Dead Rising

Dead Rising makes me really sad. Because there is a lot it does right - slashing/smashing up zombies is way fun, and the general game environment is a blast to run around in - but it has a menagerie of flaws that just make the game a pain in the ass to play.

Set in a mall filled with hordes of the undead and a handful of survivors, Dead Rising's core gameplay lies somewhere between "real-time mission-based survival adventure" and "zombie killer arcade game." The main game takes place over a 72-hour period in which several missions come up, depending on the time and/or your location within the mall, almost always with the goal of rescuing survivors. Or, you could let them die, or ignore them completely. You earn points (more on this later) for rescuing people, but it's not necessary to "finish" the game. Strictly speaking, you can even ignore the series of missions that fill in the game's plot, and just survive for 72 hours; but it would be pretty boring. (An hour in-game is five minutes in real time.)

While these missions are going on, you'll have to navigate through a mall filled with the shambling undead. The good news is that there are plenty of weapons at your disposal; the bad news is that they all break after some number of uses, and so you'll need to stock up and keep your eyes open. Some weapons are conventional, like guns and knives. Some are unconventional, like sledgehammers, baseball bats, and lawnmowers. Some, like potted plants, are just fun. Expect to kill hundreds, nay, thousands of zombies throughout a play-through of Dead Rising.

You earn Prestige Points, or PP, for being a "prestigious" fellow in Dead Rising. You'll get them for rescuing survivors, for meeting zombie kill milestones, for taking nice pictures (oh yeah - the main character is a photojournalist), and generally for doing cool stuff. Get enough PP and you'll level up, which bestows upon you bonuses such as increased inventory space, more health, stronger attacks, and new abilities, like being able to jump on top of zombies.

All of this is just as fun as it sounds, if not more so. Unfortunately, there are some real flaws that make playing the game unnecessarily frustrating. For one thing, it's extremely easy to die - zombies have no problem catching you by surprise and taking out a chunk or two of your health, which you never really have enough of. Once you run out of recovery items, escaping is basically impossible; save points are rarely easy to get to, and if you find yourself in a tight spot and decide to backtrack, guess what? The zombies you killed on your way in have probably respawned. When you die, your options are to restart from your last save - losing all form of progress since - or to restart the game and carry over your Level/PP stats, which I've done a depressing number of times just to avoid losing hours of zombie work.

Some of the game's "bosses," unruly survivors, are also frustratingly difficult, particularly when they have guns. The aiming controls in Dead Rising are completely awful (not that this stops your AI opponents from being excellent shots), and if the boss is packing, trying to fight with anything but a firearm is borderline pointless. One encounter in particular, early in the game's second day, has you up against a guy with a sniper rifle who's able to kill you in a matter of seconds.

There are some other miscellaneous complaints I have - survivors can have weapons, and often end up hitting you by accident (friendly fire); the in-game map does a poor job of showing you how to get to meaningful places; since the same button is used for attacking with a weapon and recovering with a food item, it's all too easy to break a weapon and waste a recovery in a button-mashing situation. In general though, my real problem with Dead Rising is how easy it is to waste hours getting to a meaningful part of the game, then die quickly and lose it all. As I said, I've already carried over my level to restart several times, but better stats only help so much.

I will keep looking for a way to make progress in this game and have fun at the same time, but for the moment, it just pisses me off.

Progress: Level 10, still on the first day