Dead Rising is a new game from Capcom that puts you in the shoes of Frank West, a photojournalist. You recently got a tip that there is a story going down in a small town with a population of 53,000, and without much thought you rent a helicopter and go on your way to get the scoop. The game begins with you in a helicopter flying over the main city streets, and you immediately notice something isn’t right with this town. The army tries to intercept your helicopter and you are then dropped off on the rooftop of the city mall, leaving you with 72 hours of investigating before your chopper returns. This is where the game begins.
The developers, Capcom, are no strangers to the zombie genre and they achieved much success in their Resident Evil games. Although the genre is the same, Dead Rising is still a very different game than what we have seen in recent years from other titles. Dead Rising also has a few similarities with a couple of zombie movies, but no direct connections.
Still, labeling this game in the zombie genre wouldn’t be treating it very fairly. Dead Rising is far from a horror game and although zombies can kill you, there is still more humor than horror associated with the zombies throughout the game. A good way to describe this game to friend is to call it a stress reliever. There’s a million ways to kill the zombies, of which there are tens of thousands, plus there are thousands of weapons, clothes, and other wacky, hidden items that the developers put throughout the mall. So if you’re the exploring type, this game will satisfy you for many, many hours.
There are several components to the gameplay in Dead Rising. You are a photojournalist, so taking pictures is one of your main priorities. The game incorporates a picture taking mode that you use through out the game to capture goofy, funny, or scary moments. You are also trying to get the scoop on the story, so you are constantly running from one side of the mall to the other so you can help out characters that will slowly reveal the story behind the town incident. Obviously the last part involves you bashing zombies’ faces in. Killing zombies is such a huge part of the gameplay that you sometimes forget that this game has other aspects to it, and indeed this is what you will spend about 95% of your time doing.
The game uses a RPG style level system for your character. You get points for achieving various tasks, completing objectives, killing zombies, and taking photos, which are interestingly rated based on how many zombies you have in the shot and what they are doing. Eventually, the higher level your player becomes, the better he gets at killing zombies. You learn new moves and abilities and also become faster and stronger, as well as getting an increase in the amount of items you can hold at one time.
For the most part, Dead Rising provides a very entertaining experience and the gameplay is solid. It still doesn’t change the fact that the gameplay is very simple, and can sometimes even be frustrating. The save system in Dead Rising is one of the worst in recent games. You are only offered 1 save, so you have to overwrite each time, you also can only save in certain bathrooms or couches indicated on your map. The problem is, if you save a game and you don’t have enough time from the point where you saved to get to the next scoop of the main story line, the game is over and you have to start again.
