Due to popular demand - I have decided to finally update my Blog!!!!

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I hope you enjoyed this update! ... I know I did

Zombies, zombies EVERYWHERE!

Capcom have once again returned to the shelves with another zombie-based game release - Dead Rising.

After taking a slight detour from the undead, with the release of Resident Evil 4 (which actually featured NO "zombies") many old school horror fans were left wondering if Capcom could still bring to life (well... sort of) a convincing horde of brain-hungry zombies. Thankfully, it becomes obvious pretty early on that they can! - No gorey detail is spared (much to the disgust of various censorship boards, some of which (Germany, for example) have even banned the game). You will be hard pushed to find more 'realistic' zombies in any other game (or movie). There is also definitely no shortage of zombies - you can find yourself up against overwhelming numbers of staggering walking-corpses - cramming hundreds on screen at once (as shown above). Suprisingly, the game handles this pretty well - even with hundreds of writhing zombies on-screen, slowdown is at a minimum and only really becomes noticeable if several explosions are occurring in the zombie horde.
It's not just the zombies that are well designed - all of the characters in the game are also well done, with a very high level of detail. This, coupled with the nice 'blur' / 'focus' effects when moving around, really do push the 360 to it's graphical limits.

Despite the realism of the characters and considering Capcom pretty much invented the concept of "survival horror" in video games (ala Resident Evil), Dead Rising really isn't 'scary' - and most certainly is not a 'horror' game. This may come as a surprise to most people (myself included), especially if you are familiar with George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead - which Dead Rising is clearly heavily based on. Instead, the game is much more light-hearted - the zombies are slow and un-dangerous (unless in huge numbers), the locations are brightly coloured and almost 'friendly-looking', the main sound track to the game is relaxing 'elevator music', and you can put traffic cones on zombies heads and take pictures of them!
To begin with, I wasn't sure if I liked the lack of seriousness to the game (especially after watching the introductory cutscene to the game - which is like something lifted straight out of a horror movie); but after a while even the most hardened horror fan will appreciate it's comical style - especially when some of the more entertaining techniques are discovered. For example, shooting a zombie in the head is one thing, but finding a frying pan, taking it to a hot hob, warming it up until it's hot, then scolding a zombie's face with it, is another! Why kill when you can embarrass AND kill?

Sounds good so far, huh? A free-roaming zombie kill fest, that looks as good as it plays! What more could you want in a game?! ... Well... Unfortunately, Dead Risisng does have it's fair share or flaws... Most noticeably (and annoyingly) the game only has ONE (yeah, count 'em - ONE) save slot. Saved the game trapped in a room with no weapons and no health, where leaving it will mean certain death? Well tough luck - you'll have to start the entire game again!
The whole structure of the game is also very problematic and unforgiving - all of the missions on the game are time based - you have an allotted amount of time to get from A to B, saving people along the way. If you take too long, people become unsavable and/or you fail (if it is a 'story' mission, this is essentially a 'game over'). This is very annoying! You are surrounded by hundreds of zombies begging to be humiliated and killed in a variety of amusing ways - but you are unable to do so, as you are constantly looking at your watch, worrying about getting to the next mission on time... Let's face it - the whole reason GTA was so popular was because you had the freedom to "go off on one" - forget what you were doing and just go on a nice relaxing killing spree! ... Well, not on Dead Rising - killing sprees are time wasting and time is something you always seem to be short of!
Another problem with the game (which is more of an annoyance that a 'problem', really), is the lack of in-game dialogue. Cutscene's are fine - they have the voice acting that you would expect in a "next gen" title - however, and in-game character interaction is done with text. This annoyed me for a couple of reasons: firstly, there is not much in the way of talking 'in game' - surely it wouldn't take much time and effort to add a few lines of dialogue. Secondly, the text is so small, it is pretty much unreadable if you are playing on a portable television.

Overall, I think that Dead Rising is a good game... It's not an instant 'classic' such as Resident Evil or Halo, but it does try some new ideas and as a game is very original (it's almost a Crazy Taxi meets GTA... With Zombies!). Although I had fun playing, I couldn't help but feel that it should have been so much more.

Graphics - 9
Gameplay - 8
Sound - 7
Value - 8
Titlt - 9

Overall - 8