Dead Rising 3"Welcome to the After Party!"
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8/10 James Davie
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DEV: Capcom
PUB: Microsoft Studios
RELEASE DATE: 22/11/2013
FORMAT: XboxOne
Los Predidos may appear to be your average, stereotypical Mexican getaway with maracas, sombreros and a generous serving of bean burritos to make your methane boil up and squelch out putrid bursts of excrement, but it also plays host to Dead Rising 3, an open world spin on the previous mall-grinding ventures of previous iterations. Dead Rising 3 stars a new protagonist, Nick Ramos- who conveniently has a history as a virtuoso mechanic, and is able to construct devilish and dainty combo amalgamations from individual, amputation enabling projectiles. As with previous Dead Rising games, it has an arcade-centric nature, spearheaded by the drive to use any tool to sever the virally stricken undead in any way you see fitting. It’s a cocktail to bask in the technical novelties of the XBOX ONE, but is it biting off more than it can chew?
It’s cliché to keep muttering the same lines from the same textbook, but the city of Los Predidos has come under attack with a strain of zombie mutiny bombarding the area. The citizens are under quarantine, and troubles concerning supplies run expectedly rampant. The surprising shift is that DR3, at least for a little while, attempts to make you care and invest emotionally with the characters. You will grow attached to a few characters, before the game decides to give them a not-so peaceful swansong. This however, is not what Dead Rising 3 needs at all. It’s a detriment to the game’s tone, that whilst you potter and prance about wearing a gimp mask, whilst fetishizing yourself in women’s pinup lingerie, you will feel immediately disconnected from the story. The same antithesis of tone has cropped up in previous games, and is no better here. For the frolics though, you just can’t help yourself but flutter around looking like a hybrid of Tony Montana and Scarlett Johansson, wielding a chainsaw and hurdling about, detaching mutated limbs and grinding them in half like thanksgiving turkey.
The toolbox of game design that Nick Ramos unfolds in front of you is one of great familiarity, but one that flourishes with a few new wrinkles, that better exploit the zombie mashing, bashing and trashing we all yearn for. After spending half an hour of the game holding your hand, you are set free to tackle missions and side activities, scattered around Los Predidos. The latter are significantly enjoyable, and do not pose as optional attractions, meaning they are optional, but a large part of the fun is to find what crazy shenanigans the local denizens are getting up to. Many of the side missions do involve a lot of “pick these items up and return them” assortments, but the ebullient boss battles you come up against are more than worth the effort.
PUB: Microsoft Studios
RELEASE DATE: 22/11/2013
FORMAT: XboxOne
Los Predidos may appear to be your average, stereotypical Mexican getaway with maracas, sombreros and a generous serving of bean burritos to make your methane boil up and squelch out putrid bursts of excrement, but it also plays host to Dead Rising 3, an open world spin on the previous mall-grinding ventures of previous iterations. Dead Rising 3 stars a new protagonist, Nick Ramos- who conveniently has a history as a virtuoso mechanic, and is able to construct devilish and dainty combo amalgamations from individual, amputation enabling projectiles. As with previous Dead Rising games, it has an arcade-centric nature, spearheaded by the drive to use any tool to sever the virally stricken undead in any way you see fitting. It’s a cocktail to bask in the technical novelties of the XBOX ONE, but is it biting off more than it can chew?
It’s cliché to keep muttering the same lines from the same textbook, but the city of Los Predidos has come under attack with a strain of zombie mutiny bombarding the area. The citizens are under quarantine, and troubles concerning supplies run expectedly rampant. The surprising shift is that DR3, at least for a little while, attempts to make you care and invest emotionally with the characters. You will grow attached to a few characters, before the game decides to give them a not-so peaceful swansong. This however, is not what Dead Rising 3 needs at all. It’s a detriment to the game’s tone, that whilst you potter and prance about wearing a gimp mask, whilst fetishizing yourself in women’s pinup lingerie, you will feel immediately disconnected from the story. The same antithesis of tone has cropped up in previous games, and is no better here. For the frolics though, you just can’t help yourself but flutter around looking like a hybrid of Tony Montana and Scarlett Johansson, wielding a chainsaw and hurdling about, detaching mutated limbs and grinding them in half like thanksgiving turkey.
