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Categories: Commentary
Tags: action, xbox 360, zombies
As much of a zombie fan as I am, I’m really getting tired of restarting Dead Rising. First up, the game is amazing. I thought the Mardi Gras level of Hitman: Blood Money was awesome for throwing so many characters on the screen at the same time, but Dead Rising is nuts. This game is loaded with zombies, and they aren’t just window dressing.
Being a die-hard Dawn of the Dead fan (Romero and Snyder), I’m loving the zombies in the mall action. Plus, these are classic slow zombies (Resident Evil-style), not the 28 Days Later speed demons (those dudes meet the zombie criteria even though they aren’t technically undead). And the fact that pretty much everything in the mall can be weaponized is pretty cool–even something as lame as an umbrella or potted plant can be used to keep zombies at bay. Of course that’s part of the game’s problem.
The game feels like classic survival horror, until you realize that you can wade into a zombie horde and pretty much hold your own. Even before you level up and learn how to walk over the zombies’ heads Crocodile Dundee-like, you can still swagger around throwing punches or get silly with 2×4s. I guess that’s why the developers decided to make the bosses (the one’s I’ve seen anyway) human.
Okay, when zombie apocalypse hits, I’m sure that people are going to go nuts, but this mall must have hired at the dangerous psycho work fair. The first boss is a clown gone nuts, later ones include a fried Vietnam vet and a manager gone mad. If you get far enough before you restart, you’ll stumble across a zombie cult–or something.
So here’s why I restarted for the last time (Dead Rising gets to sit in the corner and think about what it’s done for awhile): I missed a story mission, thus thwarting all future missions. The main character is a photojournalist sent in to cover this event, but he soon teams up with survivors in the mall, including Sexy Blonde and Tough Black Guy. Sexy Blonde and Tough Black Guy are the impetus for the story missions. In between, you can perform solo missions which mostly involve attempting to find other survivors and bring them back to the security cell. This is pretty thankless.
Anyway, I spent too much time looking for survivors and not enough time helping Tough Black Guy save Senile Professor. Then Smoldering Latin Guy shows up and the next thing I know, I’m off to the pharmacy where I have to battle the psycho store clerk. All this takes way too much time (or the time change screwed me over), so I’m back to square one–thankfully beginning at my current level though. Oh well, the opening level is amazing anyway–flying through zombie apocalypse in a helicopter and photographing the horror.
In nonfrustrating news, the demo for Lost Planet is freaking amazing. It’s not a true demo–it’s an E3 leftover–but it rocks. I have no idea what the story is, but game play involves tromping through snow, fighting bugs. The perspective is third-person, so you actually see your character sludge through the snow. The temperature hovers at minus 20, so you must keep collecting energy for your suit–otherwise you freeze to death. Weapons in the demo are pretty standard (except for an oversized shotgun). The standout features are battle mechs (why don’t we have these irl?) which make short work of boss bugs.
We played the first demo level of Lost Planet, up until the point where Aramis stormed the bug hive and got slapped around like a silly person. The second demo level was also awesome and I can’t wait for this game to hit the street in January. Anyway check it out and let me know what you think.