There is just nothing quite like Dead Rising 1. I have a review of this game from the last time I played it, but I don't think I really gave it the justice that it deserved back then. I was too busy trying to be a funny lil comedian, rather than being critical, and having finished it again recently, there is just so much that was left on the floor. I love this game a lot and I won't waver my 5 stars, but bear in mind that while you can be really passionate about something, that doesn't mean you should just ignore the criticisms it may have. It's not a perfect game by any means, and there are things in it that make me uncomfortable. But, I still enjoy the heck out of it all the same and it's a piece of media that I've been wanting to see brought back from the dead (hehe) for a long, long time.

Before the combo weapons, before the bloated map layouts, before all the horrible engine changes, before all the bullshit, this was peak as it is. I have played the other games in the series, minus 4. I've been putting off Dead Rising 4 for as much as I possibly could, but I have a hilarious friend who gifted it to me for Christmas and now it plagues my Steam Library like a nasty tumour. I would have honestly been more excited had he sent me a gift wrapped pipe bomb instead. I’ve agreed to finally sit down and play it, knowing that it was technically free, but I know that I will not like it. I despise Dead Rising 3 and Off the Record is a broken trash pile of flaming garbage. Dead Rising 2 is fun for what it is, and has come to be a game that I've mastered, but it's just not.. the same, ya know? It always lacked the simplicity of Dead Rising's original design while somehow being much easier in comparison at the same time. It’s the game where the cracks begin to form in what eventually lead to this series spiraling out of control and then mercifully euthanized at the vet when the time came.

I’ve always felt that the original baked-in concept of Dead Rising has been its shining star that speaks for itself. View it in the lens of it being an exploration game, before looking at it as a zombie game and you’ll see what I mean. The layout of Willamette’s mall is so tightly succinct, so perfectly sized with little gems sprinkled throughout in some of the weirdest places. The mall has just about everything you’d need, and then some. While smaller in size, it’s still comically filled to the brim with areas like a full-on supermarket, rollercoaster, totally not Home Depot, and a doomsday prepper’s wet dream of a gun store added into the mix just for funsies. There’s spots of infinite weapons or food to go back to when needed and secret items to find for the most devilishly explorative players. It’s so early 2000’s, arcade, before the Internet ruined everything fun. There was nothing quite like finding an SMG in a tree outside on accident, even today. I still find a random food item in a place I’ve never thoroughly looked over before. They’re so meticulously placed, without it being incredibly obvious. It’s everything that the modern open-world games of today are so desperately trying to capture, with many failing.

Uh oh, but- but- the whole damn place is packed to the brim with zombies like sardines in a tin can!! Those are only obstacles, my dear friend. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and grab that 2x4 piece of wood on the ground right next to you. You want to fill your entire inventory with the super OP shotguns that melt the psychopaths? Get to crowd surfing, bitch. You can use just about anything interactable to kill and slice your way from point A to point B. Not a weird combo weapon, or a hero’s sword specific to Frank, but the very definition of what you would call a Television. Anything, really, that’s allowed at the very least. Handbags, toys, sledgehammers, chainsaws, shelves, pipes, benches, bikes, etc., etc., etc. If the game allows you to pick it up, you can use it as a weapon. A real testament of your ability to explore, and make use of what’s around you. Your weapons break? Well, you’re standing next to a potted plant. Or use your fists even. BOTW Link would get suplexed so hard by Frank West, it’s not even funny. There are super powerful rewards in this game, but they come at a cost, which I love. The gun store is inaccessible until you kill the boss standing in it, so on and so forth. Adam’s Chainsaw’s trivialize the hell out of the game, but you can’t get them until he’s been killed, etc. The strongest weapons in the game are locked behind achievements and a daunting Infinity Mode unlocked after finishing the game once. Which is something that I feel the later game’s combo weapons are completely lacking. If you want to blast through the game with a gun that one shots everything, then you should have to work for it. It’s a greater reward to fuck around with once you’ve beaten the game and survived it’s challenges. There is still to this day, nothing quite like this item system in my opinion. You can compare it to BOTW or Dead Island, maybe, but it’s a silly system that flourishes in the mall setting and adds to the desperate feeling of using whatever you need to survive in the moment. It’s always been goofy as hell, and it’s always known what it is.

I’m sure that there’s people out there that would love to leave the walls of the mall, but in my opinion, it’s not needed. The later games try to explore this by making the maps much larger and expansive, at the cost of the player having fun. Not here. The opening prologue gives you a brief glimpse of the chaos outside through Frank’s unique photo mechanics, and you can clearly see that shit out there is bleak. In the first five minutes of the game, you’re fed everything you need to know through the lens of Frank’s camera, quickly loading up on PP bonuses before the game even begins. Pure interactive kino. It's a quick whirlwind of cramming what your goal is and that’s the point. Frank West is a no nonsense motherfucker. He’s a snippy man and has zero time for drama and hysterics. We got places to be and a story to report, people. It’s part of his charm, with brief moments of humanity sprinkled in. He’s not a complete unempathetic monster, but you’ll soon relate to his need for speed when you’re hauling 7 survivors back to the security room at once. I think he would benefit from a bit of fleshing out, of course. The later games seem to turn him into a completely uncaring asshole for pure comedic purposes and it kind of sucks to see. He’s annoying as shit now and it’s such a shame, honestly. The same Frank West that stayed with Brad and Carlito during their critical moments, is just reduced to a fat joke now. Haha!! So funny. Put this man in a dress, and he’ll be feeling himself ten fold. Put Chuck or Nick in a dress, and they whine to the player about it. Frank will always be superior.

Now let’s get to the contentious shit that people hate. The Survivors. Basically the other half of the game, cohabitating with the game’s plot. I see why people hate them, and you’re valid, but I gotta put my foot down and say that the survivors are a staple of Dead Rising. The survivors are what makes Dead Rising. You don’t have to like it, but without them, this game would be a jar of piss. The time mechanics are what separates this game from any other schlocky zombie kill simulator that its counterparts are already happily doing. Sure, you can go on a day binge of killing the zombies if that’s your underwear fit, but without hunting for survivors and killing the bosses, you’ll be seriously lacking in level ups, which means lacking in skill upgrades and health. I find the survivors in this game to be quite a cool collectible mechanic. They’re living experience rewards that require escorts from where they’re found to the Security room, and it adds an extra layer of charm to the game. While none of them are really.. characters.. per se, you can see that a large swathe of them were designed with some intent. Some are more aggressive than others, some are more cowardly, others are tied behind boss fights, etc. Some are easier to escort than others. They’re a challenge that is meant to be difficult and meant to be trial-and-error. A person expecting to find every single survivor in their first playthrough without a guide, is just asking too much for something that should be explored casually first. There are some survivors that are hidden, and others that may become the bane of your existence, but that does not eliminate their uniqueness nonetheless. The game allows you a NG+ with everything you’ve already achieved for a reason, it is not the end of the world to miss a few survivors on your first playthrough. The time mechanics have a stress factor that some may not like, but I’ve always appreciated how it made for something to do the whole game and challenges you to seek out areas of the mall you probably don’t walk through often. It’s a completely manageable mechanic for those willing to best it, and I feel only gets hampered down due to the game’s poor AI systems more than anything else. Where I think the mechanic falters is near the end game, as once you’ve rescued Simone there is just simply nothing to do for hours in-game. I think Day 2’s morning is the most stressful part of the game, while Day 3 is the weakest, with the least to do.

