Dead Rising: What Were They Thinking?

[Luminus]

Let me just get one thing out of the way for this game and that would be the pros:

1. Super violent
2. Unique story
3. Literally thousands of zombies
4. Unique weapons

Now, onto the MASSIVE problems:

The save system. This has got to be the absolute worst saving system I have ever seen. Basically, you can only save in certain parts of the mall (the place you're stuck in). Bathrooms and maintenance room couches. By the way, the maintenance room needs a key and who the heck knows where to find that. The fact that you need a key to get to a save area already screams out the absurdity of this.

To make matters worse, those bathroom saves can only be reached through a skinny hall usually filled with zombies. So if you're "lucky enough" to make it through that mess, you get to save. I put quotes around that term because the fact of the matter is, you probably won't make it through with a reasonable health gauge or enough weapons, if you even have new weapons to begin with. You'll save with 1 square of life left and a bunch of near broken weapons, only to respawn in a bathroom that leads to a skinny hallway filled with zombies. Oh, what fun! The least this game could've done was have a soda machine by the bathroom.

Another problem with the save system is that, like what happened to me recently, you'll spend hours (game time) saving 4 people (2 injured, so it slows you down significantly) , escorting them from one end of the mall to the other (you can't just take the shortcut through the park, because there's a humvee full of convicts out there killing everything). Once you finally get them to the main maintenance room and save, you get a short animation that shows all the other case files vanishing into obscurity. So basically all that work for nothing and now the game is over and you have to start over from the beginning.

The text messages. Capcom seemed to think that on-screen text-messaging in a zombie video game was a good thing and made it a major function in this one. The problem with that is that the onscreen messages are super tiny—Like 8 pt font. So if you don't have one of those thousand dollar HDTV sets, you're screwed—not to mention the time it takes to read these messages only leave you open to attack.

Time. You're on a schedule in this game and its highly annoying, considering that it takes a massive amount of effort to escort people to safety. You'll have to kill the super cheesy psychopaths (leaders) if you want the story to progress, but you can't kill them and save people at the same time. Talk about an unsatisfying situation.

Survivor AI. Man, these people are dumb. You almost have to wonder if Capcom deliberately made them this way as a throwback to the horror movie cliche of victims being stupid. Aaron Swoop, in particular, seems to be made deliberately stupid as during my escort of 4 people on my way from Al Fresca Plaza, he was the only one that continuously gave me problems. He doesn't follow directions properly, is the slowest (not because he can't run fast) and is always the first to get killed should something go wrong. He even gets killed if you happen to run into the gun store psychopath, despite the fact that I had 4 other people with me.

There are numerous times where I've left an area and he was the only one who didn't follow, so I had to go back and get him. Leaving an area leads to load screens, by the way. I would also find him running in place by an object to which I would have to bump into him to get him to stop.

Another problem is that you actually have to give these people food to heal themselves. So, I'm escorting babies now? What's worse, is that when you give them food, they drop their weapon (they can't hold a chainsaw for some reason). This is really annoying, especially since they can't pick up their own weapons.

Survivor AI's also have a habit of doing damage to you. You see, when you give them the command to follow, they stay close. And since there are thousands of zombies all over the place, they swing their weapons like crazy, which of course, gets you into trouble.

Zombie count. There are supposed to be something like 50,000 zombies in this game. So, logically, if you kill off 10,000 of them, it should make a difference, right? Well, not in this game. No amount of killing changes that number and that's plain silly and makes the game less interesting. What you do should matter.

Otis. This moron seems to think it's okay to constantly text you at the most inconvenient times. Like, oh, I don't know, in the middle of a frakin zombie infestation! You see, when you answer these texts that come in while you're surrounded by zombies, you become incapacitated. But don't worry, the zombies won't stop trying to kill you at this point. Yay! Why didn't they just have this guy talk to you like a normal person would in this situation? To make matters worse, if your call gets interupted as it most certainly will, he calls back and starts complaining about you being rude for hanging up. Then he starts the entire text message all over again.

Here's the perfect article about him: Otis Rising

 

[Yoda]

Well, since I rather liked the game, I guess I'll try to tackle this...

