sisslethecat
Despite all the negative feedback that Microsoft’s new platform is getting (Always on DRM, a bevy of restrictions, Kinect always-on, etc.), nay-sayers are going to have to contend with the incoming release of Dead Rising 3– an exclusive release for the Xbox One. This is the first exclusive Dead Rising since the original release in 2006, and while this might be disheartening for fans that were thinking of looking elsewhere this new console generation, it’s important to keep in mind that very little of what Capcom develops remains exclusive for long, including the original Dead Rising which was subsequently remade for the Wii, and even adapted for mobile phones and iOS devices, so there’s a pretty good chance Dead Rising 3 will come to PS4, just not right away.
Right off the bat, Dead Rising 3 has a much darker, more serious tone than it’s predecessor. Some people are saying they don’t like this change from humor to horror, but honestly, I’m in love with it. The original Dead Rising walked a very thin line between horror and humor, where as Dead Rising 2 almost totally ditched horror and almost became slapstick, complete with one-liners and fart jokes. I’m happy to see a return to a more serious tone, as I found Dead Rising 2‘s humor to be grating and forced- but there’s still a little humor in the video shown at E3. At one point, our new hero, Nick, ends up in a gym, and is forced to start hacking away at the zombies with a circular saw, and as the blood is pumping all over the floor, this goofy macho music is playing in the background, feeling very reminiscent of Dead Rising‘s mall muzak.
Dead Rising 2‘s over the top melee kills are still here in all their glory, and the weapon combo system has been improved- able to be done any time and anywhere with the use of the new “improvised combo” system. It was also fun to see that the zombies are an actual threat this time around; I found the generally dumb zombies in DR2 to get boring after a while, and they never seemed to pose a real threat. In the E3 footage, Nick is shown literally being assaulted by swarms of zombies, breaking through fences and windows, all biting and clawing to sink their teeth into that fine latino flesh. The zombies can even attack you while you are driving a vehicle, adding an even bigger level of threat; being in a vehicle in either of the other Dead Rising games renders you virtually invincible until your vehicle is destroyed. Now, they can actually grab onto the car, smash through the window and yank you out to feast on your flesh. I like this new emphasis on panic, definitely a big change from how leisurely I tend to play the other two games.
My final thought is how much I love –love– the city setting. The mall was a wonderful playground, and Fortune City was fun, but they were more or less the same thing. Fortune City was basically just a bigger mall, but having a whole city to play in? Complete with skyscrapers (here’s hoping we can explore every building) and city streets? This is my ultimate zombie outbreak dream. An un-restricted Resident Evil: Outbreak, as it were. No game has ever really done this satisfactorily for me. It’s always a confined zombie outbreak, in the middle of nowhere, where there’s little to do but explore the few buildings and surrounding nothingness. Two of the better zombie open world games (Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare and State of Decay) both focus on rural environments, where there just simply isn’t that much to explore. After a certain point, it’s just wilderness and wasteland. I’m excited to finally have a whole city to play around in.
Here’s the video