Now about those tricky AI systems, a criticism unable to be ignored. I love this game to death, but this is the part of the game that I think most people remember, no matter how they feel about the game overall. The survivors have what we would call… um.. Stupid Disease? At least, from a first glance that’s how it looks. Sure they walk into walls and can’t climb the simplest structures, or tend to let zombies eat their ass sideways until they die when you look away for a little too long, and that is of course frustrating. But, they were programmed with some thought that I just think wasn’t executed well. They all have a personality and act accordingly to it. Survivors like Aaron Swoop are pants pisser babies who will drop to their knees and crawl when surrounded. On the flipside, Tonya Waters is ride or die for her man and will act as a hero if you give her a weapon. Survivors will completely stop in their tracks if they witness you or their friend getting grabbed in front of them. They’re batshit terrified the whole time, so it makes sense, but that’s where the trouble begins because as soon as one of those dummies stops moving, it’s chaos from there. It is an experience that used to frustrate me to no end, but I am living in Nirvana now. I want to examine these survivors, to their finer details. I want to know why they’re so stupid. I want to peer into the binary code that makes them live. Had they been a bit smarter, or useful, this game would have fared so much better. It’s definitely the survivor AI and lack of auto-save that makes people tilt the most in this game. A speedrunner’s advice for those that may want it: the zombie spawn is affected by radius in correlation with Frank’s location. If you walk far enough away, the zombies on the outside of that radius will not appear, making escorting large areas a lot easier as survivors can stroll for a long time without getting grabbed. If you’re having a hard time, try this out, although I think having a hard time is part of the fun of it being a challenge.

I have yet to mention the story, but that’s kind of because the story is rather mediocre. It’s campy and satirizes a lot of zombie media in a really hammy way. It’s by far not a 5-star fine dining experience, but more like McDonalds brought home from your parents when you least expect it. It’s just a goofy time, not meant to really be taken super seriously nor does it have really that much to say about what it tries to politicize in its twists. There are things that could be made a lot clearer, such as the demise of an important character near the end game, as well as having a rather lackluster open-ended ending that can leave you with more questions than answers. It’s a fun time that swerves and curves while you play it, but the story isn’t why people play these games anyways. It’s the gameplay that makes this game so beloved by the people who cradle it like a baby. Like me.

Aside from all that there are item upgrades I never mentioned, that you of course have to find as they function through the use of holding magazines. There are blenders that exist to mix drinks with temporary stat boosting effects. The camera can be used for other collectibles and small morsels of PP here and there. As well as having an active role in one of the boss sub plots, but here’s where a personal criticism of mine comes from as well. I hate to do this but-but- I’m a.. a gulp- girl gamer, and I have to admit that the added interactivity of being able to take creepy ass photos of women and be rewarded for it with experience, as well as a nosebleed accompanying it, is not really my favorite thing to do in this game lmao. This game is very camp through and through and takes liberties of Isabela’s assets full front and center as they basically eat the cutscene camera, but those are honestly fine. I don’t dislike that aspect, but I can’t help but raise my eyebrow everytime I’m forced to get a good enough Erotica shot of Sophie’s undergarments just to fight Kent every playthrough, it’s just weird and nothing about Frank’s character gives the impression that he’d even agree to do that in the first place. Not to mention, if there’s a survivor like Kay Nelson in frame of the shot, you’ll get Erotica points on her crotch even when she’s not the focal point in the frame. Or getting Horror points for upskirting the older women, haha old lady gross!! farts.

The only one that works for me is Janet Star’s double Erotica shot for each of her gigantic boobs, because it’s so exaggerated and isn’t triggered by the player literally invading her privacy. That one admittedly gets a chuckle out of me, so it can be done in a way that works. But, I can’t help but think that this aspect of the game is kind of why Capcom doesn’t acknowledge that they made it in the first place, on top of the rest of the series being such ass poo poo water. If we ever get a remake of this game, don’t expect this part, or even Jo’s boss fight, to survive it. I’m not exactly sure how they’d go about making those changes, but I wouldn’t mind losing them personally. There is so much more that this game has to offer aside from the random lewdness anyways. L + ratio, girl gamer ruining my video games!!!

Speaking of, I think all of these criticisms and positives would benefit so hard from being remade. I mentioned it a bit in my last review, but just imagine how awesome it would be if everything in the game could truly be picked up. I feel as if there’s something on the shelf, I should be able to either grab it or put it on as an outfit. While the game gives so much to utilize, it also has a disappointing amount of objects that can’t be interacted with. I should be able to knock over objects, destroy book shelves, or even mess around with objects that are so neatly organized. The grocery store is so uncannily stocked to perfection, without any ability to move the objects around. Frank can infinitely take from areas that don’t visibly decrease in size, etc. It would just add so much to the feel, ya know? It would give so much more sauce than there already is. Just let me destroy everything in the area, then fix it when I come back. It would remove the weird barriers that exist in some boss fights like Jo or Steven’s where the display shelves actively get in the way of the two of you fighting. Cletus is by far the most dogshit boss in this game, with Sniper Carlito not far behind. They need to be bonked on the head with a magic fairy wand and changed so badly. Fix the AI on the survivors, give them a little more oomph, inject a little more life into their mini-stories and maybe even give them differing voice lines. Give Frank more modern shooting controls that allow him to walk and aim at the same time, etc. Either add or move around content into the later game that eliminates that boring part, and revamp the story to make the ending have more of an impact. It’s just an unfortunate case of what could be a great, fun time. The only thing that I don’t want them to change is the licensed music, probably the only time in my life I’ll defend the use of it. There is nothing more iconic than Gone Guru or Fly Routine as boss themes. And there is nothing funnier than seeing the sheer visceral panic a new player gets upon discovering the convicts for the first time while the initial “WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL-” blasts in their headphones.

There is just nothing quite like Dead Rising 1. The choices Capcom made to abandon this series is just so baffling and sad to see in hindsight because it could have been so, so much better. It deserved more than to be tossed aside to a studio known for making baseball games. It’s one of the few games that Capcom doesn’t even acknowledge on their 40th anniversary site: https://captown.capcom.com/en either. I could go on all day about why I think this game is awesome despite its flaws, clearly, as I tried really hard here. But, since I’ll be playing the 4th installment soon, I figured I should go back to familiarity for a minute and just live in its bliss before I inevitably tear my own face off. Since Capcom is in their remake era anyways, it could still happen and I’m not going to make any demands of them, but a small part of me can’t help but have a millimeter sized glimmer of hope in the back of my brain for every game conference that Capcom announces they’ll be apart of. Recently, there has been a sign that there could be one cooking over there, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I would even take their own version of a reboot if it means more Dead Rising. This game will always be a game that I come back to and a remake would not replace it, but it sure does deserve so much better.

And yet he complained that his belly was not full.

White man has been here? How can you tell? shows white people going loco oh wow they really amped up the drama hihihi, ok can you just follow me sir. I don't bite but they do. With one of the most bankruptely creative name in the industry yet, Dead Rising offers a painfully accurate american outbreak with all its quirks. It doesn't even feel that junk in retrospect... Oh i'm soooo lying that AI came out the wazzoo. Does it make some situations more memorable? Also yes, that's one of our realities. Holding hands has reached astronomical tediousness levels.

