Developer: CAPCOM Vancouver
Publisher: Microsoft Studios, CAPCOM
Platform: Xbox One, PC (September 2014)
Tested on: Xbox One
Dead Rising 3 – Review
Dead Rising, that ‘other’ zombie franchise with the CAPCOM name attached to it. Unlike Resident Evil, Dead Rising is known to take itself a tad less serious. Whilst the first two installments played itself out in a very small area, Dead Rising 3 is trying to see it a tad bigger. Grab on to your pitchforks, lead pipes and even teddy bears to beat up some zombies.
Story
Los Perdidos a once quiet and peaceful city is now filled with loads of zombies and you, Nick, a mechanic is stuck right in the middle. It seems that there is no escape from the zombie infested hellhole you are currently finding yourself in. Nick decides it’s wisest to regroup with some allies that are currently holding up in the local diner.
Nick meets up with Rhonda, Dick and Annie. Annie, who is called an illegal thanks to the fact the has no Zombrex chip, flees and decides to settle things on her own. You decide to make for it with Rhonda and Dick and look for a new safe haven, in order to ride out the disaster.
Soon after the group of survivors is able to get the TV set in their newly established bunker going, which allows them to see the emergency broadcast. They then see that the local checkpoints are letting people out of Los Perdidos, after thorough investigation and examination. Sadly, the checkpoints seem to be abandoned except for some mean anarchist-bikers, yet the messages keep instructing people to go there. It seems the unlikely band of survivors need to find their own way out in the next six days, seeing the army is going to bomb the city after this time period.
As the story unfolds, you’ll learn more about Nick and that he is no ordinary mechanic. The fact that there are certain schemes brooding in the middle of the already destroyed city and of course, how one can escape from the zombie-filled Los Perdidos.
Graphics
As one of the earlier titles on the next-gen consoles, the graphics don’t always live up to the name of next gen. That being said, the graphics look great, but they never seem that impressive, at least if you look at the game one zombie at a time. When you take a closer look at the game and exactly what is going on, on the screen the game actually turns out to be no less than impressive. Nearly all the time during your playthrough there are a massive amount of zombies onscreen, which show you that the console itself truly is able to handle a lot more than the previous generation.
Some important characters look a tad more detailed than the normal grub that is thrown at you. Each of these characters is unique and the game does its best to create a tad of diversity in the zombie horde that roams through the streets.
Building and items in the world also offer enough diversity to give that extra appeal to the overall world of Dead Rising 3. Again, not everything looks outstanding, but the amount of things that are inserted in the game is quite amusing.
Overall, the graphics are not outstanding, but the amount of stuff that is going on makes it a great whole. It succeeds in becoming ‘next-gen’ in its own way.
Sound
Overall Dead Rising does not have an prominent soundtrack but what the game lacks in music it makes it up in the quality of its voice acting. Dialogues are funny, witty and in many cases quite convincing. Each characters has a fitting voice for its appearance and most of the times the dialogues itself set the right mood/tone.
Gameplay
Dead Rising 3 is surviving at its best, with a decent dose of humor mixed in. You’ll have to battle your way through hordes of zombies in order to reach your objectives and of course escape the city of Los Perdidos.
During the course of the game you’ll have to complete certain story quests in order to finish the game within six days. These quests often consist from going from point A to point B, collecting items, killing zombies and save people. Whilst this may sound quite simple, the game offers a decent amount of variety thanks to the different weapons, sceneries and the characters you will have to assist.
The game offers you loads of weapons that are scattered throughout the world. Wooden planks, baseball bats, axes, guns, toys and what not are ready for the taking in order for you to destroy the zombies that lurk around every corner. If that’s not enough, Nick is able to combine different weapons by creating combo-weapons. These weapons are often quite overpowered, which simply add to the fun of being able to kill gigantic waves of zombies at once. In order to be able to create these weapons you’ll need to collect designs, which will unlock certain weapons.
With the bigger map in this installment of the franchise, transportation becomes more important. You’ll be able to find a decent amount of cars, motorcycles and even certain maintenance vehicles. Like the weapons, these can be combined, when owning the proper designs. When doing so you’ll be able to create tougher vehicles or even vehicles with weaponry.
Nick also gains PP when killing zombies and completing quests. Collecting enough PP makes Nick level up and this will unlock new abilities and stat points for him to spend. These stat points can be used to unlock more inventory room, abilities, designs, health points and other items to toughen up Nick.
Other than the story quests you’ll be able to do a certain amount of side-quests and psycho quests. The side-quests often reward you with PP and a new survivor. These survivors can be ‘summoned’ in the safe houses on the map in order to assist you with your objectives. You’ll be able to heal the survivors when they get hurt and give them certain weapons in order to become more useful. The Psycho quests on the other hand often simply reward you with PP but a lot more than other quests. Also, you’ll be able to do some nice ‘boss battles’ during these missions and they surely add up to the overall story value of the game. Other than that you still have some challenges spread across the map, together with collectibles to present you with even more content.
Sadly, the game has a certain amount of issues as well. For starters, the AI of the survivors that join you is mediocre, at best. Often you’ll be so annoyed because they either block your path, knock you down or don’t get in the car whilst standing next to you. This often makes you lose more time than you’d want to or even make you wind up getting in very annoying situations.
Like the AI of the survivors, the controls often prove to be quite mediocre as well. Picking up items proves to be horrible when several items are placed close to each other on the floor. You’ll often pick up the wrong item and in some cases this can be quite fatal. The same can be said when a survivor comes close when you try to pick up an item. The game then decides that you’d rather give something to the survivor instead of picking up the item you desired to pick up. Certain boss battles require you to dodge or take aim at a target that moves quite rapidly. Sadly, the camera, overall controls and the responsiveness of these controls can end up becoming another frustration.
Dead Rising 3 still has a decent amount of bugs, where hits don’t register, floating corpses, invisible walls and so on. Most of the times these bugs can be neglected but when they stack up in critical situations they can become a nuisance.
After all the good content, as well as the minor issues, you’ll be able to start a new game, with the items you’ve already found. You’ll be able to keep leveling Nick this way and thus aim for quicker runs or simply try to collect everything the game throws at you. Outside of that, the game will also offer a decent amount of DLC in order to keep you occupied for that much longer.
Conclusion
Dead Rising 3 offers a heap of content, a lot of action and a decent dose of humor and witty conversations. As far as zombie survival games go, Dead Rising 3 presents us with a great game that simply shows us that not all survival games should take itself so seriously. Be prepared, the streets are truly filled with zombies in Dead Rising 3.
Dead Rising 3 - Review,
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