Worthwhile Reviews: Dead Rising | X360 | $34.99 | New

Dead Rising was one of the main reasons I wanted a 360, and one of the first games I played when I got one. The premise of the game is that you're trapped in a mall during a zombie outbreak, with only whatever you find laying around to defend yourself, save other humans, and figure out why the dead have risen.

Right off the bat, the game does some strange things. The save system in particular feels like a mistake at first, since you only have one save slot. This means that if you save when you haven't left enough time to accomplish a task, there's no way to go to a previous save point and redo it. As you get used to it, though, the save system stops being an issue. You'll come to understand that you were never meant to do everything your first run through, that you're supposed to play multiple times, after which the save system becomes a nonissue. If you die, you have the option of restarting from the last save point or saving Frank's (your in-game avatar) experience and upgrades and starting over.

You should absolutely not be afraid to start over. The 72 (game) hours of the main mode go quickly, and each time you learn the mall and the missions better, as well as powering your character up. If you've seen the movie Groundhog Day, imagine that Bill Murray spent his time learning barehand combat instead of piano and poetry and that Punxatawny was teeming with zombies. That'll give you a better idea of how Dead Rising works. Frank is pretty slow and feeble at first, but as you explore the mall and start saving survivors, facing psychopaths (ordinary folks who just aren't reacting to the whole zombie scurge very well emotionally), and (re)killing the walking dead Frank will start to unleash his inner badass. As you level up, you'll be able to hold more items, take more damage, move faster, and you'll learn a variety of combat techniques.

Although you will sometimes stumble upon survivors to lead back to safety on your own, most of the missions in the game come via your walkie-talkie from a mall employee named Otis who watches the security monitors and keeps you informed of items of interest. By the end of the game, you will hate Otis with such a burning passion that you'll curse the inability to use any attack while in the Security Room, your home base of sorts in the mall. The problem is that Otis calls you regardless of how busy you are (you can be buried under 20 zombies and trying not to get eaten for all he cares), then demands that you read his entire message (and... he... talks... slow) before the mission is actually active. Oh yeah, you can't use any items or weapons while listening to Otis, either.

Along with the many optional missions (or "scoops") you have available, there's also the main storyline cases. If you miss even a single one of these, you won't be able to progress any further in the main story that playthough. That doesn't mean the game is over, though--you've still got the remainder of the 72 hours and lots of non-story missions to work on, as well as exploration. I actually think Capcom should have blocked the main cases completely until you reach a certain level, because too many people feel like they should be pursuing them right away. Once you've got a handle on the mall layout and mechanics of the game (and have levelled Frank up a bit), completing the main cases isn't too difficult, and doing so is necessary to get the true ending and unlock Overtime Mode.

The fun in Dead Rising really lies in the freedom it offers. You can pick up nearly anything in the mall to use as a weapon, and at any point you can turn your back on the scoops and just roam however you like. Often you'll pick a focus before starting a game, which actually offers more role-playing than your typical RPG. My first time through, I tried to react to everything as if I were really in the situation, concentrating on rescuing survivors. The next time, I played to survive, and shot any survivors that I didn't think could help me... you know, to avoid letting them become zombies. The next time, I played looking for answers and let survivors fend for themselves while I pursued the main sotryline. Eventually you get to know the game well enough that you can accomplish nearly everything in one playthrough if you care to.

The controls are good--much better than a Resident Evil game, and although Frank learns a decent repitoire of moves, they're all pretty easy to pull off quickly. You may sometimes accidentally suplex a zombie rather than hammer-throwing them, but its unlikely to cause you a problem. The graphics are pretty sharp for an early 360 game, especially with all the zombies that can be on-screen at once. There's relatively little music in the game--mostly during boss fights--but there's a constant stream of quiet muzak going in the background that is just as maddening as what you'd find in a real mall.

I do wish that there was some kind of online play, because tag-teaming it through a mall full of zombies would be an absolute blast, but I'm sure that'll find its way into the sequel, at least. I also would have liked to see a suspend option in Infinity (survival) Mode--obviously being able to save would defeat the purpose of it, but who has the time to play for 10 hours straight? They could have allowed us to suspend the game (returning to it erases the suspend file) without harming the difficulty. And Otis has got to go.

Was it worth it? Yes! Although $35 is a pretty high price for me to pay for a game (I tend to wait for the golden $20 price point), I more than got my money's worth in fun out of this game. The replayability is vast and the possibilites nearly limitless. My favorite 360 game so far.