Dead Rising

Last weekend I streamed Dead Rising from start to finish and oh boy was it fun.  It took just a little over 9 hours and the last hour of that was pretty grueling but generally speaking this game is pretty fantastic.

If somehow you have never heard of this game I'll take a quick moment to explain.  Originally released back in 2006 for Xbox 360, Dead Rising follows the adventures of Frank West, a photojournalist who gets trapped in a mall full of zombies.  The game was interesting because you only had 72 in game hours to play with and the story segments happened at specific times which, if you missed, would lock you out of the plot for the rest of the game.  What really made this game popular though was that the mall setting allowed for the player to use a whole crazy array of weaponry against the undead.  You could opt for more traditional stuff from a hardware store like a sledgehammer or go nab a gun from a zombie police office OR you could get silly and use gumball machines, shopping carts or children's toys to try and beat the undead back to death.  There are also human boss characters the game calls psychopaths which you must kill to rescue people or to progress the game.  There was a colorful cast of lunatics which made each encounter interesting and you would really have the think on your feet the first time playing if you wanted to win.

I love this game personally, it's one of those titles that is not only fun but sort of doubles up as a stress relieving tool.  If you want to uncover the zombie mystery of the mall, then play the story but if you just want to beat the fuck out of some zombies then ignore that timer and just go crazy.  Once you beat the game there is an Overtime mode which gives a bit of extra story and and endless mode if you want all the zombie killing with none of the pressure.

I only really have two problems with this game.  The first being is that it's too fucking easy.  I said above  that the first time you play you really have to think on your feet with the bosses but once you learn that an early boss unlocks a sort of pocket chainsaw in infinite supply the game becomes super easy.  The pocket chainsaw is SO strong that I think that there's only two bosses in the game that aren't insta killed by it in like 3 very quick hits.  Once you fill up your inventory with chainsaws the game becomes LAUGHABLY easy and the need to have any other weapon sort of goes away.

My other problem comes in the third day of the game.  You end up finishing all the games "case file" missions and then you are left to just sort of wait for your ride to arrive.  The lack of things to do of substance sort of makes the last hour of the game quite dull.  Even the zombie killing comes to a screeching halt as the mall fills up with dudes with machine guns which is a damn shame really.

However don't let my two complaints about the game deter you, if you haven't already played it then you absolutely should go and try.  Oh yeah, finally, don't try to rescue survivors because the AI for this game sucks dick.

The series seems to have taken a bit of a downturn with 3 and 4 since it's trying to be all gritty now from what I can tell but the first game is a ton of fun and fantastically dumb story and dialogue will leave you with a huge grin on your face.  Play it.