Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop

You Might not Be Willing to Chop That Long

A couple of years ago, Capcom released Dead Rising on the XBOX360. It was a surprisingly good game that really showcased what the 360 was capable of at the time. Putting hordes of zombies on screen and giving you a million ways to play. The game has now been down scaled for the Wii to give people a new way to experience Dead Rising.

You play as Frank West, who has come to Colorado to get the story of a lifetime. If he survives, that is. You begin by being dropped off at a mall where most of the inhabitants have taken up residents. The ones who aren't yet the walking undead. After a series of events, the mall itself becomes overrun with zombies with few survivors to be seen. You have 72 hours to survive and get your story. But you're not just up against zombies. Throughout the game you'll run into survivors who have gone crazy.

The influence for Dead Rising obviously comes in part from Dawn of the Dead. Just the same, however, you're not getting much of a story throughout the game anyway. Most of the cutscenes push things along, and there are many things you must achieve in the story, but you're probably not playing the game for a compelling story. You're probably playing it because you want to massacre zombies. And there are a lot of ways to massacre the zombies you're up against.

In Dead Rising, just about everything is a weapon. From simple everyday CDs to a lawnmower, you can use just about anything you can find as a weapon to use against the walking undead. The game gives some balance by making sure you can't exploit a weapon. Eventually it breaks in some way and you can no longer use it. But you'll rarely, if ever, run into a moment where you've got nothing at your disposal. You also have guns for taking out the undead, but they're no where near as fun as mowing them over with a lawnmower or beating them down with a trashcan. Noticeable for the Wii is that the shooting controls are much much easier, thanks to the Wii Remote. It works exactly as it once did in Resident Evil 4. On the other hand, some of the other controls can feel a little limited. At the very least, however, it's a port in which the Wii controls don't feel tacked on.

There's more to just simply killing zombies. You do have a story to plow through. You'll run into other survivors from time to time who you'll have to plow through certain segments with. Unfortunately the AI of these survivors is pretty bad. It's a lot more work to keep them alive than actually killing zombies yourself. Unlike the 360 version, however, you don't have to worry so much about the consequences of failure. You might remember that the 360 version only gave you one save file per save device. The Wii actually gives you multiple saves to work with, and you might want to take advantage of it at certain points in the game.

You'll also run into crazy people, who serve as the games boss fights. These are, for the most part, thrilling battles. They can also be a bit tough, but gamers who played the 360 version will note that the difficulty has been lowered significantly in the Wii version. It isn't nearly as easy to die as it once was. If you're having trouble at any point, however, the game does happen to have a level up system where your health and power do actually increase.

On the 360, Dead Rising showed people what kind of potential the 360 was capable of. This isn't exactly true of the Wii, however. It obviously doesn't look as good as the 360 version, and it would be unfair to compare. But compared to other Wii games, Dead Rising could use a definite face lift. A lot of the environments look bland and boring. The game lacks detail overall, with blurry textures and details popping up every now and then. You also don't get any sense of how much danger you're in because the Wii isn't capable of putting several zombies on screen at a time. In short, Dead Rising on the Wii doesn't bring out the potential in the Wii. You can find several PS2 and Gamecube games that look noticeably better. Likewise, much of the voice acting and writing isn't all that great either. Sometimes it gets things just right. But many times some voices can feel a little overdone.

If you already have the 360 version, you might want to keep that one instead. It isn't exactly worth buying the Wii version just for new controls alone. Along those lines the game also took out certain gameplay elements, for example, taking photos was quite an important aspect of gameplay before, but for whatever reason, Capcom took this out of the Wii version. In short, the experience, despite some good shooting controls, just isn't as good. What it does better, such as the shooting and the multiple save spots, is worth noting, but it isn't something that'll make you want the game if you've already got it.

PROS

+Improved control scheme
+Lots of ways to take down your adversaries; lots of freedom

CONS

-Not a lot of detail, even for a Wii game
-Fairly bad voice acting and presentation of the story
-Poor AI from your allies

FINAL RATING: 6/10