Dead Rising: First Impressions

Well, yesterday the Dead Rising demo hit the Marketplace, and everyone was extremly excited, including myself. The demo, was a large one, measuring in at a whopping 1014MB's download. So, I started the download up, and it took an hour or so, and finally I got to play for the first time, Dead Rising.

The Dead Rising demo, starts you off at a cinematic, in which Frank West (the photographer in which you play as), is paranoid, because he thinks a zombie is sneaking up on him. Frank grabs a fire extinguisher, ready to pound the living day lights out of the zombie, but, he realizes when he turns the corner, that it is not a zombie. It is a survivor, he has met up with earlier. A man called Brad was attacked, so instead of the other survivor going, Frank steps up to the plate and takes the gun, and heads out to find Brad. Now into the actually gameplay side of things.


The game controls, feel very natural, and take no longer than 5 minutes to get used to. All the buttons have been mapped for to perfection, so the controls should not be awkward in anyway. The level of interaction, between objects in the mall, is simply astonishing. You can practically use anything, in the mall, in the realm of realism to bash the zombies to oblivion. Some of my personal favorites include the water gun, shopping cart, and cans of soda. You can also, deck Frank out in an array of wares. There are pimp hats, horse heads (a little kids costume, basically that is put over the head of your character), business suits, little kids cloths, and more. The game does a good job on interaction, between things in the mall. But you need more than good interaction, and good controls to make a good game. Whats the combat system like?


The combat system, is extremly cool. There are basically two to three attacks that can be performed by most objects. With the X button, you can usually perform two. You can simply tap the X button, for a fast attack, or you can hold the X button for a couple of seconds to perform a charge attack. For instance, if you were using the sledge hammer, and you wanted to take a group of enemies out. Instead of tapping the X button, for just a downward slam attack, you would be better off holding down the X button, to perform a horizontal swipe. But thats not the only options you have. You can hold down the Right Trigger to flick the object you are currently using. This can be extremly effective depending on the weapon you are using. For instance, some items are better off thrown while other items are better used as melee type weapons. For example, you can do some serious damage to a group of zombies by flicking a cash register, but flicking a hunting knife, would impact the horde of zombies dismally. These three options alone, provides a lot of strategy in the game. There are also obviously guns in the game, which are fairly basic to use, at least the shotgun is. The demo starts you out with the shotgun, so I guess that would pose as the best example to use. Basically, all you have to do is, aim with the Right Trigger and fire with the X button, or you could simply tap the X button whilst facing the zombie(s). Aiming with the Right Trigger is obviously, the best option, in most cases, just because it supplies much more percision. There are also unqiue weapons, such as the golf clubs, shopping cart, dinner plates, and cans of soda. All with different unqiue abilities.

I don't think I need to get into the details with the graphics, seeing as most people by now have ether played the demo, or have seen in-game footage. But I will touch breifly on the matter. The graphics, are good to look at, most of the time. The character models are great, and look very real. The weapons, control, and look as I would imagine they would in a real life situation. This brings into my next point, the audio.

The audio, is quite good, and quite real. The music, is mall-like, if that makes sense. Its soft, and usually, you don't notice it over the mass slaugtering of zombies. The actually, sound itself, is better. The audio, as a whole is just good. Nothing wrong with it, but at the same time, it doesn't jump out at me ether. One thing, I really like about this game its unquie atmosphere. Instead of a dark, horror game, its actually has a bright, happy vibe. The mall, has a nice vibe, instead of the usually dark, and dreary atmosphere. I find this aspect in paticular, to be quite interesting.


Would, I buy the game? Honestly, I would not by it at a launch price, I would consider purchasing it, when it drops down in price. When, I was playing the demo, the first hour, was fun, but after that it started to lose its appeal. The somewhat, repitive play style, got less and less intriguing. Is this to say its a bad game? No, not by any stretch. And this is a demo, so i'll let you guys decide.