Yeah I know its not a franchise known for being festive. But with the fourth numbered game being set around this time of the year, I felt it would be appropriate to talk about it now. So with Capcom already making lots of money with
Resident Evil, they would soon start to make another horror based franchise. Zombies are popular and more so now with the success that
The Walking Dead has had. So of course Capcom wanted a piece of the action and gave us the
Dead Rising games. The idea being that in each game you have to get you and people out of a certain area of zombies within a given time, using a variety of weapons with some survivors needing more help than others. So with that in mind, let's get to it:
Dead Rising
In the first game that works on a 72 hour clock, players control a photojournalist (and the overall series protagonist) Frank West (voiced by Terence J. Rotolo) who winds up trapped in a shopping mall in the fictional town of Willamete, Colorado which has been infected with zombies. In an attempt to find out why this town was quarantined, Frank flies in via helicopter to the roof of the mall in which he asks the pilot to return in exactly 72 hours. So as I said, the game follows a time limit but with an overtime mode should one be needed. Frank is tasked with completing a series of case files while also getting survivors to safety. Failure to complete case files results in a variety of different endings, but with the main mode comes a couple of other modes. The first of these is Overtime which upon completing all the case files, another day is granted which gives players some new objectives. Another mode called Infinity does exactly what you are thinking in giving players a chance to free roam the mall without a time limit all based on surviving for as long as possible. As previously mentioned, players can find weapons (which will deteriorate over time), items and costumes which can be used to the player's advantage or can be as useless as Mega Man's Megablaster which is only in the game for humorous effect (which is quite rare to come by in these kinds of games). The game uses an RPG system that can improve various things on Frank. Also because Frank is a photojournalist, you can take photos which are then ranked based on what's in them. And of course, there is a HUD thing in the game which can be extremely helpful. The game overall is a pretty decent experience that puts you in a zombie infected world with a time limit to make things that little bit more intense. Its good fun and a great way to start the series. Just a shame that it doesn't have an auto-save feature which is now considered all the range. Of the best version to play, I would suggest playing the game on anything but the Wii and mobile devices due to their limitations. But probably not worth playing on PS4 and Xbox One due to the fact that its a port and its just not going to make those consoles work hard. 8/10
2 + 2: Off the Record
So the reason why these two are together is because they are both almost the same game. Obviously one is the conical game and the other is a re-imagining of the same game. At the start of both games, Chuck Greene (voiced by Peter Flemming) and Frank West take part in a controversial sports entertainment game show called
Terror is Reality where contestants kill zombies for money and fame. Chuck is in need of the money so that he can cure his daughter with Zombrex while Frank who has become a disgraced celebrity following the first game, comes onto the show as a special guest. Both witness the captured zombies escaping and both attempt to find shelter before venturing into the fictional town of Fortune City, Nevada for their own reasons; Chuck wants to find more Zombrex and Frank does the same, but wants it for himself. What follows is a series of events that lead both of them to save people, take down psychopaths (the name given to the boss battles in the series) all in the short space of 72 hours. Some new objects are introduced, up to 7000 zombies can be seen at any given time on screen and players can create their own weapons by combining them together (which would later become the norm for the rest of the series). Online Multiplayer is also introduced in which players all over the world can do
Terror is Reality their own way. So yeah not much else to say, but at least its tailoring to fans of Frank West and those who want a new experience with a new character all together. Both are great improvements over the first and both are worth giving a play even though
Off the Record is effectively the exact same game, but with Frank West in the spotlight and some very minor differences in addition. 9/10 for both games.
3
So for a while, I had this game as an all time favourite of mine. But I then found more enjoyment in
Sunset Overdrive and put that in the list instead of this. But that's not to say its a bad game, its just personal preference. So after spending time in 2006 and 2011, this time the game is in the not too distant future of 2021. The character this time around is car mechanic Nick Ramos (voiced by Andrew Lawrence) who goes about trying to get survivors out of the fictional city of Los Perdidos, California which has also been infected with zombies. Working on a 72 hour clock, Nick goes about doing jobs for people, finding as many survivors and shelters as possible, taking on psychopaths and combining not just weapons but vehicles as well. That just about sums up the game, but there is a spoiler that reveals where the military stand on the outbreak. I really enjoyed playing this game when it came out as a Xbox One exclusive launch title. Its the most realistic its come so far and has the most insane DLC there is. It was also my introduction to the franchise and I really enjoyed it. Yeah I know its not perfect, but its good fun where it can be. 8/10
4
Now we come to game you are all wanting to see here. So Frank West (this time voiced by Ty Olsson) returns to Willamette, Colorado during Christmas where he accompanies a student of his to investigate the outskirts of the city where a military compound is based. But when things get awry, he is then falsely accused by the government and returns five months later to investigate a new zombie outbreak in the wake of Black Friday on the promise by an agent of the ZDC to have his name cleared and exclusive rights to the story. The game abandons a couple of things that had been norm of the series since it started. The 72 hour time limit is gone in an attempt for the developers to allow players to free roam at their own pace. Two player story co-op has also been abandoned too. Other than those, it has pretty much everything else. I think out of all the games, this is the one that brings the franchise back to its roots while giving Frank the ending that he deserves (though with the DLC it turns out it wasn't the end just yet) and giving us quite possibly the most laid back game of the series due to how it abandons the 72 hour time limit. But its good fun and whether the series will continue after this (not counting guest appearances and crossovers), we will have to wait and see. 9/10
Its been a good series that gave us an intense experience of getting in and out of it within a set time (well except for the fourth game) and let us create and combine weapons to give us an edge over the zombies. Great fun overall and I hope the games continue to be played for a long time coming. 9/10
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