It's an interesting branch of roguelites. We could even call it a management sim the way you're gonna rewind that clock over and over in an attempt to maximize your PP, hard pause on that one but I done forgor what the letters stood for, I'll go ahead and make this up it means "Cock n' Ball Torture" there, no one's batting an eye because one knows what this game's really about. I'm getting that PP up when some woman zombie is munching on my private parts or when I'm taking a photo of a woman zombie munching on someone's private parts. A serious main story and the silliness we're subjected to outside of it is exactly the Yakuza brand, it's something the japanese really know how to do. They be knowin their silliness frfr.

I'm not even gonna discuss that main story, it's serviceable and survivors ratio + cope seethe. I don't know if survivors really is a good way to put it, they aren't surviving shit until the West comes along. And here I am changing into sneakers wearing a dress that would turn me into the belle of the bal, I'm built different they cannot mimic a fraction of my power. I can eat bullets no problem, chainsaws are a different issue but it's because West is wooden hard baby

Despised this when I originally played it, thought it was an underrated gem when I gave it another shot a couple of years ago, and now I’ve finally cooled on it- still a really admirable title, especially as one that was meant be Capcom’s leap into the 7th generation, but it’s decidedly frontloaded upon further inspection. So many of the offputting design choices, like the ever-present timer and weapon durability system, only really matter for the first couple of days when you’re still fumbling around, learning the layout of the mall, and dealing with the constant upsets the game throws at you just as think you’ve gotten a handle on everything.

Even coming back to it now, there’s an impressive streak of early-game roadblocks: the convicts, the gun-store owner, zombies that are deadlier and more numerous at night, and the infamous fight against Adam the Clown, each of which feels like catastrophe incarnate. But this also means these early hours necessitate, and are gratifyingly open to, experimentation. Was able to trivialize the Cletus fight by bringing in the LMG from the convict’s truck, and snowballed that into a much easier fight against Adam by handing out shotguns to a couple of survivors and having them stunlock him in place- a far cry from some of my initial attempts to tackle these fights while eating at away my time to complete objectives. If you value games for the little emergent stories they provide, the near misses and disastrous failures, then Dead Rising’s opening hours alone are well worth the price of admission. Could rattle on about the interesting moments borne out of the pressure to make the best use of your time, like a moment on this playthrough where I had to ferry two incapacitated survivors through the mall in the dead of night- anti-fun in practice, but a fantastically memorable challenge.

Once you get some of the busted boss weapons and deeper into the game, so much of that initial thrill is pared down, with little planning needed to prep for bosses and less overlapping case files to try and optimize. By its final unlockable section, the “Overtime” mode, the game has regressed into something out of the Simple Series: a threatless fetch quest through the mall carried only by the fact that you now have the opportunity to perform you newly-unlocked wrestling moves on hapless groups of Zombies. It’s a disappointing arc for a title that begins so well, definitely something where its most widely-criticized choices are really what brings the game together, and it's the deeper stuff, the scenario design and balancing, that needed further examination.

Would be much easier to let the campaign’s flaws slide if it coexisted with a mode that was totally centered on trying to save as many survivors as possible under a dramatically shortened timer- the game’s additional “Infinite Mode,” where you have to survive as long as possible in the mall while your health slowly drains also seems an inversion of what the real draw of the game is- just a total slog in practice- and even more of a shame given that Capcom normally excels at making supplemental modes that can highlight the best of a game’s mechanics. (Was an ardent RE6 defender for the longest time due to the relative strength of Mercenaries, for instance.)

At the same time, it’s got a million little cool details that are easy to latch onto, like it’s opening, where you learn the photography controls while doing a fly-by of Willamette’s main street, which handily beats Half-Life out as far as atmospheric intros are concerned- a great intro that offers you some early-game experience if you get the most lurid shots of the disaster unfolding on the ground, and crucially, is entirely optional. Or managing to run into the surprising number of optional scenes where Frank is stripped of gear and has to break out of captivity- tense moments I had completely missed on my first time through. And this to say nothing of the mall proper, which might rank as one of the best-realized locations in the medium, with a huge number of unique storefronts to explore. Easy to lose time just rummaging through and exploring the place, a mundane location given real life through sheer craft of world design.

I’m a couple of hours into Dead Rising 2 as of writing this, and it already seems like a more measured and evenly-paced experience, but the first is still worth a try- it’s a deeply flawed game, but it never seems half-hearted in its attempts to pull so many weird directions.

Part of Spooky Season 2023.

My dumb ass accidentally restarted my save after I died and I don’t feel like playing through the game from the beginning again, so I’ve just decided to shelve it for now and write out my thoughts. It really sucks because I was approaching the game’s climax too. Ah well.

I think that Dead Rising has a great concept that unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to its full potential. It’s a game that heavily revolves around escorting NPCs with AI from the mid-2000s, and that alone should raise some red flags. The game can be thrilling and really enjoyable when the AI works, but that’s just it: the AI frequently doesn’t work. This coupled with other poor design decisions oftentimes makes the game more frustrating than fun. It bums me out because I can see the vision, and when things do work, it does manage to be a very good time. It’s just that it’s also janky as all hell, and while the jank can be charming, it’ll also frequently take you out of the experience.

Dead Rising is a timed game in a similar vein to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. It takes place in a zombie infested mall, and you have 72 in-game hours to not only complete tasks that advance the game’s main storyline, but rescue as many survivors as you can and escort them to the one safe location within the mall: the Security Room. Everything operates on a schedule, so you’ll only have specific opportunities to complete objectives. If you miss those opportunities, they’re gone for the rest of your playthrough. These include main storyline quests as well. I really love this structure. It forces you to memorize the layout of the mall (which isn’t particularly complex) and plan ahead as far as which side quests (which are referred to in-game as “Scoops”) you tackle and how many people you can try and save.

Thankfully, escorting survivors isn’t vital for completing the main story except during specific missions, and I think that is one of this game’s saving graces. That doesn’t mean that successfully escorting them isn’t extremely important, though. There’s a leveling system where Frank gradually gets stronger and more agile the more you play. In addition to gaining exp from killing certain amounts of zombies and completing certain tasks, you get the most exp from successfully escorting survivors. This is where a majority of the game’s frustration comes from. Missing out on exp because the survivors you’re escorting die from not listening to your commands, getting caught on level geometry, or just dashing straight into each other and not moving at all is infuriating. Sometimes the survivors can even accidentally shoot and kill you, and that especially got on my nerves.

I will say that the game does throw you a bone when it comes to the survivors. Simply meeting up with them and getting them to join you is enough to grant you some exp, but actually getting them to safety is what gets you the biggest exp boosts. You’re going to really want them too, because Frank does not feel very good to play as early in the game. I realize that it was the developer’s intention to not make Frank very good early in the game, in order to make replays where he starts off at higher levels more rewarding, but still, it’s rough. If you ever feel like the game isn’t going your way and that you’re stuck or that you’ve missed out on more Scoops than you’d like, you can always reset your campaign with Frank’s current level and upgrades, which I think is a really solid design choice (though I did this by accident, which is how I lost my save).

