G-pinions

Believe it or not, I am one biased video game writer. Shocking, eh? And it is because of my biases, specifically the part of my personality that loves killing zombies, that I am still playing Dead Rising. Believe me, if a Japanese RPG (like Magna Carta, which I played and quickly discarded) had this many problems, I would send it back to Gamefly as soon as possible. Chasing the mailman down Main Street if I must. But I want to like Dead Rising, so I will happily give it as many chances as it needs to prove itself.

So how the heck did Capcom mess up mass zombie killing in a mall? By putting in too much structure. I know, this from a guy who berated Oblivion for skimping on any sort of story and relevant objectives. Dead Rising is just way too goal oriented for its own good, though. It kind of plays like Grand Theft Auto if you always had five minutes to get to the next mission. Sure, you have two minutes to spare, two glorious minutes to kill random pedestrians and search for hidden weapons, but if you don't make it to point A by a certain time, you lose the entire game. Weak. Sauce.

I've never played a game with a structure quite like Dead Rising. As you go through the mall, you earn Prestige Points by taking fancy pictures and rescuing sexy survivors. More PP makes you level up, earning new moves and more life and all you would expect. You have the choice of flying through the game with a weak character and ignoring just about every side mission, or replaying the early parts over and over again, leveling up, and then trying to make your way through the story. It's frustrating that you have to choose between side missions or main quest. The rescue missions are some of the most interesting parts of the game, but if you try to do those you'll miss out on the main quest, which means you'll have to start over from the beginning of the game. It's cool that you get to keep your stats, but it's boring playing the same parts over and over again.



I'm trying to make it through the main quest with a pretty weak character. This is fine if you care about seeing new characters and finding new weapons along the way, but, the pace is so frantic this way that it feels like an actual job. "Oh, I can't go over to the food court, I have to be in the god damn grocery store now!" Boring! Sometimes you'll have a few minutes between missions, a chance to do whatever you want for a change. But the game thwarts this but throwing some cheap boss at you. Yesterday, I had some time to kill so I went on a mission to stop a run-away roller coaster. Have I mentioned this is an upscale mall? Anyway, when I got there, after fighting through hoards of zombies and leveling up along the way, I find an evil clown juggling chainsaws. Needless to say, I was promptly killed. All the experience I had earned along the way was lost. Not fun at all.

Still, even with these massive problems, the game is really fun. I found a bike today in an outdoor section of the mall. Is there anything in life quite as fun as riding through fifty zombies on a shiny blue bicycle? Even cooler, I fought another boss outside of a sporting goods store. I found a hockey stick inside, and for some reason I thought I could take the Uzi-toting bastard with some birch wood. Turns out, you don't hit people with the stick, you sling pucks at them. On my last shot, a slap shot Al McGinnis would have been proud of, I killed him dead. It's that kind of stuff that keeps me coming back for more. I just wish I could stop time for a second and take out that group of crazy cult members, instead of rushing back to the security room to see what's on the TV. I'm only about halfway through the main quest at this point, so I may end up loving the game, but right now it is sadly a "mixed bag." I can't wait for the sequel.