are cool) and have missed this. Watch it now !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc-yl_8ywiU - Part 1, as himself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9QXyuUqKCs - Part 2, as Peter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLt73xSJlAM - Part 3, as Stewie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_q_z1_d0mE - Part 4, as Quagmire

+ Perfect Difficulty. Never gets impossible (like in GTA) but never gets so easy that ou fall asleep.

+ Takes everything good about GTA, leaves out everything frustrating about GTA. Adds some new cool feautures

+ Excellent Gangstory with maybe the best voiceacting of the year.

+ Loads and loads of high quality music and radiostations. And the overall sound of weapons, vehicles and stuff like that are really really sharp.

+ Really good graphics considering the scope and size of the game and no loadingtimes.

+ Embraces the Mature rating. You´ll find ALOT of references to sex, alot of partial nudity and loads and loads of excessive violence. All of them helps to create a more natural story for this setting.

+ Alot of different Multiplayer modes. some really creative ones !

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- Some serious Tearing-issues. Especially in cutscenes.

- Some other graphical glitches and occasional pop-ups. Also some rare  but serious slowdowns

- Taking itself maybe to serious at times. The story never feels quite as relaxed and aware of itself like the GTA stories.

- The city feels a bit "plastic" and without personality since its not really based on a big american city but more of a mix of alot of them.

- / + ?  No boats, planes, helis, bikes or anything else than just cars. This might be a huge turn-off for hardcore GTA players. But on the other hand Saints Row is not GTA4. Its Saints Row 1.

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Final Score: 8.5

Recommended to everyone who has ever enjoyed an open free roaming city.

Tested on: X360 PAL, With HDD, 26" HDTV -720p,Dolby Pro Logic II with 5.1 Home Theatre Setup.

It has just been announced that the PS3 will be delayed half a year here in Europe. The new EU release date is in March 2007. That is OUCH. That is a HUGE delay. As if i didnt have enough reasons not to get a PS3. I cant believe the patience some people have who are still willing to wait even LONGER for the next generation while some of us has been enjoying it for years before that. The EU Ps3 fans will have to sit and wait, knowing that the rest of the world are having fun with their PS3´s. Sony Sony...

In other news. My Dead Rising where shipped today. EU late rease of that to. Should be arriving tomorrow. Sweet!

If youre waiting for the PAL version of Dead Rising and havent pre-ordered a copy already you have 3 more days to do it. 3 more days to Dead Rising. Oh yes!

And now. A text-style points report for a couple of weeks back.

Rented FIFA RTWC 06 and got 1000 / 1000 out of that. Went back to Rumble Roses XX wich I actually own and got like 20 points more from that before i couldnt stand playing it again. I went back to Quake 4 and tried to get some more out of that but didnt. The campaign is actually hard towards the end and I didnt have the willpower to try THAT hard. 50 points from Robotron, the hardest game on Live Arcade. Actually got more skilled in Geometry Wars and took like 20 or 30 more points from that. Then I bought Ninety-Nine Nights. Have 500 from that at the moment. Need to level everyone to lvl 9 and complete all levels again. + the dreadful special mission. 150 points from Time Pilot, 1000 points from Fight Night, my latest rental and at the moment im playing Saints Row. I havent got to the point where i switch on to caring about the points in that one yet. Just enjoying a very good game and seeing what I get from normal play. (except killing 50 pedestrians with my fists, i had to get that one).

But as I said. 3 more days to Dead Rising in Sweden. Cant wait. I really cant. So im probably going to work and sleep my way there and hope time goes really fast.