The toolbox of game design that Nick Ramos unfolds in front of you is one of great familiarity, but one that flourishes with a few new wrinkles, that better exploit the zombie mashing, bashing and trashing we all yearn for. After spending half an hour of the game holding your hand, you are set free to tackle missions and side activities, scattered around Los Predidos. The latter are significantly enjoyable, and do not pose as optional attractions, meaning they are optional, but a large part of the fun is to find what crazy shenanigans the local denizens are getting up to. Many of the side missions do involve a lot of “pick these items up and return them” assortments, but the ebullient boss battles you come up against are more than worth the effort.
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Boss battles are a joy to test your projectile flinging prowess. Don’t be mistaken, these are very pushover, as you’ll be tapping the same buttons for the same attacks over and over to deal damage, and there are many supplies available to restore your health bar. The personalities shine through though, and you’ll love how eccentric they are. The simplicity of the fights isn’t such a negative, as you are supposed to feel like the ultimate zombie squashing overlord, and your dominance echoes this sentiment.
All these missions and side jobs earn you PP to got towards levelling up and rewarding you with attribute points. These attribute points can be plundered into a number of archetypical upgrades for your health, weapon duration, intelligence and a number of other contributing factors. You’ll definitely feel the power as you progress, giving you more opportunities to have fun without the need of restarting checkpoints or having your badass combo weapons break after prolonged usage.
The map of Los Predidos is fairly big for a game of its calibre. It’s a suburban playground littered with viral flesh, you’ll fail to go anywhere without a few undead lurking around. With that said, you will begin to get tired of the layout. There are stretches of road and overpass bridges that make driving about rather tedious. The sites aren’t plentiful either, with only the shops and their diversity of death giving instruments, serving as the only extravagance to the locales. The breathing room with the map design, is that Dead Rising 3 is chock-full of delectable collectibles. You’ll mosey about for weapon and vehicle blueprints, collect ZDC updates- to keep tabs on the outbreak, cohering with the seven day narrative and tragic endings- where you find mutilated dead bodies on the ground, and Nick utters some hard to believe words. All the while you’ll be obsessed with trying every weapon you get your hands on, and driving every vehicle you come across through the scarcity.
It’s no secret that the weapon blueprints you find are the most rewarding features in the game. Essentially treasure maps, these will gift you with some of the zaniest, imaginative, creative and downright delightful weapons and vehicles you can dream up. From all-out zombie splicers such as the sledge-saw (that speaks for itself) to the lunacy of a contraption that has you lunging about with dragon wings, and a mask that you can slap on a zombie’s head whilst it stumbles about as flames flare out and burn the surrounding undead to cinders. This is all in aid of wracking up kill combos and adding to an ever-worrying slaughter count, you’ll definitely think of blueprints as a godsend, to help you massacre and bring down lucifer’s wrath on all zombie-kind. Experimenting with these weapons is made simpler, as the apparatus is readily available near where the blueprints are found, giving you the opportunity to test the awesomeness you have been bestowed with, before breaking the weapon, and forcing you to hunt savagely if you ever want that weapon again.
All these missions and side jobs earn you PP to got towards levelling up and rewarding you with attribute points. These attribute points can be plundered into a number of archetypical upgrades for your health, weapon duration, intelligence and a number of other contributing factors. You’ll definitely feel the power as you progress, giving you more opportunities to have fun without the need of restarting checkpoints or having your badass combo weapons break after prolonged usage.
The map of Los Predidos is fairly big for a game of its calibre. It’s a suburban playground littered with viral flesh, you’ll fail to go anywhere without a few undead lurking around. With that said, you will begin to get tired of the layout. There are stretches of road and overpass bridges that make driving about rather tedious. The sites aren’t plentiful either, with only the shops and their diversity of death giving instruments, serving as the only extravagance to the locales. The breathing room with the map design, is that Dead Rising 3 is chock-full of delectable collectibles. You’ll mosey about for weapon and vehicle blueprints, collect ZDC updates- to keep tabs on the outbreak, cohering with the seven day narrative and tragic endings- where you find mutilated dead bodies on the ground, and Nick utters some hard to believe words. All the while you’ll be obsessed with trying every weapon you get your hands on, and driving every vehicle you come across through the scarcity.
