He's got an arm off!

What one common factor unites the following items? A toy lightsaber, a frying pan (pre-heated to 220°C and lightly greased), a 12-pack of cola, a park bench, a petrol engine lawn mower, a Frisbee, a mannequin, a Flying V guitar, a flat-screen television and a large blue parasol? You've probably already got the gist but I'll tell you anyway. In the last 20 minutes I have used all of the previously mentioned everyday items in my fight against the undead. Admittedly not all of them were effective in re-killing the shambling hordes but they were all, without exception, more entertaining than the slew of generic weaponry that you'll usually see the main character of a lesser title wielding.

And that's one important reason why Dead Rising is different to, and in a lot of cases, better than any other entry into the "survival horror" genre. In fact, I don't think it necessarily belongs in that category. While one of the main aims is to survive, survival in one form or another is an integral part of just about every game ever made. You don't call Mario a "survival platformer", or Gran Turismo a "survival racer" do you? No, here the spotlight is on being able to batter the ever-living hell out of your ex-human adversaries with gleeful abandon rather than conserving ammo and picking your battles in a claustrophobic environment. Likewise, while the presence of zombies firmly points towards horror, the actual tone of the game is much more Shaun, than Dawn of the Dead with the emphasis on comedy, however dark, rather than long periods of suspense followed by a moment of gut-wrenching terror. Therefore, I hereby christen this… zom-com-bat.

For the uninitiated, you play Frank West, a freelance photojournalist who has picked up a hot tip that something interesting is happening in the sleepy Colorado town of Willamette, population 53,594. You decide to charter a helicopter and take to the skies to investigate. This turns out to be the right decision, as the army have placed barricades on all the roads into the town. Very soon you start to realise that there is something very, very wrong with the inhabitants of this supposedly sedate little suburb, and after taking some snaps on your ever-ready digital camera, you ask the chopper pilot to drop you on the roof of the mall, which seems to be under siege. From here on in, you have 72 hours to find the source of the trouble.

One thing that surprised me, and in fact worried me to a certain extent when I first heard about it is how strictly structured the story is, and how regimented your time inside Willamette mall actually is. The story itself is set over the course of 3 days, with each day in game lasting an hour of actual play time. This means that if you can get through without dying, you'll be done in a grand total of 3 hours. At least, you'll be done for the length of time it takes for you to go and get a brew on, drain the snake, and settle down for another run through. Which you will.

As structured and as rigid as the timeline is, you can choose to completely ignore the story missions, which are presented as a series of cases which span the entire 3 day period, if you so choose, however this will limit you to certain areas of the mall and therefore limit your choice of weaponry. And if you miss one, that's it, the story is over and you can just run around sending those blasted zombies back from whence they came.

Extra chores around the house...

Along with the cases, you will receive other search and rescue missions from Otis the Janitor, who is holed up in the Security office which you and the other survivors are using as a safe house. The amount of these optional tasks is such that you will never have time to complete them all in one 3 day/hour period, meaning that in order to rescue all of the potential survivors, you're going to have to go back and play it again, and again, and probably again.

Which isn't as much of a chore as it would first seem. Despite the stinginess evident in the save game system (only one save slot, forcing you to overwrite your previous save game every time), it does allow you to carry your developed character over from one game to the next. So the first time you play, you start with a weak character with no special skills and abilities, but by taking photos, completing missions and executing a selection of particularly gruesome and/or amusing kills you earn what essentially amount to experience points, allowing you to level up in a basic RPG style. As you increase in level, you get more health, strength, weapon slots and special abilities (I particularly like the disembowel and neck twist moves, which require very little explanation I'm sure.) Then, when your 3 hours are up you can start again with all the skills and benefits that you've built up.

You'll find this really helps in defeating the annoyingly frequent, and frequently awkward battles with the "psychopaths", human "boss" style enemies that crop up all over, usually at the most inconvenient times. This is the one element of the game that I will say is badly executed and the game experience as a whole would have been better without it.

The photography aspect however, which is your main source of the "PP" (experience points) you need to increase in level, is very smoothly handled and while it may initially sit at the back of your mind with the rather large task of thinning out the ranks of flesh-eaters at the forefront, it will quickly become second nature to give the left trigger a quick squeeze and fire off another frame of photographic evidence.

Your camera is not unlimited though and you will need to replace the batteries occasionally. This isn't a problem, as you're in a mall which has several photographic stores ready and waiting for you to raid. And just in case you were wondering where I was getting all of that improvised weaponry I mentioned earlier, I got it all from other stores in the mall as well. There's no neon bubbles with an instrument of death spinning inside, and they're not placed randomly around the mall either. Everything is where you would expect it to be, so if you want a frying pan your best bet will be to try behind the counter of a restaurant, or if you want to fend off the legions of brain-hungry townspeople by throwing CDs at them, you're going to want to seek out a music store. Not everything is lethal, so don't expect a large cuddly teddy bear to do much damage. It will make you look cool though.

In addition to death-dealing devices, you can also find everything else you need to survive a zombie apocalypse at your disposal. Health is replenished by eating and drinking, a need which is amply served by the many restaurants and the supermarket, and you can even change your clothes. I recommend hunting down "Tyke 'n Tots" or "Lady About Town" for all your fashion needs. After all, undead masses are hardly going to judge you on your clothes, they just want to munch your grey matter, so you might as well take this opportunity to put on a pink, flowery dress and feel the breeze as you decapitate, eviscerate and dismember your way through this retail nightmare.

There's enough variety in the weaponry, the clothing, the environment, the story and the side missions to keep you coming back time and time again. If only to play around and find new and imaginative ways of dispatching the hordes of Hell's minions.