Let me just get one thing out of the way for this game and that would be the pros:

1. Super violent
2. Unique story
3. Literally thousands of zombies
4. Unique weapons

Now, onto the MASSIVE problems:

The save system. This has got to be the absolute worst saving system I have ever seen. Basically, you can only save in certain parts of the mall (the place you're stuck in). Bathrooms and maintenance room couches. By the way, the maintenance room needs a key and who the heck knows where to find that. The fact that you need a key to get to a save area already screams out the absurdity of this.

The maintenance tunnels aren't really for saving... they're supposed to be shortcuts, regardless they're not that useful. If you want the key, well, I'm pretty sure Otis gives you a decent enough hint as to where it may be... ever consider.. exploring?

To make matters worse, those bathroom saves can only be reached through a skinny hall usually filled with zombies. So if you're "lucky enough" to make it through that mess, you get to save. I put quotes around that term because the fact of the matter is, you probably won't make it through with a reasonable health gauge or enough weapons, if you even have new weapons to begin with. You'll save with 1 square of life left and a bunch of near broken weapons, only to respawn in a bathroom that leads to a skinny hallway filled with zombies. Oh, what fun! The least this game could've done was have a soda machine by the bathroom.

I don't remember getting to the save points being that bad. The hallways you refer to are usually pretty sparsely populated with zombies. I think you just need to learn how to kill zombies effectively.

Another problem with the save system is that, like what happened to me recently, you'll spend hours (game time) saving 4 people (2 injured, so it slows you down significantly) , escorting them from one end of the mall to the other (you can't just take the shortcut through the park, because there's a humvee full of convicts out there killing everything). Once you finally get them to the main maintenance room and save, you get a short animation that shows all the other case files vanishing into obscurity. So basically all that work for nothing and now the game is over and you have to start over from the beginning.

Well... you could cut across the courtyard if you went ahead and killed the convicts... Also, since the storyline 'missions' are well defined, ever consider just letting Aaron Swoop die and focusing on the story?

The text messages. Capcom seemed to think that on-screen text-messaging in a zombie video game was a good thing and made it a major function in this one. The problem with that is that the onscreen messages are super tiny—Like 8 pt font. So if you don't have one of those thousand dollar HDTV sets, you're screwed—not to mention the time it takes to read these messages only leave you open to attack.

I've heard the font complaint before... what can I tell you, I have one of those "thousand dollar HDTVs" (you can easily get an HDTV for far less than $1000 btw), so it wasn't really a problem. It sounds like they probably should've rendered it differently for SD modes though.

Time. You're on a schedule in this game and its highly annoying, considering that it takes a massive amount of effort to escort people to safety. You'll have to kill the super cheesy psychopaths (leaders) if you want the story to progress, but you can't kill them and save people at the same time. Talk about an unsatisfying situation.

You can save a good portion of them, but you need to have developed your skill at the game, and leveled your character. Saving everyone while completing the main story just isn't a realistic goal for you at this point. Personally I thought having tough to get achievements, and things to do after beating the game once (which is a relatively short 8 hour affair) was a good thing.

Survivor AI. Man, these people are dumb. You almost have to wonder if Capcom deliberately made them this way as a throwback to the horror movie cliche of victims being stupid. Aaron Swoop, in particular, seems to be made deliberately stupid as during my escort of 4 people on my way from Al Fresca Plaza, he was the only one that continuously gave me problems. He doesn't follow directions properly, is the slowest (not because he can't run fast) and is always the first to get killed should something go wrong. He even gets killed if you happen to run into the gun store psychopath, despite the fact that I had 4 other people with me.

The Survivors are pretty dumb, and annoying to manage, though once again that part is largely optional. Eventually you can get a book that helps you deal with survivors a little more easily... and once again being leveled with lots of inventory slots makes it all a lot easier.

There are numerous times where I've left an area and he was the only one who didn't follow, so I had to go back and get him. Leaving an area leads to load screens, by the way. I would also find him running in place by an object to which I would have to bump into him to get him to stop.

"LET THEM DIE!" -James T. Kirk

Another problem is that you actually have to give these people food to heal themselves. So, I'm escorting babies now? What's worse, is that when you give them food, they drop their weapon (they can't hold a chainsaw for some reason). This is really annoying, especially since they can't pick up their own weapons.

They essentially are babies... I mean, these are mall folk. You're a photographer. You've covered wars, you know? You're the one taking charge here!