It’s no secret that the weapon blueprints you find are the most rewarding features in the game. Essentially treasure maps, these will gift you with some of the zaniest, imaginative, creative and downright delightful weapons and vehicles you can dream up. From all-out zombie splicers such as the sledge-saw (that speaks for itself) to the lunacy of a contraption that has you lunging about with dragon wings, and a mask that you can slap on a zombie’s head whilst it stumbles about as flames flare out and burn the surrounding undead to cinders. This is all in aid of wracking up kill combos and adding to an ever-worrying slaughter count, you’ll definitely think of blueprints as a godsend, to help you massacre and bring down lucifer’s wrath on all zombie-kind. Experimenting with these weapons is made simpler, as the apparatus is readily available near where the blueprints are found, giving you the opportunity to test the awesomeness you have been bestowed with, before breaking the weapon, and forcing you to hunt savagely if you ever want that weapon again.
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The accessible nature of Dead Rising 3 is its greatest strength, as it allows you to explore and revel in the devilish weaponry you find, making you feel unstoppable in the process. Whilst it’s very much a similar experience to previous instalments, Dead Rising 3 has bigger tools to impress and a wider environment to carry the dealings out with. It’s certainly not an evolution of its craft, but it’s the best at what it does, if you don’t go into it looking for challenge or great innovative leaps in technical power.
The graphics of Dead Rising 3 are serviceable but average, with the greatest accomplishment being the swathes of zombies on screen, and seeing them shredded apart so gleefully. Having zombies climb, scratch and claw all over the vehicles you drive, as they slide about like a clingy wakeboarder, is very satisfying to behold. Character performances are strong but unnecessary, though their personalities aren’t outside of what you’ve come to expect from previous entries. It’s a promising sign for the new generation of consoles, and while technical muscle has only scratched the surface, the glimpse is enough to ensure the future is bright for the capabilities of the XBOX One hardware.
Whilst some may argue that Dead Rising 3 sheds familiar skin, and others may lambaste it for not shaking the foundations a little more, it’s an undeniably raucous and fiendishly enjoyable slaughterhouse of ideas and creativity. The tone towards accessibility helps it to thrive, making the player feel unstoppable and empowered by the sumptuous smorgasbord of weapons to play around with. It’s a buffet of everything that has been great about the franchise, owing as much to the variety of weapons and vehicles, as to the craziness of the personalities. There’s still plenty of room to grow, especially in trying to evade from the fetch quests and the one-note thrills of the environments. For now it’s the only launch game that offers a platter of amputated limbs for your desire, but even though they are entrées to a speculative main course- they’ll still keep you craving for more.
The graphics of Dead Rising 3 are serviceable but average, with the greatest accomplishment being the swathes of zombies on screen, and seeing them shredded apart so gleefully. Having zombies climb, scratch and claw all over the vehicles you drive, as they slide about like a clingy wakeboarder, is very satisfying to behold. Character performances are strong but unnecessary, though their personalities aren’t outside of what you’ve come to expect from previous entries. It’s a promising sign for the new generation of consoles, and while technical muscle has only scratched the surface, the glimpse is enough to ensure the future is bright for the capabilities of the XBOX One hardware.
Whilst some may argue that Dead Rising 3 sheds familiar skin, and others may lambaste it for not shaking the foundations a little more, it’s an undeniably raucous and fiendishly enjoyable slaughterhouse of ideas and creativity. The tone towards accessibility helps it to thrive, making the player feel unstoppable and empowered by the sumptuous smorgasbord of weapons to play around with. It’s a buffet of everything that has been great about the franchise, owing as much to the variety of weapons and vehicles, as to the craziness of the personalities. There’s still plenty of room to grow, especially in trying to evade from the fetch quests and the one-note thrills of the environments. For now it’s the only launch game that offers a platter of amputated limbs for your desire, but even though they are entrées to a speculative main course- they’ll still keep you craving for more.
