I have always had a lot of respect for the Dead Rising franchise. The current trend in zombie gaming is dark, cerebral storytelling and--don’t get me wrong--I absolutely love this. I think one of the greatest strengths of zombies as a genre is the conflict not between the living and the dead, but between the living that remain. TellTale's The Walking Dead is an amazing game that I think everyone interested in either zombies or video games should play. There are definitely amazing titles out there, but the gaming market has also been saturated by a huge number of bad titles looking to cash in on the zombie popularity. Dead Rising has respected the tropes of good zombie story telling, but the real selling point of the franchise has always been its unerring dedication to comical levels of brutality to the formerly living.
Yep. That's what I was expecting
With all of that said, it was a surprise to me when I learned that the emphasis for the newest title in the Dead Rising franchise would be story. Placing story focus in what has been, to date, a series emphasizing an overabundance of wicked awesome style-over-narrative-substance originally seemed bizarre. On the hierarchy of zombie cinema, the previous two Dead Risings could most accurately be compared to Zack Snyder's remake of Romero’s classic, Dawn of The Dead. Not so much a story per se, as a vehicle to place a small number of dysfunctional people in a mall surrounded by dead people. Merely an acceptable plot in Dead Rising 3 would have surprised me, the fact that I actually enjoyed it was actually pretty astounding. This is especially true given the tools Capcom Vancouver were working with. Nick, the protagonist, has the voice, appearance, and meek personality of the combined acting careers of Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. Rather than create a new, coherent narrative, Capcom opted for the herculean task of drawing the plot of the previous two games into a an overarching story. Near the end of the game, the story gets absolutely Metal Gear Solid 4 with an assault of cameos and tie-ins.
Zombie slaying just adds spice to the romantic tension
I'd like to talk about the gameplay but find it difficult to say much about it other than it is just what you would expect. You buy Dead Rising 3 for the same reason to buy any Dynasty Warriors title--you know what you are getting into, and the game will be satisfyingly violent and absolutely gory. Dead Rising 3 provides the same zombie-slaying fun as its predecessors: you can cut them, burn them, blow them up, put funny things on their heads, and suplex them, among many, many other methods of mayhem. If it weren’t for your convenient running total, it would take minutes to lose count of the number of undead you have rendered entirely dead. The item combination system lets you take a variety of weapon and non weapon items into Rube Goldberg machines of mayhem. If your victims were breathing, it would be a guilty pleasure. Basically, it is ridiculously fun. If I could get one wish, it would be for more environmental features to use to avoid zombies so slaying large groups just to get around felt less monotonous, but it is hard to argue with such a successful formula.
I literally cannot think of a single way to criticize this picture
Perhaps what attracts me to the plot is the odd, half-charming half-xenophobic take on American culture. Each character seems like a terrible stereotype of some isolated facet of Americana. In a way it is hard to criticize this decision as the character seem no less cliche than those of the aforementioned Zack Snyder film. In a way it is almost fitting for the setting as personalities in zombie movies tend to be rather extreme and often clash to generate the inevitable conflict between the survivors. Psychopath fights are still present and each crazed maniac succeeds in making you cringe uncomfortably in a disturbing variety of ways. Whether it be the painfully gluttonous mobility scooter-bound Darlene or the creepily deranged BDSM daddy Dylan, I was pretty eager kill them just to spend as little time around them as possible.
"Me time" is important
On the subject of people I want dead, the huge cast of survivors you are able to recruit into your posse are making for a pretty long list. Conceptually, side quests which lead you to other survivors whom you assist and eventually join forces with is an awesome idea for this sort of game. Although some of them are definitely more annoying than others, personality clashes are natural in high stress situations is natural and every helping hand should be welcome. This is not the case with your posse, whose size you can inflate to several members at a time through the leveling system. Despite their not having troubles such as a finite number of bullets which plague you as the player, these guys just can't seem to find a way to be useful. Instead they force you to spend your valuable time trying to keep them from becoming yet another zombie you have to bludgeon to death. One survivor was killed by a legless zombie which had loudly drag itself across an entire lawn before biting the guy in the ankle as he passively watched it with an assault rifle in hand. My high point with the posse system was discovering that if I jumped into a car and drive away from them quickly, they automatically return to the safe house.
You don't really need them anyway
Originally my greatest concern going into the game was the time limit. I don’t enjoy feeling pressed for time, especially in games which have so many sidequests and collectibles. Although I felt very paranoid about my remaining time early in the game, I realized I was actually completing the game faster than the countdown. Personally, this came as a relief since Dead Rising seems to have whatever mysterious attribute some games possess which causes me to want to collect each and every single achievement, collectible, sidequest, and recipe. My worries were revealed to be completely baseless when I discovered what has become one of my favorite additions to the title. The Untold Stories DLC allows you to play through the same outbreak in the city of Los Perdidos as different characters from various sides of the conflict such as a soldier working for the villain or an illegally infected resistance member. During their quests you can continue to gather the same collectibles in the same areas while following a unique story with additional side quests.
Side quests
Graphically the game looks very good, especially considering the heavy content payload it requires. The game would be above average under normal circumstances, but maintaining that sort of quality while rendering hundreds of independently shambling corpses is very impressive. The structure of the environments is also satisfyingly complex. It’s impressive to see a unique interior to almost every building, completely furnished and with appropriate items lying around which you can experiment hitting zombies with (mustard?). The number of architectural features and unexpected paths makes it fun to wander as well, Los Perdidos definitely does not suffer from big box syndrome. If just to avoid wading through the streets, it is nice to see how original construction and damage from the outbreak have interacted to create unique avenues. Unfortunately this reflected in the game size, which was massive. On the PC version I had to uninstall 5 sizable games just to fit Dead Rising 3 on my hard drive. This is offset by the complete lack of loading screens and huge, open-world environment
Sorry, no time for bathroom breaks
The inclusion of combo vehicles expands your zombie killing prowess to the tens of thousands. Taking the same horrific item combinations to a grand scale, you are able to create nightmarish engines of destruction by combining more mundane vehicles like sedans, motorcycles, street sweepers, and steamrollers. These have become necessary as Los Perdidos is massive and requires a great deal of driving along zombie-infested overpasses to travel between districts. Among all the new features in the game, this is likely the one I have the most mixed feelings about. While the experience of repaving the Los Perdidos highways in zombie goo starts out as novel, it quickly became a chore driving from one corner of the world and back again. Given the fragility of most vehicles and the fact that many avenues of travel are blocked at various points in the game, the experience doesn’t stay fresh for very long.
Imagine what the undercarriage must look like
Small issues aside, a review for Dead Rising 3 seems like more of an assurance than anything else. I had an absolute blast playing it and the appeal of this sort of fun seems universal. A few new features fall a bit short, but only prove the best way to kill zombies is alone, on foot, and with a club that has a car battery strapped to it. Yes, the new title is just as zany and violent as the previous releases, no the new features to do not ruin it and are all actually pretty cool. All is right with the world (except that zombie outbreak thing) and you may venture forth to create whatever zombie-related mayhem you can conceive. The newest combos are all as creative and awesome as the last ones were and the story is actually pretty good. The cathartic feel you get from arming yourself to the teeth and diving into an ocean of rotting flesh is just as satisfying as it has ever been. You can sleep soundly this night.
REVIEW ROUNDUP
+ A carnival of zombie war crimes
+ Huge replay value with Untold Stories DLC
+/- Vehicle combo system cool but driving isn’t
+/- Game is beautiful and has the size to match
- Friendly AI are dumb and suicide-prone
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