In addition to the AI of the survivors, the AI of the boss fights is also pretty bad as well. Granted I haven’t fought every boss in the game, but there were a few bosses that were easy to exploit in pretty hilarious ways. I think that the famous Convicts are the best example of this. Almost every time you go through the park after their introduction, they will immediately just drive the humvee straight into a tree and you can shoot them from a safe distance where the AI won’t even register your presence.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the game is how you learn about new Scoops that are available to you. There’s a character named Otis that will call you on your walkie talkie whenever he discovers someone in need of help or if there’s something strange that Frank should consider investigating. The problem is that whenever he calls you on the walkie talkie, Frank is unable to attack or jump, as doing so will interrupt the call from Otis and he’ll call again, angrily telling you “Don’t cut me off like that, it’s rude!” before repeating everything that he just told you. This honestly makes me more angry than it probably should, but it’s incredibly annoying when the walkie talkie is going off over and over again while I’m in the middle of a stressful situation such as escorting survivors through a heavily zombie infested area or in the middle of a boss fight and I can’t answer it without risking either my own death, or the death of a survivor. You can talk to Otis directly in the Security Room, so I don’t get why you can’t just get Scoops by simply talking to him while you’re in there as well. You can only get Scoops when you’re outside of the Security Room via the walkie talkie, and I think that’s just really stupid and shortsighted.

I also really wish there was more than one route to the Security Room. Unless there are hidden routes that I just never discovered during my playthrough, you have to escort survivors through Paradise Plaza, through the warehouse hallway, up the elevator to the roof and then through the air duct every single time. I think this was done to make sure that the player most effectively learns the layout of the mall through repetition, but escorting them also becomes really repetitive as a result. I did learn of one shortcut to Paradise Plaza, but you still have to go through Paradise Plaza every time to get to the Security Room.

A majority of this review has been complaining, and I do want to stress that the game is actually really fun when these frustrations aren’t getting in your way. I loved learning about the layout of the mall, memorizing where I can find certain weapons or certain zombies that wield certain weapons, or discovering secret weapons like the sub-machine gun you can find above the roof of one of the stores in Paradise Plaza. I loved planning which Scoops I should tackle and agonizing over which ones I just didn’t have time for. I also think that Frank gradually becomes much better to control as you level him up and unlock faster run speeds and techniques like jumping off of zombies’ heads. Eventually, fighting hordes of zombies becomes very satisfying and enjoyable. It just feels like there’s a lot of factors outside of your control that hinder your efforts and subsequently your enjoyment. I think that if Frank was a bit stronger at the start of the game, and if the survivors and bosses had better AI, then Dead Rising would be much better than it is.

The story was pretty interesting from what I’ve played, and I was pretty invested in what was going on. Like I said, I was at the climax of the game when I lost my save and it was really demoralizing. Not quite sure what made Frank such a popular character back during this era of Capcom. He’s been a decent protagonist, but I can’t say there’s much to him or his personality that makes him especially stand out.

It’s possible to have a lot of fun with Dead Rising, just keep in mind that it has a lot of jank and really lacks polish. For all of its faults, I never found it to be boring. There’s a lot of charm to it, especially those aspects of it that feel straight out of the mid-2000s, like the nu-metal soundtrack and the overall design of the mall in general (finding stores that just sell CDs made me feel super nostalgic). It says a lot that despite all of the things that drag it down, I still want to go back and finish it eventually. Maybe I’ll save it for Spooky Season 2024.

I respect this game first and foremost for not babying you -- it drops you (literally) into zombie shopping mall hell and says, "figure it out." All of the mechanics I uncovered in the hours I played were quite cool -- holding books to increase stats; levelling up with survivor rescues and photography; unlockable special moves; the way game-time is woven into progression; etc... And the actual meat of the gameplay -- the dispatching of countless undead through comically varied means, including lawnmowers and umbrellas and mannequins and whatever else you can find -- is awesome. You can tell it's fine-tuned to feel exceptionally hefty. Every swing of a baseball bat, or pole, or dismembered hand feels consequential and releases sweet, sweet brain chemicals.

Where the game falters is fairly obvious. The "boss battles" (for example, the second encounter with Carlito) are embarrasments of design. Much of the world traversal feels too slow for a game that relies so heavily on it. Many of the coolest weapons are made far too difficult to uncover in the early game -- a needless roping off of fun. Finally, as many, many others have mentioned, the entire thing is a rickety tower of escort missions with the stupidest AI imaginable.

But, you know, at the end of the day I think there's still plenty of fun to be had here. There's a ton of genuinely great ideas to mull over, there's that miniature-open-world gamefeel that I personally love, and then of course there's Frank West -- a surprisingly delightful protagonist.

Recommended in spite of its flaws.

A pretty good game, hella early 2000s vibes coursing through its veins. I wasn’t too into the mission design and how tasks started to feel same-y after awhile, but the world and carefree B-movie mall atmosphere and characters kept things from getting too boring. The time limit is a cool feature too that’s adds more dimensions and difficulty to this game. I’d probably like this way more at the time than playing it now since the survivors constantly have a death wish and the controls are a bit dated yet still very playable. Shooting is awful but running around the mall chainsawing zombies and chomping down a baguette is fun. I might come back and finish this at some point even though I wasn’t super into it.

Also hate that I think of the game grumps whenever I turn this game on lol

Dead Rising is absolutely a game I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did. I grew up as a Nintendo boy, with a few minor exceptions here and there. I almost never strayed away from the bright, cartoony worlds exclusive to Nintendo consoles. This didn't change until a couple years ago when I started getting into fighting games. This is actually how I first found out about Frank West and Dead Rising as a whole. I've been playing lots and lots of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where Frank West just so happens to be a playable character. Knowing nothing about him prior, I tried him out, and he quickly became a favorite, so naturally, I wanted to know more about him. One thing leads to another, and Dead Rising is one of my favorite games ever.

I was immediately hooked the instant the game started. I've seen my fair share of zombie outbreak games, but this one is less about simply surviving the outbreak. This game has a fairly deep story as to why the outbreak started in the first place, and it's the job of freelance photojournalist Frank West to figure it out. After arriving on helicopter, Frank has 3 days to figure out what the hell is happening before his ride comes back to pick him up. A 72 hour countdown starts then and there. This timer is not only brutal, but is essential to this game's genius, but I'll have to talk more about it once I go over a few other things first.

Frank is free to explore the mall of Willamette to his heart's content, but while he's doing so, he'll run into his fair share of scoops. These are missions assigned to Frank when he gets a call on his transceiver from Otis. These missions can range from saving someone in need of help, fighting off someone who's gone insane, meeting up with someone, etc. These missions can pop up at any time when you're outside of the safe house, and they each have their own time limit assigned to them. Some of these scoops are essential to getting the game's best ending, but most of them can be ignored. The ones that aren't required are simply there to help the player: more on that later.

Frank has very basic movement options. He's slow and clunky, doesn't do much damage, has low health, etc. This was intentional due to the RPG-like leveling up system. By completing specific tasks, like killing a certain amount of zombies, saving survivors by guiding them back to the safe house, and playing through various activities around the mall, Frank gets Prestige Points, abbreviated into PP. Frank can go all the way from level 1 to level 50, with each level up having a random chance to give Frank a stat boost and a new skill. These stats range from more health, more speed, more attack damage, more inventory space, and more ranged damage. The new skills are mostly barehanded attacks that can only be done while holding nothing in your hand. These are fun to mess around with, offer a lot of variety, and are essential to master to ensure you can beat the game.

