Dead Rising

Guys, you know you’ve done it. At some point in your life you’ve been in the mall and imagined being trapped alone, having the full arsenal of mall goodies at your disposal. Do not be ashamed, you are not alone. Another, or perhaps even the same time of your life you’ve imagined a zombie scenario where you had to make it out alive. Capcom’s Dead Rising goal is to let you live out your fantasies. At least those two, your others are best kept to yourself.

You play Frank West, a Shrek-like photojournalist with a sense of danger, investigating rumours of zombies at the local mall. It becomes pretty clear on the helicopter trip down that the rumour is true, and Mr. West decides to solve the mystery on his own. The helicopter that drops you off is due to come back in 72 hours. Your mission is to save as many people as possible and make it back to the rendezvous point on time. Once inside you find security guards with a barricade of park benches against the front doors, holding back clawing zombies. People are throughout the mall with guns and other makeshift weapons, taking positions and getting ready. As you’re exploring the mall, suddenly an old lady sees her poodle outside with the zombies and makes her way past the security guards. She pushes the barricades out of the way, runs out to save her poodle, and I’ll give you two guesses on what happens next. It sounds campy because it should be. Dead Rising is more of a humorous zombie gore-fest than a Silent Hill type scare. The game’s plot has somewhat of a B-movie feel to it to help out the theme.

Once the zombies break through it’s all about surviving those 72 hours. These 72 hours are not real-time, but actually an in-game time system that’s really about two hours. Yeah, Dead Rising is two hours long. Capcom wants Dead Rising to be a game that’s as replayable as one like GTA, where every time is a new experience and it never really gets old. Though you can just attempt to survive by yourself, the goal is to save as many others as possible. In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen there is also a kill meter so you can rack up how many zombies you’ve slayed. Take great pictures of the zombies with your trusty camera and your stats will boost. Another similarity to GTA is the fact that even though there are some side objectives, they aren’t mandatory. These side-quest help unravel the mystery of the zombies and completing them while saving other people in the mall will unlock a better ending. Dead Rising is made to play like an arcade game or an adventure, whatever floats your boat.

Everything you can get your hands on inside and outside is at your disposal. See that park bench over there? Pick at up and whack some zombies upside their decaying heads. Head into the sporting goods store and grab a football so you can have fun watching it rebound off of them and their surroundings. Grab a guitar from the music store. Pick up a watermelon from the grocery. Take a car from outside or a pair of hedge clippers. Head into the toy store and and don a play Mega-Man suit that shoots tennis balls. Speaking of Mega-Man, a lot of Capcom references dot the Dead Rising mall and finding them is a great extra. Just about everything from the mall plants to even coffee cups can be used as a weapon. If you can see it, it is most likely you can sling it a zombie.

A zombie slayer’s got to eat, and in order to keep your life up you’re going to need to raid the mall eateries for some food. There are over 50 items you can eat and drink and some give you a life bonus if you heat them up in the microwave, for example. Down time will be split eating and in the security “safe area” where you can save your progress. The most impressive thing about the game is our real the mall feels. It’s the first game to really get down the feel of a big mall with all the stores and the layout. You can have fun for 45 minutes just goofing around the mall.

This is what Capcom is going for. Eating to survive, grabbing the nearest item, having fun knocking zombie’s blocks off, running amok in a realistic shopping mall. If Dead Rising comes out and everything flows together, it’ll be as close as you’ll ever be to being trapped in a mall full of zombies. Just saying that sounds awesome. As always you can expect Club Skill to have a review before the undead strike Europe in September.