Dead Rising—how a game that I've wanted to play for almost 20 years disappointed me.

WEEEEEEEEEELL. It's been years in the making. The first time I've heard about this game was back in 2006, when it was going to release on 360. I saw this amazing trailer on a DVD that came with one of the videogame magazines. It showed the gameplay and various ways you can kill zombies while that awesome "Gone Guru" song by Lifeseeker was playing in the background. "Gone Guru" instantly became one of my favorite songs and found its place on my playlist, and is not getting off of it any time soon, but Dead Rising went completely past me, despite me having a 360. I honestly think that this was the first and possibly the only time I wanted to play a game because of one song in the trailer. I literally have no idea why I haven't played it as a kid. What was I even playing as a kid? I got my Xbox 360 in 2008, I believe, and the first 3 games I got for it were Call of Duty: World at War, Mass Effect, and Ninja Gaiden 2. Most of the time I was playing some fighting and wrestling games, though, so, I guess, I was just busy with other games and had completely forgotten about Dead Rising. I did play Dead Rising 2 when it was released, and I didn't really like it back then. But now it's finally time to play it. I didn't really plan it, but it just so happened that shortly after I bought it, the remake was announced. From what I've seen, it looks pretty bad, and I bet a lot of things are going to be censored or missing completely. I'm playing the Steam version. My goal is to finally touch something that I've wanted to try for so long and see if it was as good as I was expecting it to be and if the game still holds up today. 

Now, I'm not a big zombie fan. Not in the world of videogames, not in any other sort of media. It's a dead topic for me. Pun heavily intended. It's all been done, and it's virtually impossible to make something original in this field. Can you remember something unique and original about zombies? The only thing that comes to mind is Stubbs the Zombie, a satirical 3rd person action where you play as, you guessed it, a zombie in a retro-futuristic setting. So Capcom played it really safe and made a game influenced by George Romero's 1978 movie Dawn of the Dead. It is very convenient that the remake of said movie was released just two years prior. So the timing is superb. If you cannot make something original, play an homage to something, but do it well. At that point, I also could not think of a zombie game that took place inside a giant shopping mall. So everything is set: zombies, which people were not too sick of at the time, inspired by a cult classic horror movie, early into the lifespan of a new generation of consoles, and by Capcom. What can go wrong? I don't know, actually. I have some expectations. Basically, I expect Dawn of the Dead with a little bit of Japanese spice on top. Am I right? Let's find out.

As you all probably know, we play as Frank West, a photojournalist who's covered wars, you know? In the search for his next breakthrough story, he gets into a city that was cut away from the rest of civilization. Once he arrives, he finds himself locked in a gigantic shopping mall, infested with and surrounded by zombies. His goal is to find as much information as possible, cover and uncover every little bit of information he can get, photodocument every little detail, survive, and then get the hell out of that place. Besides Frank, there are Brad and Jessie, two members of the Department of Homeland Security who seem to know what is going on here but keep Frank a secret, and it is our job to find out what they know by helping them so that they can help us. Alongside them we have Otis, a guy who is watching the cameras and keeping you in touch about things that are happening in the mall by constantly, and by constantly, I mean all the freaking time, calling you on your walkie-talkie.

Right from the get-go, the game tells you that you've got 72 hours until your escape helicopter arrives to pick you up, so you do not have much time to slack off. You have to always be on the move, keep going, and be as focused as you can be. It is an extremely effective instrument to keep the player on edge, but it's a double-edged sword. Sometimes I was too afraid to go in a different direction than the game was pointing me because I didn't know if I had enough time to do it, so instead I would play it safe. Of course, time goes by much faster than in real life, so you won't be playing it for the whole 72 hours yourself. I am not the best at time management, not gonna lie, but I told myself that I would do and see as much as I possibly could. Which, spoilers, is impossible.

I would categorize this game as an immersive simulator, for sure. Everything feels so real and in its place. It is fun to run around, pick up and throw things, see how the world reacts to your actions, and discover various ways you can use certain items. You should think logically, and this logic works. One time I really needed some food to heal me, but there wasn't anything close to me except for the cinema. I thought that there must be some snack bar in there right at the entrence, and I was correct—you can find some chips there. In food courts, you can find blenders to mix food items together and make smoothies and cocktails, which, honestly, I've never tried because a gallon of orange juice is all you need in terms of the healing items. In book stores, you can find something to read that will improve some of your stats. There was even a mission where you had to talk to Japanese tourists, so you had to find a basic Japanese conversation book to be able to do it. If you need something for heavy hitting, try going to the repair shop, where they have sledgehammers and chainsaws. If you go to a sandwich store with the funny name "Jill's Sandwiches," you will find a knife on the counter, because they would use it to chop the sandwiches. So the mall feels alive, and it feels packed with useful and useless things at the same time. Some things take you away from the immersion, though. Naturally, the weapons you are using have durability, so you won't be able to just run around with the same baseball bat for 3 days straight, and eventually they will break. What I don't understand is why pistols explode in your hands after they run out of bullets. Was it so difficult to animate Frank throwing it away? You can tell this game is Japanese because, even though it is an immersive sim, it is really goofy and doesn't take itself seriously. You can change into various costumes, even dresses and female teenage outfits. If you go to a skincare store, you can dye your hair some crazy color. In toy stores, you can find a plastic head to put on top of yours. You can go to the toilets, where you can wash things off of your face in the sink, and save the game in the booth. There are no autosaves, and I've learned the hard way that you need to be careful about it. But toilets are not everywhere, so you have to always be aware of that. What also tells me this game is Japanese is that there is no voice acting outside of the cutscenes, which is not a problem for me. 

