>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.
>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.