Survivor AI's also have a habit of doing damage to you. You see, when you give them the command to follow, they stay close. And since there are thousands of zombies all over the place, they swing their weapons like crazy, which of course, gets you into trouble.

You should choose the Survivors' weapons carefully, once again they're not ninjas.

Otis. This moron seems to think it's okay to constantly text you at the most inconvenient times. Like, oh, I don't know, in the middle of a frakin zombie infestation! You see, when you answer these texts that come in while you're surrounded by zombies, you become incapacitated. But don't worry, the zombies won't stop trying to kill you at this point. Yay! Why didn't they just have this guy talk to you like a normal person would in this situation? To make matters worse, if your call gets interupted as it most certainly will, he calls back and starts complaining about you being rude for hanging up. Then he starts the entire text message all over again.

Here's the perfect article about him: Otis Rising

Yeah, nobody likes Otis. There's actually an achievement for being able to take all of his stupid phone calls.

 

[Luminus]

Well, since I rather liked the game, I guess I'll try to tackle this...

The maintenance tunnels aren't really for saving... they're supposed to be shortcuts, regardless they're not that useful. If you want the key, well, I'm pretty sure Otis gives you a decent enough hint as to where it may be... ever consider.. exploring?

I don't remember getting to the save points being that bad. The hallways you refer to are usually pretty sparsely populated with zombies. I think you just need to learn how to kill zombies effectively.

Well... you could cut across the courtyard if you went ahead and killed the convicts... Also, since the storyline 'missions' are well defined, ever consider just letting Aaron Swoop die and focusing on the story?

I've heard the font complaint before... what can I tell you, I have one of those "thousand dollar HDTVs" (you can easily get an HDTV for far less than $1000 btw), so it wasn't really a problem. It sounds like they probably should've rendered it differently for SD modes though.

You can save a good portion of them, but you need to have developed your skill at the game, and leveled your character. Saving everyone while completing the main story just isn't a realistic goal for you at this point. Personally I thought having tough to get achievements, and things to do after beating the game once (which is a relatively short 8 hour affair) was a good thing.

The Survivors are pretty dumb, and annoying to manage, though once again that part is largely optional. Eventually you can get a book that helps you deal with survivors a little more easily... and once again being leveled with lots of inventory slots makes it all a lot easier.
"LET THEM DIE!" -James T. Kirk

They essentially are babies... I mean, these are mall folk. You're a photographer. You've covered wars, you know? You're the one taking charge here!

You should choose the Survivors' weapons carefully, once again they're not ninjas.

• I can’t read the text and there’s no time to explore. Frank is TOO slow.
• The hallways are skinny and filled with zombies on my X-Box 360. FILLED. It has nothing to do with how effective a killer I am, if I’ve gotten to the save point after fighting through thousands of zombies all the while trying to protect some survivors. There’s no way to get there without too much damage and with reasonably functioning weapons, unless I’m alone.
• The convicts don’t come out, until night. By that time, it’s too late. If I go outside, they’ll just kill my survivors. And, no, letting Aaron Swoop die is not satisfying to me. *in Arnold’s voice* He must live.
• I was recently laid off, so that’s not going to happen.
• It’s stupid to have to keep saving your stats and restarting from the beginning just so you can actually have a fighting chance. That’s called repetitive gaming—something that should have died in the 80’s.
• “NOOOOOO!” — Darth Vader
• Unacceptable
• They need the best weapons possible to survive. I’m not going to give them a mannequin to fight with.

 

[Jax]

I loved the demo and brought the game but found it poorly designed and quite shocking how different the game felt from the demo. I love the concept but they need to work on bringing the idea to life.

 

[Luminus]

I loved the demo and brought the game but found it poorly designed and quite shocking how different the game felt from the demo. I love the concept but they need to work on bringing the idea to life.

Yeah, I got suckered by that demo, too.

 

[Yoda]

I loved the demo and brought the game but found it poorly designed and quite shocking how different the game felt from the demo. I love the concept but they need to work on bringing the idea to life.

Yeah, I got suckered by that demo, too.

*shrug*

I thought the demo was very good, and that the game was awesome. Can't wait for Dead Rising 2, hope the complainers didn't cause them to replace the design of the first one with something crappy.