This leveling system surprisingly works incredibly well, and it's strengthened by what I think is this game's biggest strength: the reliance on player knowledge. Throughout your first playthrough, you know absolutely nothing. To go along with that, Frank is at his lowest strength level. As you learn more about the game, Frank levels up as a result. Frank becoming stronger is literally a consequence of the player having more knowledge and making the most of what they know.

On my first playthrough, I started out just fumbling around, but just by exploring did I learn how much there was to exploit to your advantage. The hidden items like the submachine guns and katana, the different juice formulas, the PP stickers, the skateboard, literally everything. Once I finished the game, only around level 33, I immediately wanted to go back in and play again, so that's what I did. Not only does everything you learn throughout the game encourage multiple playthroughs, but you can transfer Frank's current PP data over to a new save so you don't have to start at the bottom of the barrel every time. I quickly got to level 50 and was able to fully test what I learned from my first playthrough at Frank's strongest point.

The knowledge you gain isn't only useful just for killing everything in sight, but also for saving survivors. The aforementioned scoops that usually require you to escort someone back to the safe house can be pretty difficult, especially when you're fighting the incompetent AI more than the zombies. After scouring through the mall for hours on end, you'll know every nook and cranny by heart. You'll have little trouble planning a route for your rescued survivors, and will even be able to take bigger risks by escorting more at once. This isn't even mentioning the brutal 72 hour timer that's always counting down. Learning to work around the clock, both in the sense of constantly doing things and you developed a game plan to deal with it effectively, is the cornerstone of succeeding in this game, and by simply playing, you learn all you need to know. This reinforces the notion that player knowledge reigns above anything else and encourages you to get to know the game like it's your future spouse, and it works perfectly.


One of the selling points of the game is that you can use literally anything as a weapon. Any object that can be interacted with can also be picked up, used as a melee weapon, and thrown. This highly encourages experimentation with the tools that surround you. Although I never used random objects as weapons much, it is plenty useful knowing that there's always a weapon nearby. This is especially useful when you're trying to escort survivors out of a store and you're surrounded. I specifically remember this being useful during the barricade scoop, where two guys fortify themselves in a store. There were plenty of benches, plants, metal plates, and other objects that were incredibly useful for clearing the way. The versatility of the entire environment around you makes every inch of the map a new, engaging ground for zombie killing.

The story took me by surprise by being just as engaging as the rest of the game. It's not anything incredibly deep, but is interesting enough to keep you completely engaged. The story progresses as you complete story related scoops. These scoops are mandatory for getting the best ending, but if you want, you could just ignore them completely and mess around in the mall. By failing to complete a story related scoop, you lose the chance to get the best ending and cannot complete any other story related scoops, but the game doesn't just end. You can completely ignore the story if you like and just rescue survivors, but completing all the story scoops is how you get the true ending.

Freelance photojournalist Frank West arrives in Willamette, Colorado, after receiving a scoop about something big going down. Flying over the town, he tries to piece together what's happening as people are seemingly rioting while the entire town is blocked off by the military. Once he arrives at the shopping mall, he meets Carlito, the man who sent the scoop, but he's very vague about the whole situation and insists Frank enters the mall to see the situation for himself. A horde of zombies flood the mall while Frank tries to escape to the safe room. The door is welded shut, and we meet most of the main cast: Brad, Jessie, and Otis. They're very vague about what's actually happening, but Frank is able to convince them to help him get his story as long as he helps them find someone in the mall.

Carlito, the man from before, antagonizes Brad and Frank by kidnapping their person of interest: Dr. Barnaby. They're able to save Barnaby, but Carlito escapes. Once Barnaby is safe, Jessie interrogates him without allowing Frank to join her, so Frank sets out to find a girl he saw before who claims to know something about what's happening. Once he finds her, she introduces herself as Isabela Keyes; sister to Carlito Keyes. She claims that the zombie outbreak is "all of their faults" and "it's just like Santa Cabeza." Isabela sets up a time for Frank to interview Carlito, so they meet back up in a couple of hours.

Turns out, Carlito didn't come to the interview, and shot Isabela in the arm out of anger. You take Isabela to the safe room where she can be treated. Once she wakes up, the entire truth comes out. Dr. Barnaby confesses that he led a research team in Santa Cabeza, Mexico, where they tried to find an efficient way to reproduce cattle. They accidentally created the queen, which carries the zombie virus with it. A queen got out and went into the nearest village, where nearly everyone was turned into a zombie and horribly killed. The only known survivors were Carlito and Isabela. But, this entire operation was covered up, including the government clean up. Years later, Carlito unleashes a queen in Willamette with the intent to remind the world of what happened at Santa Cabeza. Once we're completely caught up, Barnaby gets infected and is killed.

Carlito's backup plan comes into play. He floods the underground tunnels with gas and plants explosives in various places. Through the fire, Frank is able to get the bombs out of the tunnels in time. Meanwhile, Brad confronts Carlito, both injuring themselves fatally. A bit of time passes, and Frank finds Carlito getting dragged into a butcher shop on the security monitors. Frank rescues Carlito from the clutches of the butcher, only for Carlito to be living his last moments. This moment is great; Frank being able to sympathize with Carlito and assuring him that the Santa Cabeza story will be told, but still being angry and demanding answers. You're right there along with Frank; mad at Carlito, but can at least understand what he was trying to do. The best villains out there are the ones you can sympathize with.

Frank meets back up with Isabela and gives her some reassuring words that, although Carlito was a scumbag, he put his love for his little sister first and was only trying to look out for her. The narrative slowly comes to a close here. The military arrives, all the survivors you rescued escape with help from Otis, and it's almost time for your ride to arrive. It's eerily quiet all around the mall. Thanks to the military, all zombies in immediate sight are now dead, so all that's filled in the halls are the leftover corpses. Upon arriving at the rooftop, the pilot sees Frank and attempts to land, but then, the worst possible outcome happens. A zombie that had snuck on board the helicopter kills the pilot, causing it to crash and leaving Frank with no way to escape this zombie-ridden, and now, military-ridden mall.

This starts one my favorite part of the game: Overtime Mode. Nobody is coming to rescue you. Frank's careless distraught when the helicopter crashes gets him infected. Now, he has to scour the mall, contending with military troops and zombies to create a makeshift cure with Isabela's help. This is a complete 180 from what the game promised before, but it absolutely works. I genuinely cannot describe how absolutely intense this felt on my first playthrough. Finding Queens for the cure can be a hassle, especially if you don't know the proper strats. Once you find them, though, you and Isabela fight for dear life through a zombie infested tunnel that leads outside. This all culminates in the final boss fight: Brock Mason.

