Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Dead Rising is a broken, fucked up game - that's, at times, a tremendous amount of fun, despite some really bad game flaws - so much fun that as soon as I beat the game I actually started playing it all over again. But first to those flaws. Often you hear complaints of the game's annoying save system, but for me the real problems are the games uneven structure (too often there's either too much you're supposed to be trying to accomplish, or too little), bad A.I. (trying to lead survivors to safety is an exercise in pure frustration) and poorly conceived boss fights (usually insanely difficult until you find the broken way to beat the boss, or just stupid - shoot somebody in the head fifty times and then suddenly they are on your side & unhurt!). But...but... somehow the game is still fun and compelling - because there is so much to do... But probably mostly because it's just a great idea for a game - a semi-free-roaming sandbox type game set inside a huge mall literally drowning in zombies. Your mission - to survive for 72 hours (about six hours real time - although the game probably takes at least twice that to play, with restarts and surprise "endings") while rescuing whatever human survivors you can while digging to the bottom of what actually caused this outbreak of the undead. At first your character starts out quite weak, which makes the game near impossible, but as you play through, killing zombies, rescuing survivors, and defeating psychopaths you build up your stats so you have more health and can carry more weapons and food/health items - and you also can learn new types of attacks - some of which prove to be quite effective. The weapon system proves to be a lot of fun as well - not only do you have your expected mix of guns you can pick up at various locations, but practically anything you can find in the mall can be used as a weapon, from chain saws to sledgehammers, bowling balls, gold clubs, hockey stick, skateboards, mannequin torsos, plants and benches to parts of zombies bodies. If you find you way down to the maintenance tunnels you can build up a lot of points running over zombies in mass with various cars (to earn the Zombie Genocider achievement you must kill 53,594 zombies in one play (in my first run through the game I killed less than 4,000 - but that was a lot)). The game is extremely tough - I doubt I would have had the fortitude to play through it to the end without the help of gamefaqs, forums and even watching some of the guide videos people have posted to youtube. The game makes you want to put in the extra effort though. It took that whole first play thru to actually start to figure out what the hell I should have been doing and how to get through the game better. There was so much I didn't get to do the first time that there's actually still a lot to discover now that I've started playing through the game a second time (lots of psychopath fights I never even tried, for instance). It also helps that you get to keep you beefed up stats (and to continue to build 'em - I'm only at level 29 of 50). The one thing missing that I hope the inevitable sequel includes would be a co-op component - being able to play through the game with a friend would be even more of a blast. As it stands, Dead Rising is one of those weird, rare games that is fun despite of and sort of because it's many flaws - just like the horror movies it liberally borrows from.