 

[dark angel_707]

I really enjoyed the game apart from trying to rescue survivors as there were so dumb even with the survivor book bonus. Although I took great delight in seeing them getting turned into zombies if they die from zombie bite

I think part of the problem so might have is they try to do everything on their 1st play as when you first start Frank is only level 1 and has little health and can't carry much.

 

[firehawk12]

I've heard the Wii version is significantly easier, so there's that.

But yeah, that save system... I mean, I understand why it's like that, but there's a line between interesting game mechanic and lessons in frustration.

Of course, one of the RE's had a limited save system as well, and I'm sure that had it's detractors and defenders.

 

[Luminus]

I really enjoyed the game apart from trying to rescue survivors as there were so dumb even with the survivor book bonus. Although I took great delight in seeing them getting turned into zombies if they die from zombie bite

I think part of the problem so might have is they try to do everything on their 1st play as when you first start Frank is only level 1 and has little health and can't carry much.

Why wouldn't anyone try to do everything on their 1st play? That's what's so stupid about this game. This game forces you to play the same blasted scenarios over and over again just so you can level up enough to actually win. This is Ghost 'N Goblins all over again. In that game, you had to play the entire game twice just to finish it.

 

[PKerr]

I too think the game was great aside from a few flaws.

When I originally got the game I had an older 67" big screen TV and the text was just about impossible to read.

When I got my 68" HDTV I had no more issues (wow that 1" sure made a BIG difference) JK.

I also don't think the save system is a horrid as it's made out to be.
A bit frustrating, Yes. Could use some tweaks, Yes.
Just learn to use it and you should be fine.

 

[The Evil Dead]

We're all spoiled by games these days. I've been playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum, inFamous and Uncharted the last few weeks and in all 3 games when you reload after dying you are always less than 30 seconds from whatever it was you died doing before. Personally, I like that style over the Dead Rising system, and the more games that feature the "few seconds earlier" save system, the more gamers will start to expect it.

One day we'll tell our kids "When I was your age I used to have to go through the whole level again when I died during a boss fight!"

 

[Yoda]

I really enjoyed the game apart from trying to rescue survivors as there were so dumb even with the survivor book bonus. Although I took great delight in seeing them getting turned into zombies if they die from zombie bite

I think part of the problem so might have is they try to do everything on their 1st play as when you first start Frank is only level 1 and has little health and can't carry much.

Why wouldn't anyone try to do everything on their 1st play? That's what's so stupid about this game. This game forces you to play the same blasted scenarios over and over again just so you can level up enough to actually win. This is Ghost 'N Goblins all over again. In that game, you had to play the entire game twice just to finish it.

It's simple enough to beat the game on your first play. Just focus on the storyline missions, and manage your time wisely.

As for doing everything on their first play through... I typically wouldn't for one. Usually I'll play a game on normal-ish difficulty, not striving for 100 percent completion or anything, and if the gameplay ends up being compelling enough I'll play through again on a harder difficulty, and go for 100 percent. I'm midway through Shadow Complex right now, and I can pretty much guarantee I'll go through it again
on a higher difficulty when I finish.

We're all spoiled by games these days. I've been playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum, inFamous and Uncharted the last few weeks and in all 3 games when you reload after dying you are always less than 30 seconds from whatever it was you died doing before. Personally, I like that style over the Dead Rising system, and the more games that feature the "few seconds earlier" save system, the more gamers will start to expect it.

It depends. I think you can definitely go too far in that direction... look at Bioshock. You basically respawn infinitely, and the only progress you lose is that you have to run over to the guy that killed you.... heck, his health won't even replenish. You could disable those respawn chambers (I forget if it shipped like that or if that toggle was patched in), but the game wasn't really balanced that well for someone reloading saves rather than abusing the respawn.

It was still a good game, but I think the system only hurt it.

In a game like Trials HD or Prince of Persia, the respawn and rewind systems respectively are excellent because they encourage you to try crazy stuff to see what you can pull off without overly penalizing you for it. For Dead Rising, such a system would ruin the game.

As for a more traditional checkpoint system, it really wouldn't mesh with the 'real-time' structure of the game. If the game arbitrarily saved whenever it felt like it, chances are you would get a save where you were screwed. Sure, that can happen with the manual save system, but the whole point of it is that you get to decide whether it's worth saving and continuing, or if you need to go back to your previous save.

