Dead Rising (Xbox 360)

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The game is full of fun little things like this

Another way to earn experience is by accepting escort missions. Throughout the course of the game, Otis the janitor will call you every 30 seconds - or at least that's what it feels like - and update you with what's happening in various sections of the mall. Considering he's always in the security room, I have no idea how he knows when a survivor is in trouble at the other side of the mall, but whatever; I'm willing to look past that little hole, and I'm also willing to look past the super annoying calls he makes with such frequency. If you don't pick up the phone, he'll just keep calling. And if you pick up the phone and then hang it up, he'll call back and tell Frank how rude he is. But in his defence, the escort missions Otis points out can give Frank quite the advantage over his undead friends. By finding survivors and returning them to the security room, Frank earns enormous amounts of experience and levels up much faster than if you focus solely on the story missions. But it's not as easy as it sounds; some survivors are bit less than co-operative, while others have injuries that prevent them from accompanying you, forcing Frank to carry them. In one clever scenario, Frank has to learn Japanese by reading a book before he can speak to a couple of tourists and convince them to follow him to safety.

Once you've got your survivor(s), Frank has a few additional options at his disposal. By pressing the 'Y' button, you can have Frank command any followers to pick up the pace, or you can command NPCs to head to specific locations by holding the 'R' button, aiming at the desired location and pressing the 'Y' button. You can also equip survivors with pistols, katanas and just about anything else you can get your hands on. Some survivors can hold their own with or without a weapon, but that isn't the case for every NPC. Give little Sophie a shotgun and she's going to look at you like you're some sort of idiot, then breakdown and cry. Give Burt Thompson an SMG, though, and he'll mow down an entire crowd.

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My only beef with the escort missions is how trying it can be to get them to follow you, or climb on top of an object. And if you have more than one NPC, they often bump into each other repeatedly or even run in circles until they either die-by-zombie, or you die by boredom. It can also be a bit of a pain in the rear to even get the survivors to the security room, as you have to first go through the seriously infested Paradise Plaza, head through a tunnel, then into an equally infested warehouse, then to an elevator, which just happens to be full of zombies, and finally to the rooftop where access to the security room is. Not cool Capcom.

So, you've completed a few escort missions, killed a few psychopaths, and levelled up. Big whoop. Now it's time to use some of those newly acquired skills. Once he reaches a certain level, Frank gains access to a variety of skill moves, which range from the very handy jump kick and double lariat, to the infuriating roll move I mentioned earlier. Even writing about it is making me angry; heck, that move made its way into my opening paragraph - that's got to tell you something.

The options for disposing zombies are limitless.

The dodge manoeuvre is initiated by hitting the left thumbstick up twice, sending Frank rolling a few feet in the direction he's facing. Capcom calls it an evasion move - I beg to differ. The move's been programmed so that you don't have to hit up twice in quick succession to execute it; you can literally hit up once, wait a second, then hit up again, and Frank still rolls! I had hoped there was a way to turn this action off, but alas, I had to suck it up and keep on trucking.

Despite rolling to my death a dozen or so times, Dead Rising is a blast to play through and through. The mall is littered with objects that can be used as weapons and in most cases anything you think you can use as a weapon can be used as a weapon. You'll find soccer balls - which when kicked, ricochet off the undead for multiple hits - hockey sticks complete with pucks to shoot, hedge clippers, a lawnmower, chainsaws, barbells, 2x4s, nail guns, and, well, you get the point. If guns are your thing, making a trip over to the North Plaza gun shop can arm Frank with shotguns, pistols, and sniper rifles (provided he's killed the psychopath owner), or you can kill the convict psychopaths in Leisure Park and steal their jeep's enormous heavy machine gun. The options for disposing zombies seem limitless.

You do get to venture outside of the mall

With hundreds of the undead on screen at once, how does the carnage fair visually? Well, the frame rate can dip pretty low when things get hectic, so expect a few hiccups here and there, and don't expect extremely detailed zombie models on screen, as Capcom clearly had to make a few sacrifices to keep this many characters on screen at once. Still, the environments look great and the sheer number of enemies on screen simply couldn't be done on older hardware. One thing you can expect, though, is bucket loads of gore. Seriously, this has got to be the goriest game I've ever played. Limbs are hacked off, bodies are slit in half, heads explode, internal organs are ripped out, and blood sprays about all over the mall and even onto Frank's clothes. And don't get me started on the psychopath deaths. Take Adam the clown for example; throw enough cash registers at him, or pump enough SMG rounds in him and a gruesome cutscene unfolds.

Once you've completed the 72 hour mode, there's Overtime mode to complete (which is essentially part two of the main game), the ultra difficult Infinity mode to unlock, plus plenty of achievements to earn - some of which have absurd requirements. I do wish there was some sort of free mode where you could run around the mall and go on a huge zombie hunting spree. Sure it would get old after a while, but there's no reason why it wasn't included in the game. Granted, you can just fail a mission and continue to play the game, but having a free play option from the start where you have Frank fully levelled with infinite ammo and unbreakable weapons would be super cool.

Dead Rising isn't without its flaws, some of which are easier to forgive than others. The save system which has been under scrutiny, and rightfully so, is a bit too unreasonable for my tastes. I understand why the developers implemented this kind of system; after all, I can't imagine how many extra hours this game has squeezed out of me because of it. If anything, they should have at least included more save points as they are few and far between and often completely out of the way. Even with its problems, Dead Rising is a ton of fun to play, offers a respectable narrative, and come on, you can use a lawnmower for cryin' out load. Enough said.

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