After stealing a military jeep, you seem like you're home free, until a tank pops up to try and take you out. You both quickly come to a stalemate before Brock comes out of the top. Frank gets out to confront him, where Brock explains that his job is to cover up the entire zombie incident. Because of that, he can't leave Frank or Isabela alive, but just when he gets distracted, Frank gives him the biggest sucker punch known to man. You then engage in the boss fight, but this time, Frank has no items in his inventory. It's a battle based on the skills you earned throughout the game and tests your knowledge on how to use them most effectively. Once Frank is victorious, he lets out a scream and it fades…

I'd say I only have some minor gripes with this otherwise fantastic story. The first is something brought up in Overtime Mode. Isabela claims that Carlito attached a virus to 50 orphans who are now spread around the country that will turn them into zombies at a moment's notice. This is nothing more than speculation, but with how important they seemed to be, they actually ended up serving no purpose. I'm pretty sure it comes back in Dead Rising 3, but I haven't played that game as of the time I'm writing this. I would've preferred if this wasn't made to seem like a huge deal when it was brought up, because it's ever mentioned in this game again after it's initial introduction. The second thing is the VERY ending, after Frank screams and it fades to black. There's a bit of text that explains that Frank tried to expose the government for their crimes, but without enough evidence, the only thing he could get was them admitting to researching cattle. This is incredibly unsatisfying, and it's kinda just thrown in there. I wish there was some kind of epilogue that showed how Frank and Isabela ended up after escaping and failing to expose the government, because this is a really strange cliffhanger to end on.

One thing I love about the story is the morally gray aspect of everything and everyone. Frank isn't just some guy doing what he's doing for the good of the country, not at all. When we first meet him, he's just after a story. By the end of it, it's never really clear if he's still doing what he's doing for the sake of the story or to expose the truth for what it is because it's the right thing to do. Carlito, similarly, killed hundreds, if not, thousands of people by unleashing the infection into the public. But he's not just some hobo looking for destruction, he just wants the world to remember what happened to Santa Cabeza. Brad and Jessie want to help, but we don't know how much of that is just government orders. Even the initial outbreak only happened because American scientists were trying to do something to help the economy.

On that note, I really like Frank West. As I said before, he's only after a scoop, but he slowly grows to realize there's more than that (but we still don't get a definitive answer which is why I still consider him to be morally gray). I've seen many people say he's an asshole, when he absolutely isn't. He just knows how to use leverage effectively, since, again, he's after that big scoop. Honestly, the definitive proof that he isn't an asshole is also my favorite thing about him: he's a pacifist. Before every psychopath boss fight where he's not thrown into immediate danger, he tries to reason with the antagonist first, even going as far as sparing and saving some of them. He's never out for a fight, but will do whatever it takes to save his own life if push comes to shove.

While the previously mentioned boss fights are called "psychopaths," these characters are honestly really human. Every psychopath has fallen insane in some sort of way as a reaction to the zombie outbreak. So, although it may seem strange for a store owner to be anxious about vandalism or a clown to be laughing while he explains how his entire audience died, it's all, in a way, realistic. You can believe that these guys have simply gone mad due to the chaos around them. Not to mention, they're all memorable in some way. My favorites are Carlito and Cliff, mainly because they're the most sympathetic, but Adam, Kent, and the convicts are some of my favorites entertainment-wise. It's interesting how they're the game's toughest forms of enemies. In a zombie outbreak, the most dangerous thing isn't the zombies, but the people affected by it.

In a game I was hesitant to like at first, the last thing I expected to end up liking was the music. At first glance, it just seems like a hodgepodge of licensed music used just because, but every song included in this game is great. Although I don't actively remember every song, so many of them are ingrained into my brain simply because of when they play. Gone Guru playing whenever you enter the park while the convicts are alive is perfect; the start almost sounds like an alarm, alerting the convicts and warning you to get outta there. Slave, which plays during Cliff's fight, fits his constant struggle with PTSD perfectly. The original songs are great, too. Who couldn't love the classic Mall Music? All of it is great, but Mall Music 3 has definitely ascended above the rest. It's so catchy, and eerily plays as though everything is fine, covering up the dark truth of what hides beneath the surface; somehow fits the vibe extremely well. Justified, the end credits song, is one of my favorite OST tracks ever, and fits well with the theme of gray morality I spoke of earlier, as Isabela (I assume) still believes she and her brother were in the right for starting an outbreak, despite the horror it caused. Overall, a great blend of fitting, already existing songs, and new unique music that immerses you in the mall of Willamette.

I really didn't expect to like this game much, if at all. I was only even interested in Frank after playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3. But, now I owe that game a big thank you; for getting me interested in what is now one of my favorite game series' to date. Dead Rising has some of the most unique gameplay for what seems like a generic, zombie survival, FPS type game. The story is far more engaging than it has any right to be, with incredibly well written and interesting, yet simple characters. I'll never forget my first experience with this game, as I struggled to save almost any survivor, got caught by the military countless times, and clawed my way through Overtime Mode. This is one of the few games out there that I would say gets better on repeated playthroughs because of the reliance on player knowledge and leveling Frank up. It's unfortunate to see what's become of the series now, but this will always be remembered by me as one of the greatest gaming experiences out there.

The Dead Rising franchise was one that I'd heard of quite early on through videos from YouTubers like PeanutButterGamer and SpaceHamster, and while I never got the chance to actually play any of the games, the way that people talked about them made me associate the name with goofy zombie hijinks in a shopping mall. Because Dead Rising 3 was an Xbox One exclusive and Dead Rising 4 was apparently the game that killed the franchise, the main game in the series that I was interested in checking out was Dead Rising 2, but when I came across a copy of the first game roughly two months ago, I decided to give it a try. Dead Rising was another one of those games where I could barely even tell whether or not I was actually enjoying what I was playing until it was over, because while a lot of its ideas seemed quite novel on paper, their execution left a lot to be desired.

Timers in video games tend to be hit-or-miss for me (which is partially why I still haven't beaten Pikmin months after starting it), and so I wasn't sure how I'd feel about a game that was entirely made up of them. In Dead Rising, every main and side mission is timed so that you could potentially miss out on them entirely if you spend too long messing around in the Willamette Parkview Mall, and while I found this to be a bit iffy at first, I grew to see the thinking behind this choice. Not only do the timed missions give a lot more value to the upgrades and abilities that you unlock whenever you level up, but they also dramatically amp up the stress of actually playing the game, as it has you wade your way through oceans of zombies just to get a chance to progress the main story, let alone rescue a survivor or fight one of the many unique psychopaths that are spread out across the mall. Unfortunately, Frank West's only way of actually accepting these sidequests is by answering calls on your transceiver, and not only do you never know when these calls will show up, but they also leave you totally vulnerable to attacks, and so this system of accepting missions makes it practically impossible for you to do everything in Dead Rising without reloading saves constantly.

Despite its simple premise of being trapped in a shopping mall with an army full of zombies and spending the next few days trying to figure out how all of this came to be, Dead Rising makes the player juggle a lot of different tasks at once at all times, ranging from the missions they have to complete to the ratio of weapons to healing items in their inventory, and while there were some bits of breathing room during my playthrough, there was always at least one thing that I had to devote my full attention to, which made the immersion feel immediate and natural. The core gameplay of killing zombies with whatever items you can find is fun on its own and opens up a lot of opportunities for wacky moments, but the mechanics that this loop revolves around end up feeling janky and unreliable. Thanks to the awkward aiming for your ranged weapons and a complete lack of enemy targeting for your melee attacks, you never really know if your attack will even go in the direction that you wanted it to, much less actually connect with what you're trying to hit, and since every weapon in the game has limited durability (along with the unlockable skills having finicky inputs and incredibly situational uses), I often ended up just spamming the jump button with the hopes that the zombies would miss their attacks.