It probably wouldn't have hurt to have multiple save slots so you wouldn't be as fearful of saving an unwinnable state, but it's hardly the end of the world.

 

[Luminus]

It's simple enough to beat the game on your first play. Just focus on the storyline missions, and manage your time wisely.

As I said before, that's not satisfying. There are people to be rescued, so naturally I try to rescue them. Otherwise, what's the point? Those leaders are super cheesy and no fun to fight, so that's that.

As for doing everything on their first play through... I typically wouldn't for one. Usually I'll play a game on normal-ish difficulty, not striving for 100 percent completion or anything, and if the gameplay ends up being compelling enough I'll play through again on a harder difficulty, and go for 100 percent. I'm midway through Shadow Complex right now, and I can pretty much guarantee I'll go through it again
on a higher difficulty when I finish.

Not all games require that you play on HARD in order to get 100 percent completion. Besides, I don't usually strive for 100%. Some achievements just aren't worth it.

It depends. I think you can definitely go too far in that direction... look at Bioshock. You basically respawn infinitely, and the only progress you lose is that you have to run over to the guy that killed you.... heck, his health won't even replenish. You could disable those respawn chambers (I forget if it shipped like that or if that toggle was patched in), but the game wasn't really balanced that well for someone reloading saves rather than abusing the respawn.

It was still a good game, but I think the system only hurt it.

Bioshock was fun and that's all that matters. Dead Rising is a 9-5 job at Joe Bloe's Messenger Service.

As for a more traditional checkpoint system, it really wouldn't mesh with the 'real-time' structure of the game. If the game arbitrarily saved whenever it felt like it, chances are you would get a save where you were screwed. Sure, that can happen with the manual save system, but the whole point of it is that you get to decide whether it's worth saving and continuing, or if you need to go back to your previous save.

It probably wouldn't have hurt to have multiple save slots so you wouldn't be as fearful of saving an unwinnable state, but it's hardly the end of the world.

And therein lies the biggest problem. As I've explained before, I spent hours saving 4 people only to reach the maintenance room and be told that the story vanished into nothingness. Game over and thus a big waste of time. I might as well be putting quarters into this thing for all the good the saving does.

 

[Yoda]

It's simple enough to beat the game on your first play. Just focus on the storyline missions, and manage your time wisely.

As I said before, that's not satisfying. There are people to be rescued, so naturally I try to rescue them. Otherwise, what's the point? Those leaders are super cheesy and no fun to fight, so that's that.

You can definitely rescue some of the people, it's just not realistic to rescue all of them. Dead Rising is zombie comedy... part of the fun is watching idiots get themselves killed, and leaving some behind will help you save others. There's no need to get all OCD about the survivors.

As for doing everything on their first play through... I typically wouldn't for one. Usually I'll play a game on normal-ish difficulty, not striving for 100 percent completion or anything, and if the gameplay ends up being compelling enough I'll play through again on a harder difficulty, and go for 100 percent. I'm midway through Shadow Complex right now, and I can pretty much guarantee I'll go through it again
on a higher difficulty when I finish.

Not all games require that you play on HARD in order to get 100 percent completion. Besides, I don't usually strive for 100%. Some achievements just aren't worth it.

True, Dead Rising doesn't even have difficulties as far as I know... but I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. Do you never replay games? Is that never fun for you? What about multiple endings? Ever play through again to get those? Dead Rising has a number of endings. It's just a replayable game by design, and by nature... do you load up Guitar Hero, beat every song exactly once and then quit for all time? Do you get mad in a racing game where you do more than one lap?

It depends. I think you can definitely go too far in that direction... look at Bioshock. You basically respawn infinitely, and the only progress you lose is that you have to run over to the guy that killed you.... heck, his health won't even replenish. You could disable those respawn chambers (I forget if it shipped like that or if that toggle was patched in), but the game wasn't really balanced that well for someone reloading saves rather than abusing the respawn.

It was still a good game, but I think the system only hurt it.

Bioshock was fun and that's all that matters. Dead Rising is a 9-5 job at Joe Bloe's Messenger Service.

Challenge is a big part of what I like about games. If a game provides no challenge or opportunity to develop a skill, I'm probably better off watching a movie or TV series, I'll get a superior story and acting without the pretense of interactivity.