..in the month of September. Actually its TO good to be a 360 gamer this coming month. This is turning out to be the best month in the consoles history by far and this is going to be my longest blogpost by far just about September 2006. I cant even remember when so many greeeat games were released in one single month. Really top-notch titles that are coming out in September:
- Ninety-Nine Nights (25th of Aug, well its almost Sept, already bought that)
- Saints Row ( Sept 1st)
- Dead Rising ( Sept 7th)
- Test Drive Unlimited (Sept 8th)
- Enchanted Arms (Sept 15th)
- Just Cause (Sept 15th)

And maybe some of the following titles
- Splinter Cell Double Agent (Sept 22nd)
- Timeshift (Sept 15th)

So. Thats ALOT of must-have titles in one single month. Its crazy, completely whacko. I mean just look at the list. I pretty much need to buy games for at LEAST 320 Dollars. Thats like 3000 Swedish Crowns and thats an insane amount of money. So I obviously need to prioritize and save some of these titles for October / Nov / Dec.
So.. wich do I chose? Lets start from the top. N3. Already bought. So thats a check. Saints Row. I wasnt going to buy that until i was blown away by Greg Kasavins 8hour marathon. Now im almost as excited for this game as for GTA 4. Sants Row have pretty high priority. Dead Rising. Pre-ordered that like 2 months ago so thats already booked. Im not even gonna motivate, its Dead Rising, period. Test Drive Unlimited. I tried out the NEW demoversion yesterday and wow it was FUN. Wasnt going to bother with this game either until i played that demo for 1 hour. A gigantic freeroaming version of Hawaii completely Online. Other cars on the roads are other players. Was really fun roaming around challenging people and going on cruises to Car Halls to sit in some new Labourghinis. I would say Test Drive has really high priority to. I mean it IS the first Massivly Multiplayer Online Racinggame and it has NO monthly fee unlike the MMORPGs. Next up is Enchanted Arms. I WAS going to buy this but I actually think I wait until Ive seen some reviews. Then its Just Cause. This game couldnt have higher priority. Ive had fun for days in an unlimited variety of ways with just the demo. This game might even surpass Gears of War for GOTY. Its FUN FUN FUN and it might just have the biggest gameworld ever..and not one single loadingtime.
The games on the 2nd list seems interesting but I have some questionmarks left so I will wait for reviews and see what happens. Demoversions would be sweet also.
So. Taking away pre-ordered games,the already bought one and the ones I will have to skip for a month or 2 that leaves:
- Saints Row
- Test Drive Unlimited
- Just Cause
So that would narrow it down to 3 more games to buy in September. That is also way to much actually. My economy is pretty sparse at the moment. I NEED to pick away more games from the September list. But now its HARD. These are games i WANT on the releaseday. All of them are free-roaming, open ended games. Saints Row are a city and the other 2 are huge tropical Islands. Ok. The structure are pretty much the same in Saints Row and Just Cause. JC are pretty much Saints Row in huge, tropical format. So lets say you only need one of those. September will be GTA-style in EITHER a city OR on a tropical island. Seems logical enough. OK. How to decide. I said earlier that JC had maybe the highest priority and i will have to stick with that. As much as I want to play SR it will have to wait for a while *sob*.
2 games left. It actually would be kickass to narrow it down to only 1 game + Dead Rising in September but I dont think its possible.
The final September-list for now will go like this.
- Dead Rising (Sept 7th)
- Test Drive Unlimited (Sept 8th)
- Just Cause (Sept 15th).
That means Test Drive will arrive the day after I get Dead Rising wich is crazy.
September is CRAZY. Its wonderful..and i HATE it.

8.4 / 10.0

+ Lots and lots of enemies on screen

+ Fantastic character / armor / weapondesign

+ Incredibly addictive and highly stylish and combointense gameplay

+ Some really good orchestral music with some really moody angelic choirvocals

+ 8 different characters / 8 different views on the conflict / 8 styles of combat

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- Some framratedrops when theres alot happening

- No savingfunction in the missions at all can in some particular missions be a huge pain

- Awful English voiceacting for almost every character. Give us Japanese

- Gameplay CAN get repetative even for the most hardcore Hack n Slasher

- The story feels rushed since the campaigns are so short and feels more like a short explanation of the character you play rather than a story that explains the conflict at hand.

- Some bugs with the camera in the cutscenes and really bad lipsyncing due to the original Japanese and the newly added English.

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8.4. Recommended to all Hack n Slash fans of the new generation !