Despite how much it had going for it, Dead Rising had two big, glaring flaws that kept me from enjoying the game as much as I wanted to, as they reared their heads very early on in my playthrough and remained irritating until the credits rolled. Although backtracking in a game like this makes sense, Dead Rising still got quite repetitive pretty quickly, as having to take the exact same routes to go to main areas like the security room over and over again made having to fight the same zombies using the same weapons that I picked up in the same spots felt immensely dull, and since trying out other weapons or paths led to me getting killed at worst or being left with less resources at best, I ended up sticking to those same routes and getting bored as a result. The AI for the survivors is also absolutely atrocious, and practically every survivor that I tried to rescue would get killed on the way to the security room because they would constantly run into a crowd of zombies and get overwhelmed with no chance of me being able to help them out. Fortunately, the unresponsive AI also appleid to the game's bosses, and so I was able to cheese quite a few of the more cheap fights in the game. Dead Rising had a lot of interesting concepts, but I wouldn't really say that I had very much fun playing it, and while I don't know how long it'll be before I eventually check out Dead Rising 2, I do know that playing this game made me really eager to finally watch George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

I Covered wars you know...

Dead Rising foi um jogo que eu meio que lembrei que eu tinha na biblioteca da steam do nada, baixei pra testar e acabei curtindo muito a idéia do jogo.

Aqui você controla Frank West, um jornalista que tem como missão investigar o estranho evento de aparições de zombies numa cidadezinha no meio do nada, e ele acaba preso dentro de um shopping tendo que sobreviver e investigar ao mesmo tempo.

O jogo apresenta uma dinâmica muito interessante que te da um prazo de 72 horas pra você resolver o máximo de questões e salvar o máximo de sobreviventes que você conseguir dentro do shopping, lembrando que cada um deles tem um tempo limite para serem salvos, oq torna muito difícil salvar todo mundo.

Outra coisa que eu gostei foi a ambientação dentro do shopping que é muito legal e torna o jogo bem imersivo, onde cada lojinha tem seus itens e suas particularidades.

Dead Rising é um jogo bem interessante e que envelheceu muito bem, recomendo jogar, ainda mais se você gosta de um desafio, pois esse jogo é bem difícil.

>survivor AI pathfinding is a mess
>gunplay is pretty lackluster all things considered
>forced cutscenes can potentially separate you from the survivors you’re leading, making them sitting ducks for a horde of zombies
>tons of little jank all around

Yet, despite all of that, it’s still one of the best games ever made.

Dead Rising 1 is an unusual game, to say the least. In most games, you beat the game, get everything, then you get to fool around with everything the game has to offer. It’s a tried and true method and certainly one that works. However, Dead Rising is different in that it’s the complete opposite. You're supposed to fuck around, look everywhere, learn and evolve, THEN try a serious run after you're good. Your character is a total shitter at first, you don't know anything and will most likely fail.

And you know what? That’s perfectly okay.

When I was younger, I was way too much of a dumb fuck to appreciate how much the timer in DR1 adds to the experience but replaying through it now, I can finally appreciate what it does. It constantly changes up the gameplay to not make it stale on subsequent playthroughs and adds unpredictability and tension throughout the game. It also encourages you to get more and more familiar with the mall and its layout in order to save time and find the best shortcuts possible, giving you a supreme sense of satisfaction when you get the survivors back to the rooftop with next to no trouble at all.

I find it funny how people tend to complain about weapon durability in games when Dead Rising had one of the best implementations of it all the way back in 2006. Weapon durability is fine when the arsenal is massive and it's encouraging you to make more varied use of it, and when weapons respawn anyways, you don't have to worry about permanently losing out on any weapons. Not to mention that you can buff the durability of the items with certain books and you don't even need weapons to be effective against zombies at a certain point.

The timer turns the zombies from punching bags you can casually beat up for fun into an ever-present obstacle you always need to be planning the fastest route through, while still giving enough leeway for them to turn back into fun punching bags at points. The courtyard is the fastest way to get to and from certain sections of the mall so in order to counteract against this possibly abusable strat, the game throws in the convicts to try and shake things up and force decisions upon you; do you take the shorter yet more dangerous route in order to save time under the possibility of death for both yourself and the survivors around you or do you take the lengthier yet relatively safer route with the hordes of zombies by going around the courtyard? It’s game design like that which adds so much to the experience. Combine this with the fact that your stats carry over everytime you choose to start over, the game's relatively short run, and the fact that you can just let the timer run out and go wild and Dead Rising makes for an endlessly fun and replayable experience. Plus, it’s just fun to disabowel a zombie with your bare hands and do a double lariat to them like you’re Zangief.

Another thing I want to touch on is how the game integrates Frank’s role as a photojournalist within the setting and I don’t just mean that in how it translates into the photography mechanic (though said mechanic is pretty cool.)
You only have a limited amount of time to find out and snoop around for whatever leads you find. It’s up to you to find out the truth and expose it for the world to see and if you’re candid with how you choose to spend your time, the truth WILL eventually become lost forever and you’ll be back to square one. Frank’s job isn’t just there as an excuse for what he’s doing there; it’s perfectly integrated within the world of Dead Rising itself.

The amount of little details in this game is also a sight to behold. From using a toy laser sword in your inventory to help you see in the dark after the lights go out, to blinding zombies in the face with pie, to setting a frying pan on the stove to heat it up and then burn zombies and psychos for a ton of damage, to running on the treadmills and destroying sandbags for a ton of PP and more. You can even fucking spit on your enemies if you’re unequipped and use said spit as a weapon with the Spitfire drink buff. Dead Rising to me is what a next-gen game should strive to be: it doesn’t just push the hardware to its limits graphically but it pushes for gameplay innovations and experimental mechanics that wouldn’t be possible on previous consoles in order to create a more fulfilling experience and to me, that’s pretty fucking cool.

I’ll admit that Dead Rising isn’t for everyone. Its mechanics can take some getting used to and there is quite a bit to jank you’ll have to get used to when it comes to the overall experience. But once it clicks, you’ll get something that you can’t get much elsewhere and that, to me, is the mark of a truly special game.

Well, he ain't my boy, but the brother is heavy
Gave away my possessions and moved in to a Chevy (van
Yeah, that's the master plan)
(Drive to woods and eat corn out the can)
Yeah I gave it all away, the hard rock band
The groupies, the booze, the all-night jams
Now all these fans, askin' "Where did he go?"
(Meditating on a rock lettin' go of the ego)
So rapping with the squirrels is the way of the mountain
They took half my nuts and berries and riddled "Who's countin'?"
Bit my finger with the truth, the blood was spoutin'
Now my cup overfloweth, just like a fountain
Seen birds in the sky, trees in between
Grubs in the ground, it was so serene
The sky was blue, yeah the grass was green
(And that's three square meals if you know what I mean!)
So now I wake up every morning with a fat cup of piss
My third eye's open, so give me some Swiss Miss
Saw a thirty foot fairy walking down your street
Thought I was down with God, I had to yell "Retreat!"