There are main missions, and there are side scoops—non-story-related quests that you can easily skip. Something you cannot do with main story missions: you skip one and the whole case gets failed, so you have to prioritize the main storyline. Story missions occur at certain times on certain days, and you will have limited time to complete them. And this is a big problem. The game puts you in this huge sandbox filled with toys but tells you not to play with them.

Let me explain. The mall is filled with zombies. It's packed. If you throw a coin in the air, it will probably land on some undead's head, but your character is not a fighter, so you will have to be really careful about moving around and plan your route, carefully dodging zombies. You would want to just kill them, especially since almost anything in this game can be used as a weapon, and now this is really impressive. If you see something lying, standing, or hanging around, there is a 99% chance you can pick it up and swing at the zombies. But not all of them are going to be effective. For example, you can find a plastic sword in a toy store, and this thing will obviously do no damage, unlike, let's say, a baseball bat. So all of that variety is good for the first 2 hours of gameplay, when you are running around in awe of all of these possibilities for how you are going to kill zombies. Shortly, you will understand which items are the quickest and easiest to find and which are the most effective. And they respawn once you leave and come back to the area, along with zombies. So instead of exploring and experimenting, you will run in a certain direction because you know that there are 2 zombie cops with handguns, and you will get a hunting knife along the way. Besides, you have limited inventory, so if you find something interesting, just swing it a couple of times, throw it away, and pick something useful. So quickly, it turns from exploring into optimizing route finding to minimize time and maximize profit.

The same thing goes for the side missions. Here you are running on your main quest when you hear a call on your walkie-talkie, telling you that there is a strange figure or someone in distress somewhere at some store. That store is usually in the complete opposite direction of where you have to go. Most of the time, it's just going to be a civilian that needs to be escorted. I think like 75% of this game is escort missions. It is incredibly dull and gets boring after the second time you do it. Some civilians will gladly join you; you can give them a weapon so that they can protect themselves; some need convincing to do so; usually that means that you have to punch them. Usually civilians like that are going to be scared to go, so you have to constantly babysit them and not run away far because they can and will be grabbed, so you have to save their asses. And some of them are just slow. Good luck saving two civilians at once, and one of them is fast and the other one is slow. You might as well just abandon the slow one and continue through. There are times when people are going to be hurt, so you have to lean them on your shoulder, hold their hand, or outright carry them on your back. Must I say that you cannot defend yourself once you do it? Surprisingly, it is actually safer than regular running because zombies seem to have a harder time attacking and grabbing you. What helps is that you don't have to deal with the AI. I don't know what's wrong with it, but it is wrong. But. Once your hands are full, you cannot answer the calls. And, I swear, more times than not, I would receive a call telling me about someone else needing my help. So you have to run and just listen to the annoying beeping sound going off into your ear. And no, you cannot decline the call. Once you do it, the guy will call you again, telling you that it's rude to cut people off like this. So you have to stop, answer the call, and only then continue your run. Try finding a safe place to answer the call in a zombie-infested mall. I dare you. The worst part is that it is incredibly rewarding for you to do these escort missions because they reward you with tons of EXP, unlocking new skills, improving your health, inventory, damage, and, best of all, your running speed. At most, I could escort 3 people at the same time, which was unnerving to say the least. I've seen the achievement you get for escorting 8 people at the same time; you have to be a man of honor and iron nerves to be able to do that.

A lot of times I had to run from one end of the mall to the other, and the quickest way to do it was to go outside. I call this place the "Gone Guru" country because there are inmates driving around a car shooting at everything while said song is playing. I did manage to kill them, but imagine my surprise the next time I went outside and heard the same opening riff from "Gone Guru." I just thought that it's a soundtrack to this area. But no. It's the soundtrack of the guys in the car. They have respawned. I don't know if it's a bug or a feature, but I did not try to kill them ever again. I feel that my runs through the outside with saved civilians were much more interesting than they were supposed to be. I don't think I've ever listened to that song so much. Good thing I love it.

