Gun shop owners aren't all like this, some wear trucker caps too
So Kevin Rudd’s big package hasn’t appeared in your bank account? Oh bad mental picture there, sorry. Maybe you’ve just realised you forgot to file your tax return. So while the rest of us are out buying two sets of Rock Band 2 instruments (in case the first one breaks) you’re stuck rooting through the penny pincher bin. Well don’t worry Spare Change has you covered.
Believe me when I say Dead Rising, one of the first games I ever bought for the 360, doesn’t play like anything else you’ve ever picked up. If that’s not enough to sell you try zombies plus a shopping mall plus using everything on the shelves as a weapon.
Zombies love aeroplane rides like everyone else
In Dead Rising you play as photo journalist Frank West (he’s covered wars you know) and a few dollars to a helicopter pilot has Frank flying into a local town that’s been quarantined by the army. He finds the streets full of zombies and you get to take photos of the few straggling survivors getting dragged out of cars and devoured and throwing themselves to their deaths to escape horrible death... you score points for really good photos too, awesome!
When you get to the local mall the real game begins as you use everything you can get your hands on to fight back the zombies, solve the mystery (which is, ‘why are there zombies?’) and rescue a few survivors on the way. The game gets progressively weirder and you occasionally have to do battle against several ‘psychos’ including a chainsaw juggling clown, a morbidly obese female security guard and a Molotov cocktail wielding emo to name a few.
Dead Rising has a number of unique features that set it apart. Firstly, everything is a weapon, obviously you’ll find a few fire arms around the place but you can use all sorts of things to fight back the zombies. Drop a bucket on their head and watch them walk into walls, stick a shower head in their skull and watch the blood fountain out, run them over with a trolley or better yet a lawn mower. Fire extinguishers, brooms, tennis rackets skate boards, plasma tv’s, make up displays, bicycles, all of these items become devices of zombie crushing joy. There's even an antique shop with katana's and a battle axe. Half the fun is just finding inventive ways of doing in the shambling masses.
One frying pan might not be enough, I should have bought the set
Dead Rising also has persistent time, so while you’re ploughing into zombies with an alfresco umbrella the time available to you to rescue people and complete your objectives is ticking away. One of Dead Rising’s equally best and most annoying features is that you just can’t do everything. You’ll receive constant calls on your radio about people who are trapped or meeting someone somewhere and you have to prioritise. When you do rescue people you have to lead them back to the safe room, some people will take weapons from to help fight the zombies but others will cower in fear. Some have been injured as well and actually need to be carried. If you lose one of your survivors you get a delightful scene of them being butchered by zombies and you may even bump into them as a zombie afterwards. If that's not a slap in the face of your failure I don't know what is!
If you fail one of the story objectives you have the choice of restarting the game or continuing on until the third day when your rescue helicopter returns. It’s a strange part of the game and Dead Rising actually has five possible endings based on your actions. There’s no automatic saving either. You can only save in a few limited locations which can be pretty frustrating, especially when you’re constantly playing against the clock.
Food court furniture, deadly
Another odd feature is the experience system. You get points for killing zombies and rescuing survivors but you can score the most points for taking photos, the gorier or more dramatic the better. When you get killed you have the choice of heading back to your last save or taking all your experience and starting the game again. So essentially every time you choose to restart the game you do so with more experience and slots for equipment. This is the far better option as even when you max out Frank to full experience the game is pretty challenging.
After originally despising the experience and save system of Dead Rising I some how learned to love the challenge and replayability of the game. It just never gets old using the variety of odd items to fight back the zombie hordes and rescuing different people on each play through. On top of that Dead Rising on the 360 has some of the most enjoyable and challenging achievements devised for any game and you’ll find yourself diving back into the game to try and conquer them all. Despite the fact certain people may disagree with me, I prefer Dead Rising over Capcom’s other zombie game, Resident something. Plus with a sequel on the way later this year it will be worth while checking out the original before you get it.
But for the love of god don't get the Wii version, that's all I'm going to say, just don't do it. Tags:
|
Comments