Dead Rising 4 Review - Dreaming of Red Christmas

"Rumors of human trials, psychopaths, illegal human experimentation, abandoned missile sites. How can you say no to this Frank ?  This is our change please!"

Frank West is back for Dead Rising 4, and he is kicking serious butt just in time for Christmas.  This time around Dead Rising puts you in a small town of Willamete, where you must use your journalism skills to uncover a scientific mystery, report your findings/evidence and save the world from another deadly zombie outbreak.  Dead Rising 4 is a fill good button masher mixed with a little over the top drama, challenges to overcome impossible odds, and utilizing your environment to be creative and dominate maniacs that want you dead or zombies that want you for a meal.

What's New?
Capcom nailed Frank's personality, bizarre charm, presentation and story.  Fundamentally, combat has not evolved nor the challenges from the three prior dead rising games.  The biggest change is the removal of the countdown timer which allows you to explore more and have fun without pressure to get everything done in 72 hours deadline.  The reason the developers removed the timer was because this dead rising world is dense and loaded with challenges to encourage you to have fun!  There are endless amounts of survivors to save, blueprints to find, and weapons/vehicles to craft.  A big bonus is you are no longer forced to seek out a workbench to craft your combo weapons or vehicles from the blueprints.  All you need to craft from blueprints are the required materials.

Photography plays more than a tool to level up. Frank's camera has new batman like filters that let you detect hidden clues, use night vision or take selfies. They borrowed the exo-suit from the call of duty series which will give you an advantages in hoards melee fights or maniac boss battles.  There are no longer stronger zombies at night.  They are replace with a fresh infected zombies that come out at all hours and they are faster, smarter and stronger.  You can't throw melee weapons anymore as well.

What's wrong?
If you are familiar with the Dead Rising series, then you know glitches are bound to happen.  Textures pop in and out, frame rates stutter, clipping and collision issues get annoying, new crafted vehicles are undriveable,  and you can fall through levels.  They drop the co-op player mode and replaced the mode with a multi-player mode.  It's good in theory but with glitch issues and lost connections, it can really make the game unplayable.

Overall
I feel Dead Rising always found a way to capture an audience share culture and break down walls of what is expected from a good game.  Instead of zombie outbreak/weapon, the experiments are used to mass produced unskilled labor to do mundane task like farming or manufacturing.   If you're a fan of Dead Rising, then you know what you're getting.  If you not a fan, then you aren't going to find a hidden gem here.  Dead Rising 4 is a care free, have fun, and laid back game with enough content to keep the story paces and side quest to challenge you.  I'm a fan of the series so I give Dead Rising 4 a 8.5/10

Dead Rising 4 and E3 2016

I can't believe E3 is here already!  I guess with tv shows like xplay and stuff being cancelled, there isn't a lot of gaming news and hype around the event.  One particular game that I can't wait to get my hands on is Dead Rising 4.

I'm liking the return of our survivalist reporter Frank West as the main character.  There was downloadable content in Dead Rising 3 to play as Frank West, but it's not the same as having a whole game to yourself with a pioneer.   

It looks like the game will take place around Christmas in the town of Willamette.  Not information has been provided on the story or why Frank West is rampaging on zombies here, but I like the elemental gadgets and tricked out vehicles that I saw in the trailer.  It looks like there will be an emphasis on crafting like in Dead Rising 3.  I'm hoping we get more content this time around because I blew through Dead Rising 3 in a weekend.

Dead Rising 4 is expected to be release around Christmas time on December 6, 2016. 

Dead Rising 3 Xbox One Launch Title Review

"And the devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility" 

                                          -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Well, I made the decision of purchasing the Xbox One 1st for the next generation consoles.  Hate me if you like, but I'm american.  The first game i'm reviewing on the Xbox one is Dead Rising 3 by Capcom.  I feel Dead Rising is as much a launch staple to Xbox as Zelda is to Nintendo.

Dead Rising has always been one of my favorite underdog titles that pushed the Xbox to its limits, but fail short with a random script that never made sense.  This time around Dead Rising 3 actually did a remarkable job with presenting a well connected and a plot driven storyline.

The main character is Nick Ramos an orphan that has an interesting past and future. Nick is a young, insecure, but pure-hearted mechanic working for Rhonda Kreske at Wrench O'Rama.  For most of his life, Nick has been surrounded by bad people but protected by the tough mother figure, Rhonda, but the zombie outbreak forces Nick to mature in order to over-come his circumstances.

When the group of survivors are trapped by a horde of zombies, Rhonda establishes that Nick is a master mechanic that can build anything, and that's where the fun starts.  The best part of the Dead Rising 3 is the improved crafting introduced in Dead Rising 2.  Players no longer have to track down an work bench.  If you have the blueprint and part, then you can craft anything from combo weapons to combo vehicles.

Nick and the group of survivors escape, but soon Nick is bitten by a zombie and goes on a search for the Zombrex cure.  Nick's dilemma cause him to run into a few interesting characters and a love interest named Annie.  Later, players connect the dots and learn Annie is really Katie Greene from Dead Rising 2. Another connection is Nick is one of Carlito's time bomb children from Dead Rising 1.

Within the plot Dead Rising 1, 2, and 3 are connected by Isabella from Dead Rising 1.  Isabella is working with Marian, the villain from Dead Rising 2, but it is a 7th deadly sin bonus that I will not spoil.

Gameplay
The game itself is not visually stunning.  I admit there are improvements, such as more zombies on screen and inventory management, but honestly I feel like Dead Rising 3 could have been a Xbox 360 game.  You will run into the same glitches such as unresponsive or unintelligent NPC's in your party or invisible walls. These obstacles could be a reference to the Silent Hill franchise where developers admit they designed slow characters or glitches to handicap the player, but I attribute Dead Rising 3 design  flaws to rushing the game for the Xbox One launch release.

Graphics and Sound
Blood stays Nick as players slash through 1000s of zombies, mutants, and psycho bosses.  The graphics are a modest increase in design at best but not the innovation i'd expect from a next gen console.  Sound is a problem because I feel the zombie noise is a backtrack.  I killed every zombie in the room one time, and I could still hear zombie noises.

Storyline
I gave max points for storyline in Dead Rising 3 because this was the first time every character had a purpose in the storyline and helped carry the plot.  The psychopaths were a play upon the 7 deadly sins with Isabella being the finally deadliest sin, Pride.  I like the cameos from previous characters that I fell in love with such as Isabella, Chuck Greene, and Marian.  The only person I didn't see was Frank West, but I got a feeling the way he was referenced...a DLC may be on the way.

Score
Overall, Dead Rising 3 was a welcomed revisit to the first zombie horror survival series started in 2006. Dead Rising was the walking dead before the walking dead was created.  I have a lot of personal attachments to the game because I grew up on the Dead Rising series since 2006 to 2013.  Dead Rising 3 is not the best game of the next gen consoles, but if you're a fan of the series, you'd love Dead Rising 3.
I give Dead Rising 3 an 8.0/10.