Dead Rising

Capcom’s Resident Evil series is regarded by most as the best survival horror series out there, and by many as one of the greatest franchises to grace modern consoles.  From the genre defining Playstation original to the most recent bar raising Resident Evil 4, Capcom have shown they’re who you go to when you want a top quality zombie game.  So when Capcom announced as well as Resident Evil 5, they would be bringing Dead Rising (exclusively) to the Xbox 360, people took notice.

However, the similarities between Dead Rising and Resident Evil end at moaning corpses fancying some fresh brains to go with their vege.  While ‘Resi’ is a slow-paced, dark, atmospheric, survival horror, Dead Rising is more of an arcadey, light hearted affair as you smash zombies with anything you can find in an overrun shopping mall.  And to think they probably just fancied a browse through the summer sales before you started causing havoc!  Think Resident Evil with less puzzles and more fast food.

You the play the role of a freelance photographer, Frank West.  Frank has come down to a shopping mall to bag himself some exclusive snaps of an apparent group of zombies.  Unfortunately he gets more than he bargained for as he discovers the group is more of a swarm and inconveniently his ride out is going to be delayed!  Frank has a massive 72 (in-game) hours to pass before his chopper arrives, but as much as he’d like to go window shopping, survival is his number one priority, and with so many hungry ‘fellow shoppers’ about that is no easy task.

The interesting thing about Dead Rising is its innovative approach to weaponry, encouraging creativity.  The mall is your oyster, with over 120 shops to explore and almost every object being a potential killer. You’ll have your bog standard shooting, but you won’t always have the option to be picky when it comes to choosing your weapon.  You can send your enemies back to the grave with anything from machetes to guitars and from teddy bears to chainsaws.