As for a more traditional checkpoint system, it really wouldn't mesh with the 'real-time' structure of the game. If the game arbitrarily saved whenever it felt like it, chances are you would get a save where you were screwed. Sure, that can happen with the manual save system, but the whole point of it is that you get to decide whether it's worth saving and continuing, or if you need to go back to your previous save.

It probably wouldn't have hurt to have multiple save slots so you wouldn't be as fearful of saving an unwinnable state, but it's hardly the end of the world.

And therein lies the biggest problem. As I've explained before, I spent hours saving 4 people only to reach the maintenance room and be told that the story vanished into nothingness. Game over and thus a big waste of time. I might as well be putting quarters into this thing for all the good the saving does.

Well, it's not a total loss as your level will carry over and through experience you're poised to make a better attempt at saving those people without missing the plot. If you really want it's not like you have to end the game there, you can roam the mall searching for Survivors and see how many you can rescue and after 6 hours you'll have one of the endings, and a well leveled character to focus on the plot for the second go through...

But it sounds like that's not good enough for you, so sorry you didn't enjoy the game.

 

[Luminus]

You can definitely rescue some of the people, it's just not realistic to rescue all of them. Dead Rising is zombie comedy... part of the fun is watching idiots get themselves killed, and leaving some behind will help you save others. There's no need to get all OCD about the survivors.

True, Dead Rising doesn't even have difficulties as far as I know... but I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. Do you never replay games? Is that never fun for you? What about multiple endings? Ever play through again to get those? Dead Rising has a number of endings. It's just a replayable game by design, and by nature... do you load up Guitar Hero, beat every song exactly once and then quit for all time? Do you get mad in a racing game where you do more than one lap?

Challenge is a big part of what I like about games. If a game provides no challenge or opportunity to develop a skill, I'm probably better off watching a movie or TV series, I'll get a superior story and acting without the pretense of interactivity.

Well, it's not a total loss as your level will carry over and through experience you're poised to make a better attempt at saving those people without missing the plot. If you really want it's not like you have to end the game there, you can roam the mall searching for Survivors and see how many you can rescue and after 6 hours you'll have one of the endings, and a well leveled character to focus on the plot for the second go through...

But it sounds like that's not good enough for you, so sorry you didn't enjoy the game.

1. I don’t know what OCD means. Anyway, I tried letting that loser I talked about earlier die, but couldn’t let it go. Somehow, his death made me feel like a failure. That’s just me, but that's more of a dissapointment than a complaint. They set it up so that its your decisions that lead to their deaths, which is why I can't let it go. I understand that survivors die in horror movies and that's the point of not being able to save everyone, but blast it, man. He must live!
2. The only games I ever replay since the introduction of the X-Box is Mirror’s Edge, Mass Effect, and the Street Fighter series. Games just don’t have repayable value to me, once I’ve completed them. I play, get the achievements I’m interested in, finish it and then give it to my wife to sell on eBay. Racing & music games are meant to be replayed and somewhat redundant. You’re comparing apples and oranges. There’s a difference.
3. There’s also a difference between challenge and abuse. This game is abusive, as far as I’m concerned. What happens when I need to go to sleep or do something else? Since I can’t just press pause and SAVE, I’m screwed. Yeah, what a challenge that is.
4. That’s not good at all. It’s annoying, redundant, and pointless.

 

[Spiderpope]

Never had an issue with the Save system myself. I suppose thats because im a long time follower of the Resident Evil games, where you can only save in rooms with a typewriter. So i guess im accustomed to games where you can only save in specific locations, hell not having to use an Ink cartridge up to save in Dead Rising was actually a refreshing change for me and made it a lot easier!

The only real issue i had was the fact that the developers assumed that everyone would have a HD tv to play it on. Having to strain my eyes just to read the text in the game was a pain in the backside.

 

[PKerr]

OCD = Obsessive–compulsive disorder

 

[Jim Steele]

I've had this argument with Yoda before.

 

[Dream]

Does this mean the text in Dead Rising 2 will fill half the screen and be bolded so it can easily be seen?

 

[nx1701g]

One day we'll tell our kids "When I was your age I used to have to go through the whole level again when I died during a boss fight!"

I recently told my niece about the time before we had save cards for our video games and there were times that you'd die and have to play everything over again.