"Killing zombies is fun. Rescuing idiots is not."

Call me insane but I'd love for my shopping mall to get overrun with zombies. Because if this game is accurate, plowing through hordes of the undead is really fun! Yes in Dead Rising you're in a gigantic shopping mall and you have to survive for 72 hours against the slow hungry monsters we know as zombies.

STORY
You play as Frank West, a photojournalist who got a scoop that the town of Willamette had something big going down. What exactly? Well Frank doesn't find out until he gets there. And what he finds is that the town has been overrun by flesh eating freaks, killing and eating everyone in their sight. As his helecopter pilot goes to drop him off on the roof of the giant shopping mall, the army proceeds to chase him outta town. The pilot receives one last order from Frank, to pick him up exactly 72 hours from now and get him outta this death trap. The pilot agrees, Frank lands on the roof, and the nightmare begins. Now our man has 3 days to find out what happened to the people here, and rescue any survivors he may come across. The story was pretty interesting and a lot darker than I thought it would be. I mean the concept of being in a shopping mall with zombies loosens you up, but seriously some of these cutscenes really brought chills to my spine. Great story all around though.

GRAPHICS
Graphics in Dead Rising have their ups and they have their downs. The first downer is one for non-High Definition users. It seems when the game isn't in HD, it's letter are far too small. Yes for some reason the dialogue that survivors give you, despite the fact that their words are VERY, VERY important, have tiny text to their names. If you do not have a big enough TV, and/or your eyesight isn't all that it could be, tough luck! The words are too small for people who don't have HD. The zombies themselves are deliciously dead and I loves it. Whether that zombie be a cop, a hippie, a random old guy, they all look great with their appearance. I especially like the zombies who are missing one side of their mouth. Gruesome stuff. And the mall itself is very spectacular to behold. Though keep in mind that you are battling zombies in a MALL, so the location isn't a grand city like one you'd see in Grand Theft Auto. It's big for a mall, but small for a game.

SOUND
Love to hear zombies moaning? Good! Cause that what you'll be hearing for the majority of your game. The game does feature some licensed tunes, none of which I've ever heard of, but they only come on when you're in a boss fight. Otherwise the only music you'll get is a catchy tune that you'd hear in the mall....go figure eh? Zombies moaning, chainsaws cutting through flesh, and random screams of terror make the game a delight to listen to. And the voice acting was very well done, even if some of them feel like they're going for a cartoonish direction by going too over the top. But it works, cause the psychos' voices will creep you out. Seriously.

GAMEPLAY
I must say, this was a fun fresh idea and the best zombie game ever made. Not that it's spectacular or anything, but in that it actually plays out like a zombie movie usually does. No worrying about other freaks, no solving ridiculous puzzles to unlock pathways, just good plain zombie killing mayhem. The game sets you in the mall, and after you become acquainted with the locals inhabiting it, you are free to do whatever you want. Wanna keep solving the case? Wanna go and rescue some survivors? Or do you just wanna brutally kill zombies until your 72 hours are up? It's all up to you. Oh and the story doesn't actually last 72 hours. More like 7 or 8. It has a sandbox mentality, even if your “world” isn't all that big. It's a gigantic and unrealistic mall for sure, but it's not such a big place that you'll spend an hour walking around. It's still small enough so that you can memorize the layout after a few hours.

You're of course not the only one in the mall. Survivors lurk around every corner and they may need your help, or they might wanna wear your skin as a coat. When you start the game you get a radio from this guy named Otis who's watching the security cameras in the security room. Every now and then he'll ring you up and inform you of some survivors he just saw. That's when you get a new mission in your task list and follow the marker to save the survivor. And I must say, they aren't worth it. Mainly because they're so stupid. Seriously if you have a survivor following you, be sure to look back every now and then because they might just get lost and disappear for no damn reason at all. Seems they're too busy fighting zombies. Uh, morons? We're not fighting we're running for shelter! Leave the zombie bashing to the professionals! Luckily there are some survivors you need to hold by the hand or carry on your back, and those ones are easy to take care of.

