With a lot of games I’ve played recently they’ve all been out a fair while. Prince of Persia, Pure and now Dead Rising have been out for a long time. I may be late to the party but at least now I’ve gotten a chance to try out some of these highly praised titles. While the other two are great fun, Dead Rising slowly loses its charm the more you play it and it’s a shame as the basis here if further explored could have been promising.

Taking the role of a photo journalist named Frank, you are sent into an area where strange sightings have been made of people attacking others and eating them. After a quick introduction to the area, you are then left at a shopping mall for three days before you’ll be picked up again if you survive that long enough. The introduction is tense and seeing the events down below as you fly by petrol stations and crashed buses and cars gets your spirits high and eager to get to the mall.

Now here is where things get interesting. In these three (in game) days you are free to do as you please. You can complete missions, rescue survivors or simply just kill zombies it’s down to you. Sounds good but the amount of variety in game is simply not enough. Killing zombies is only fun for so long and they merely act as an inconvenience stopping you getting from where you want to go and saving survivors becomes a game of trying to get the horrible AI of the people to go where they’re told. As for the missions these are no more than be at a certain area of the mall at a certain time and once there it results in a boss battle or just a short conversation. Like zombies the bosses are taken down with everyday items in the mall but since their health is a lot higher, it becomes frustrating more than anything to repeatedly hit them and wait for another moment to do it again. That’s about all there is to do in the game and it’s a shame since the idea of being in a mall with all these zombies could have gone a lot further.

Along the way you can take pictures with you camera, kill zombies and complete missions. These all give you experience points which can unlock new abilities and give your upgrades such as more health or slots for items. It’s a good system that rewards those who go for tougher routes in the game and actually try to uncover what is actually going on story wise. The weapons range from umbrellas and hockey sticks to shotguns and plastic lightsabers. Each have pluses and negatives when it comes to use so picking the right items for certain areas can often prove ideal.

Visually the game looks pretty good taking a cartoonier route with the art style. The mall and the stores within all look the part and characters decent and even with hundreds of zombies on the screen at once there is rarely a moment of slowdown. One major issue I had was the darkness during night time. I understand the lights in a mall go out at night, but in this game it makes seeing almost impossible in areas. Realistic? Sure but good game design? Far from it. Voice acting and music are average (with the acceptation of the often funny and amusing psychopaths) but the sound effects themselves are great. I personally don’t know what it sounds like when an arm is cut off with a chainsaw or a head beaten in with a plant pot but the sounds make each hit sound even more satisfying when you do it.

Since the game is on an in-game clock system the whole adventure is over in around four or five hours. Seems short and that’s because it is. Even after there aren’t many options open to you other than repeated playthroughs, a short add on to the main mode and an unlimited choice that sees how long you can survive in the mall with constantly depleting health. Mini games could have been fun and it just seems like a bare bones package.

Dead Rising is a short-lived moderately enjoyable game. While it is extremely satisfying to take a zombie’s head off with a pair of hedge clippers sadly that can only go so far as the gameplay is simply just too plain and repetitive to be fully enjoyed. Hopefully the sequel will offer more.