Because I gone guru so cut the ballyhoo
Rock the tambourines and the didgeridoo
Set the animals free from the pimpin' zoo
And I'll elevate your mind like airplane glue

Out in the desert on a three-day stint
I had a revelation and I made a mint
So take a hit and won't you join the club
Send your wives to my hut for the body rub
Mental guru in the Subaru
Four-wheel drive to the commune
Pick up the crew
And we out to the zen monastery on the prairie
Where I milk the holy cow, but quit the dairy
So run with the yeti eatin' veggie spaghetti
Don't have to live like no refugee, peace to Tom Petty
Ready, steady, spiritually grow
Til I found out my boy worked for the COINTELPRO
Graham, damn, now I gots to scram
And start handin' out my leaflets in Bethlehem
Cause the Bible's played out, so I'm writing a new text
(We are all one, so what's the problem with group sex?)
And so many children want to join the fold
(Mike Love on line two) Put that sucker on hold
And shine, to thine own self be true
They can't tell you what to do when you've gone guru
(Yeah, shine, to thine own self be true
They can't tell you what to do when you've gone guru!)
(You got to shine, to thine own self be true
They can't tell you what to do when you've gone guru)

Gone guru, I'm the new Nehru
So rock the tambourines and didgeridoo
I'll deliver who-ever pays what's due
That's nine for me, and one for you

Awwwwwwwww yeah, we got it going on and it's strong up in here tonight!
We got that incense burning! We got them peacock feathers, tickling!
We got all that cuckoo karma connection, that you can use
So come on, people, get with the program!
We can get this together...
Tonight!

Too many wives for Ohio, they were looking to try me
So I got twelve divorces said aloha, Hawaii
Arrived without traveling, they lost the bags
Another trial for my people, don't scratch the Jag
(They might say hang loose, but they really don't mean it!)
Deported me to Rio and you watched it on CNET
News chumps had me singing the blues
Til thirty thousand showed up with the right to choose
Rose petals in bed, milk in my bath
And now Harrison Ford wants my autograph
I laughed when we met, cause he busted a sweat
Then I stuck out my tongue, he donated a jet
(Stole the spotlight from the Dali Lama
Cause my crews coming tight in the orange pajamas)
(Got 16 Caddies and 29 Rolls
Fuck the shoes, I transcend through soles)
With constant expansion, I live in a mansion
Getting jiggy with Madonna and Marilyn Manson
60 Minutes exposé, taxes you never paid
Papparazzi, Code Blue! Down toupee!
Yes I'm starting to age, I can feel it in my bones
My advisers tell me (Start thinking 'bout clones)
Found out! Heaven is a place on earth!
I cut off my head, it cost all I was worth
Cryogenic robot, now my head can spin
(I'll be around a million years, so let the party begin)
PARTY ROBOT!!! (Now my head can spin
I'll be around a million years, let the party begin)

Gone guru, new Nehru
Rock tambourine and didgeridoo
Must free animals from pimpin' zoo
Deliver who, two plus two
Gone gone gone-gone, gone gone, gone gone gone-gone gone gone
Gone gone gone-gone, gone gone, gone gone gone-gone gone guru

Finally some good content. Dead Rising 1 is almost a perfect game and it deserves to be called one, I don't care. What this game misses in lack of smart AI and weird arcade shooting controls, gets outweighed by the sheer fact that the concepts baked into here are unique to itself and haven't been done again outside of this series.

This is a sandbox adventure game first and foremost, just in the setting of a mall with zombies as the obstacles. There are hidden items and survivors laid about to encourage the player to naturally investigate all areas of Willamette while also providing them with some challenge.

The AI can be stressful and stupid, but they aren't impossible. They are literally a living collectible that give you massive rewards for doing them.

The time limit mechanic is not a bad mechanic, and anyone complaining about it is an infant who helped ruin this series. Timing in this game is a very effective tool to get you to move your god damn ass across the mall so that you always have something to do that isn't just standing around, while giving you a bit of challenge that revolves around time and resource management. You won't level up simply by killing zombies, and you won't get better weapons unless you challenge bosses. The mall isn't THAT big, and it doesn't have to be, because you're almost always on the move doing something.

On top of that, you have the mechanic where almost everything that is selectable can be used as a weapon to fight enemies. Realistically, your options are limited, this being an Xbox 360 launch title but this is another idea I don't often see in other games. I'm not talking about picking up your neighbor's Excalibur sitting in a cave, brother. I'm talking about using the TV in your living room to bust some dude's ass wide open because he just simply looked at you funny.

Don't go into this plot expecting fine course cuisine, but treat it like it's your parents coming home with surprise McDonalds instead. The story and characters are as campy as camp can get. Frank is not only the toughest guy you'll ever meet, but he's also the world's best Ally. The only thing I hate doing in this game is getting an upskirt photo of a woman so I can 100% it. (Sorry, weirdos!!)

This game is the perfect candidate for a Capcom Remake in that sweet sweet RE Engine that they make everything in and not just RE. You could fix all the issues this game has so very easily while keeping the time challenge mechanic. More items that are able to be used as weapons, fixed and amplified survivors that have personality values that actually work, etc. That would be if Capcom didn't HATE Dead Rising with every fiber of their being and remembered that they even made it in the first place.

Out of the 5 mainline games, minus the Wii and Java ones (don't even start with me), this one is by far the best. Numbers and stars are arbitrary, my friend. This baby is a 5 star if I've ever seen one.

come for a funny game about suplexing zombies in a mall, stay for the intense time management game where every mad dash for a survivor or for more resources has to be carefully planned and scheduled lest the truth fall into darkness

every encounter with a psychopath makes you howl in anguish ; not because you're about to be run over by a big weaponised shopping trolley, not because all you have as an answer are two fresh succulent cartons of orange juice, but because you absolutely did NOT make time for this crap in your schedule and it's all going wrong

too bad capcom did some absolute clown shit with this series, because this game is a great statement of intent and a genuinely fresh take on survival horror

[Any similarities to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead are purely coincidental.]

When I played this game as a kid, it literally felt like going into a mall and playing with everything you find. The fact that zombies are in it hardly mattered to me. What mattered was that you could go into all these shops, that all had their own quirks and things to pick up. It felt real, it felt like fantasy fulfillment, it was fun. It is crazy how modern games just do not satisfy this urge anymore. The maps get larger and larger to the point that they take 2 real life hours to drive full speed from one side of the map to the other, but none of those games feel like real interactable places. But this game beats out all those other game worlds by being truly memorable, detailed and interactable.

Dead Rising is unfortunately one of those series that gets worse the further you go, but if you stick to DR1 and DR2, you wont get burned.

Pra época que foi lançado é incrível suportar tantos inimigos na tela, os chefes são bem criativos e malucos também, gostei de todos que enfrentei menos o último. A história tem umas coisas toscas no roteiro e algumas cutcenes são vergonha alheia, não é o ponto mais forte do jogo mas é interessante, a pitada de humor negro é quase perfeita junto dos personagens.

Agora o principal problema: IA dos aliados é MUITO burra, passei muita raiva, como o jogo consiste em escoltar pessoas durante a gameplay toda isso é frustrante demais, talvez releve isso pela época que foi lançado...

No final me diverti bastante com o game, mas acho que a experiência foi muito afetada por ter deixado o primeiro jogo da série pra jogar por último, então senti falta de muitas mecânicas que tem a partir do 2.