Now we've come to our next side mission type: the psychopaths. There are a bunch of crazy people inside the mall, each with their own trauma and goal. Some are more sane than the others. Once you encounter them, you have to fight them, and these are some of the clunkiest, most uncomfortable battles I've ever experienced. Psychos don't have some crazy, difficult patterns, but you are not equipped to fight in this game. It is awkward trying to run around the boss, landing 2 or 3 strikes, and then run away. It all drags out, and it feels like you are fighting the game, not them. Which is a shame, because most of those psychos are very colorful and charismatic, and all of them have a cool song playing during the fight. Most of them are alt metal, which makes me feel like I'm in a Marilyn Manson music video. The soundtrack is really good in general. There's this song called "Fly Routine," which also got into my playlist; give it a try. I thought maybe later, if I failed the main mission, they would give me a free roam mode, so I would just go around killing all the psychos, but no. Once you fail the main story mission, the game is over, and you have to load. 

Another time I was running to the mission where the encounter occurred without me even wanting to, so I had to skip that one too. Which was probably good because it was 3 guys with sniper rifles, so I have no idea what to do with them. I bet if I could explore and find something useful to fight them with, I'd probably do it. And I did find a gun store later, like the last 3 hours of the game. I just don't understand what this game wants from me. If it wants me to go follow the missions, then why all the distractions? And if it wants me to explore, then why does it make it so hard to have fun in it? Is it supposed to be this meta thing? I understand that Frank is a selfish photojournalist who only helps others if they can help him. Well, then, the game does an incredibly good job making me feel this way. Because at some point I've stopped helping other civilians out because I have no reason to. There will be times in this game where you've done all of the main missions for the day and have time to spare. Then, of course, you can wonder around and do side quests. But be careful not to start a side quest only to learn that you will not have time to complete it because you need to be on the other side of the mall for the main story. So instead of doing so, you just run to the quest marker and stand there, waiting for the mission to begin.

The ending is mind-boggling altogether. Spoilers ahead. At one point in the story, you will realize that there are no more quests to do, and you just need to survive until your rescue helicopter arrives. The military is here to cover up the whole zombie outbreak story, so they are eliminating everyone on sight. Both humans and zombies. You can run around the mall and have shootouts with the military, but it is just safer to stay in the hideout, waiting for the time to run out. But it is so incredibly boring that I did go outside and did go around shooting a bunch of guys in the armor. And then their operation stops. You have 2 hours of in-game time until the helicopter arrives. The whole mall is empty. There are no zombies, no survivors, no military—nobody. It is so bizarre and creepy. Like you are playing an unfinished build of this game, or it bugged out. And here comes the worst part of playing this game: the ending. I understand completely that it is strictly my fault. So. They show you this military dude, who is obviously the leader of the operation. Naturally, it must be a boss fight, so I go running around the mall, where I thought they showed him, but I couldn't find him. A bit disappointed, I go to the roof and wait for the helicopter to pick me up. I get a cutscene where the pilot cannot find me and says that I've probably died, and I get a message stating that there was nobody to tell the true story of what happened here. The end. It turns out I had to go to the helipad, where I was at the very beginning of the game. Well, sorry guys, I couldn't remember where the hell that place was.

I didn't bother watching the ending I should've gotten, and I'm sure as hell not going to try getting the true ending. Man, it was such a disappointing experience. It has everything to make a good action zombie game, but the game design is so flawed that it goes against itself. You do get rewarded for exploration, but you are not encouraged to do so. They reward you for completing bonus objectives, but you are not given time. I'm sure that once you know where things are and what to do, the game is much better. But isn't the game supposed to be good right from the start? It's not a movie where you will get certain things the director wanted to say or notice something that will change your perspective on a certain character. Dead Rising's main focus is not the story. Obviously, the whole story of the story of the zombies in the shopping mall is a social commentary, and the whole revelation of where they come from is a social commentary, but I was here not for the story alone. I can appreciate a good story and characters in videogames, but they are games; you have to play them. And Dead Rising is not a game for me. The gameplay is janky most of the time, and there were times where I just wanted to drop the game; it was so bad. Towards the end, I straight-up noticed that I'm not playing this game for the ending anymore; I'm playing for this game to finally end. I think either of 2 would make it better: 1) Just focus on the story; or 2) Just make an open-world sandbox without any limits. Trying to combine those two doesn't work. At least for me. 

What did they say back in the day? 8/10. What people liked: they said that the game was deeper than it might seem on the first look, and there are tons of things to see, do, and experiment with in terms of graphics, style, and story. What they didn't like: the save system, too many escort missions, bad AI, real-time story progression, and controls. The game still looks great in 2024, so I could imagine the technical wonder it must've been on release. I can imagine myself loving it back in the day despite its flaws, and I would give it a second chance knowing where everything that I need is located. I might've even gone for the achievement hunt, which I heard is notoriously difficult. But today I have the luxury to buy games that I want to play and not just sit with one game until your parents bless you with some pocket money. In a way, I wish I hadn't played Dead Rising so that I could still keep this image of it in my head. It's hard for me to recommend it, but it's easy to imagine people having tons of fun playing it. It still looks and sounds great; it's got some of the best blood effects ever; and it has its charm. Too bad I was imagining it to play differently, so it was disappointing to finally touch it, but I wouldn't say that I regret doing so.