GAME's Verdict

• Looks stunning, especially considering the number of enemies.
• Extremely satisfying ultra-violence.
• With the wealth of unlockables and extras, it has immense replay value.

• Poorly executed, unnecessary and awkward boss battles.
• Save system is well stingy.
• Doesn't deliver the scares as readily as it could.

Review by: Iain Thomas
Review Published: 07.09.06

Resident Evil 4 meets Dawn of the Dead in the Survival Horror stunner!

Here at GAME HQ we've been looking forward to Dead Rising for some time now. Admittedly, when we saw the first screens a few of us were a little sceptical - some even dismissed it as a poor George Romero rip-off - but those that saw the promise of Capcom's zomb'athon stuck by the game with every encouraging snippet of info that filtered through the pipeline. They, it would appear, are about to feel utterly vindicated. And those that didn't...shame on them.

Dead Rising is shaping up to be undead-bashingly brilliant.

Visually, it's a world away from those first, stagnant screenshots we saw, with their washed-out colours and current-gen textures. The once limp-looking main character, photojournalist Frank West, has developed into a gritty, chiselled, square-jawed action hero of the Bruce Campbell mould, while the cut-and-paste zombie hordes of early code have been replaced by a marauding medley of truly frightening ex-humanfolk.

Medley is a bit of an understatement, in fact; horrendous horde would be a more appropriate label. From the very first press release, Dead Rising has boldly boasted of putting more enemies on-screen than any survival horror game in history; and with the reality of hundreds of ambling arm-munchers in any given area now approaching a very playable reality (it is, by all accounts, 95% complete), it's about time Xbox 360 owners started picking out their favourite bludgeoning devices and prepared to join the fun.

And you'd better put aside some time to choose, since the selection of weaponry in Dead Rising appears to be quite staggering. If you go with convention and choose a gun, there's pistols, shotguns, a nailgun… and that's just for starters. Don't fancy a firearm? Howsabout a sword; or a baseball bat; or a chainsaw; excavator drill; a golf club… or something of the throwing variety; everything from golf or bowling balls through wooden benches and even a strange insect-in-a-jar zombie smart bomb. All of that still a little too small-scale? You can always grab a car and go splatter-happy, or a nearby mower and plough through the masses of walking corpses...or do the same with distinctly less bloodshed using a giant oversized parasol umbrella. The choice of gut-busting armaments at Frank's disposal is delightfully brain-boggling.

One-trick zopmbie?

All of which might make Dead Rising seem like something of a superficial one-trick zombie. Not to worry, though, because there's a distinctly RPG-like element to developing Frank as the game progresses. By finding books you'll be able to learn new moves and abilities, such as a dropkick, walking over crowds on the shoulders of the undead, skateboarding, and even acquiring the ability to communicate with none-player characters in a foreign language.

Which brings us nicely to the game's central purpose. Dead Rising takes place in a distinctly Dawn of the Dead-esque shopping mall, and gives gamers 72 in-game hours (which equates to roughly three real-life ones) to guide their overzealous camera-toting avatar through a series of plot-furthering missions, called Cases. There are, however, also a rather large number of sidequests, labelled Scoops. These are entirely optional extras which provide extra Prestige Points (or PP - basically experience points) for levelling up Frank's stats in things like health, attack power and inventory space, and usually involve rescuing one variety or another of hapless non-dead people from the many dangers of the mall and its surrounding area.

Such hazards extend beyond your usual brain-chewing, rotting-skinned shuffling footsoldiers - and indeed, past undead denizens altogether. There are plenty of non-too-friendly living types who will be only too happy to induct Frank and friends into the game's ever-growing school of bloody corpses. Be it a jeep-riding collective of gun-toting cons, a sacrifice-obsessed cult or a clown juggling chainsaws, there's plenty of perils to overcome in the game's relatively short timeframe. The good news, however, is that with so much to see and do in Capcom's expansive gameworld, and a really very fun sandbox quality to the gameplay, no two times you turn on Dead Rising will ever be the same.

To add to the sandbox sensation, there's a bunch of nice little touches and comedy horror genre references to unearth, including one that Resident Evil fan's will especially appreciate - a food shop called Jill's Sandwiches. And, being a photojournalist, Frank's camera plays a big part throughout the game. With every shot he snaps earning PP and categorized under tags including Drama, Horror, Erotica (no, we're not sure about that one either) and - potentially the most fun of all - Outtakes, there's a pretty broad scope for some free-for-all camera fun.

Frank's photography skills should lend a great sense of achievement to some of Dead Rising's GTA-esque qualities. Like Rockstar's crime sim, Capcom's horror title offers ways to flaunt convention and tangent from the main quest, with practically every shop in the mall accessible, and hundreds of items on offer for some throwaway fun. Don't get us wrong, there'll be plenty of heated moments where you'll be nervously dodging in and out of a hundred or more hungry zombies, munching on food stuffs to replenish your health, and generally doing your best to stay alive...but equally so, if you decide to, say, put a bunch of masks on some zombies and get snap-happy as they clatter into each other...well, that's cool too - and good for your PP score, as well.

Impressively open-ended, immensely replayable and incredibly versatile, Dead Rising would appear to be the lighter side of the horror genre finally made good in game form. Equal parts funny and frightening, it's going to be an entertaining escape from first-person shooters for next-gen Xbox gamers, and looks set to be amongst the biggest releases in September on any system. It may have initially divided opinion, then, but as release ebbs ever closer, we're all finally in agreement about Dead Rising; this is one George Romero rip-off even the man himself would be proud to put his name to.

Preview by: Mark Scott
Preview Published: 03.08.06