But the thing that bugs me about saving survivors is that when you rescue them, you have to drag them ALL the way to the security room. And there aren't multiple ways to get the security room either. This makes saving people a long tedious task in which you find someone, head to security room, find someone, head back to security, and repeat that 20 or times and you can feel my anger. Seriously it's not fun saving people. Oh and did I mention that if they get grabbed by some zombies that if you attack the zombie grabbing them, you can hit the survivor and inflict damage on them? You can kill the survivors yourself by accident! I didn't like that at all. It's really frustrating if anything.

Oh and I mentioned that there were some survivors who'd want to kill you just for the hell of it. Yeah it seems the town of Willamette was a freakshow even before the zombies showed up. Seriously you run across a whole bunch of psychopaths, many of which disturbed me when I watched the cutscenes. They are fruit loops so naturally they'll try and kill you. You need to fight back. Which brings us to the bosses and the controls. Fighting bosses is never fun. Never. Frank isn't exactly known for his great combat skills and it becomes obvious in these battles. Bosses tend to run at super speed, and Frank does not. These bosses almost always have quick deadly attacks, and Frank has a measly little health bar that can only be fixed back up with food. If there's no food in your boss fight's area, tough luck. So believe me, the fights aren't easy. And it doesn't help that they don't die from bullets in the head. At least, not unless you shoot them 100 times in the head. Don't you hate bosses when they're ridiculously overpowered?

But good luck shooting them in the head because the target aiming in this game is horrible. Dead Rising is not a shooter, but they did add guns in this game to change it up. But Frank's reflexes are slow and aiming isn't his strong suit. But the one thing that bugs me about Frank's gunplay the most is the fact that when you go into shooting mode, the camera cuts to what's in front of Frank, not where the camera was facing. I was facing the boss and running from him at the same time. I want to have a quick turn around to shoot him with, but in order to do that I would have to stop running, turn and face him, and then shoot. It's stupid. Every other game does the aiming much better.

One last little nitpick I have to get out of the way are the save points. You only get one. Now this is a problem considering that the game is set in a 72 hour timeframe and that certain missions just aren't playable if you're too late. So if you save at the wrong time, like 10 seconds before your mission ends, then so sad too bad. You miss out and will now have to restart the whole game. Or return it. Oh and don't get me started on game overs. If you die, it doesn't just let you spawn and continue again. Instead you're kicked to the main menu and you have to start from your last save. Beautiful. If you save often it's not a problem...but if you don't, you'll probably break your controller. Heck I was close to. Dead Rising has the potential to be awesome, but honestly there are too many annoying problems to deal with.

The only good fun to be had in the game is when you're not rescuing survivors or doing missions. Just going around killing zombies is easily the best part of the game. The mall is littered with toys to kill the undead with. And I meant literally too, because you can actually use kids' toys to attack zombies. You can use guitars, 2X4s, axes, chainsaws, hoes, sledgehammers, ....you can even use a bowling ball and knock them over like pins. There are so many fun ways to kill these guys it's hilarious. It to me is easily the highlight of the game. You can also find clothing from the clothing shops and dress into them...including women's dresses. I guess Frank just swings that way. Oh and Frank does become a better zombie killer over time. In the game you earn PP (Prestige Points) which levels up your hero much like a Final Fantasy character does when they battle a lot. When you level up you can get faster, you might get an extra health bar, or you might pick up a new fun move to kill the zombies with. The game is much, MUCH funner when you're fully upgraded. But is it worth it? The best way to get prestige is by taking pictures and rescuing survivors. I hate survivors. To me Dead Rising has a fun engine in it, but it's overshadowed by flaws that make the game difficult to recommend.

IN THE END...
The idea is awesome but it gets old quick because of the bad save system, lousy aiming control, dumb AI, and the repetitive gameplay will bore you after awhile. But I gotta admit, killing zombies has never been funner. So if you wanna kill zombies, proceed with caution.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/24/07