Dead Rising (Xbox 360)

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Description

You play as Frank West, a freelance photo-journalist, and you're on a hunt for the scoop of a lifetime. Following a lead to the town of Willamette, he finds that the town has been practically taken over by zombies. Trying to get away, Frank makes his way to the Willamette shopping mall hoping he can find help there.

Gameplay takes place in a set seventy-two-hour period where one hour of real time equals twelve hours in game. Frank can freely move about the entire mall, though some areas are not accessible in the beginning. Most of it is infested with zombies, but he has a safe base in a security room. Players can follow the main plot, where they must be in the right place at the right time and successfully complete missions in order to advance, or do side missions, wander around killing zombies and dressing up in clothes from the mall stores, or just stay on the roof and wait for the helicopter to come back to pick him up. The helicopter comes at the end of the three days and the game is over regardless of whether Frank is on the roof to get rescued.

Frank gains experience by taking pictures, rescuing survivors and killing zombies. As he gains experience, he levels up, which gives him new moves, a larger inventory and more health.

Pictures are scored based on the number of survivors or zombies, their proximity to the camera and on emotional content, like horror, humor or sexiness.

Survivors are located throughout the mall and Frank must show up at the right time to rescue them. If you show up too early, they may not be at their location yet and if you show up too late, they will be dead. Frank can lead survivors back tot he safety of the security room so they can be rescued. To do this, he can equip them with weapons and order them to follow him or wait at a specific location.

Rescuing survivors is complicated by the huge crowds of zombies roaming around the mall. There can be up to one thousand on screen at a time. Frank must avoid getting bitten and make sure the survivor continue to survive as he leads them. In addition to the zombies, Frank must face off against psychopaths, who are human who snapped when they saw the zombies and have become crazed killers.

Almost anything in the mall can be picked up and used. Food items restore health. Also everything else can be used as a weapon. Obvious, it's far more effective to kill zombies with a sub-machine gun or a chainsaw than by throwing CDs at them or hitting them with a mannequin, but you do have options and you may have to resort to killing zombies with a bowling ball or with you bare hands because all weapons have limited ammunition or durability and will eventually run out. You can pick up books from bookstores. These give you bonuses, like increased durability for a class of weapons, while in your inventory. There are also several vehicles you can use.

In keeping with the real-time theme, you are only allowed one save slot. Frank can save in bathrooms and in the security room, but this will overwrite and previous saves. If you make a mistake, you have to either restart the game, though you keep your current levels, or live with it and move on. This means your decisions do have consequences.

Once you complete the main plotline, you go into overtime mode, where Frank, rather than getting on the helicopter, gets another twenty-four hours to resolve the plot. If you beat overtime mode, you get infinite mode, where the helicopter isn't coming back, Frank loses health over time and all the survivors are trying to kill him. The object here is to stay alive as long as possible.

Screenshots

Part of the Following Groups

• 3D Engine: MT Framework
• BPjS / BPjM indexed games
• Dead Rising series
• Gameplay feature: Chainsaws
• Gameplay feature: Multiple endings
• Gameplay feature: Photography
• Gameplay feature: Quick Time Events / QTEs
• Germany Criminal Code confiscations (§131: Excess Violence)
• Physics Engine: Havok
• Theme: Zombies

User Reviews

A masterpiece of laughs and horror	M C (7)
The best zombie-related game since Resident Evil	J.D. Majors (17)
A brutally addicting game	Phobos-Romulus (40)

The Press Says

Xbox World Australia (XWA)	Sep 24, 2006	92 out of 100	92
Frictionless Insight	Apr 19, 2007		90
Game Arena	Dec 19, 2007	9 out of 10	90
Gamers.at	Sep 25, 2006	89 out of 100	89
eToychest	Aug 12, 2006	85 out of 100	85
Xbox360Achievements	Jul 01, 2007	83 out of 100	83
eGames	Nov 05, 2007	8.2 out of 10	82
Factornews	Oct 04, 2006	8 out of 10	80
JustPressPlay	Apr 16, 2007	8 out of 10	80
Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM)	Aug 16, 2006	7.5 out of 10	75

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Trivia

1001 Video Games

Dead Rising appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

53,596

Dead Rising started something of an in-joke among developers with one of its achievements. The "Zombie Genocider" achievement asks the player to kill 53,594 zombies, the population of the town that the game is set in. Valve's Left 4 Dead one-upped this, having the "Zombie Genocidest" achievement which asks for 53,595 zombies, as well as "The Littlest Genocide" which asks for 5,359 on the Crash Course campaign. The trend continued with Activision's Prototype and Cave's DoDonPachi, which both had achievements for 53,596 kills. Neither of these games continued the joke with the achievement name, with Prototype's being called "Trail of Corpses", and DoDonPachi's called "Shooting King 53,596".

European version

In the European version a topless lady on a picture got a white dress and another one on a t-shirt a bikini top.

Limited Edition

A Limited Edition version of the game was released in the UK in a steelbook case. The game came with the map of the mall that had been previous only been given away at E3 2006. The game itself is identical to the North American and regular UK edition however.

References

A couple of other Capcom franchises are referenced in the game. The restaurant Jill's Sandwiches is a reference to a character of the same name from the Resident Evil series, and one of Barry's humourous remarks. Mega Man's outfit and Mega Buster can be found in the game, as well as masks of the Servbots from Mega Man Legends.

Text

Some of the texts in the game are impossible to read on a SDTV (Standard Definition Television). Capcom has openly stated that there are no plans to fix this problem so gamers will have to buy a HDTV (High Definition Television) for the game to display text correctly.

Awards

• 4Players
  • 2006 – #2 Best Hero of the Year (for Frank West)
• Computer Games Magazine
  • March 2007 - Console Game of the Year 2006
• GameSpy
  • 2006 – #6 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
  • 2006 – Best Game Featuring Zombie Genocide as an Achievement of the Year (Xbox 360)

Information also contributed by Byron Law, CaptainCanuck, jotaro.raido and PCGamer77.

Related Web Sites

• Dead Rising (Product page on the developer's/publisher's website)
• Official Dead Rising Site (Dead Rising Homepage)
• Wikipedia: Dead Rising (Article in the open encyclopedia)
• X360A achievement guide (X360A's achievement guide for Dead Rising.)