Post by Scarface on Jul 25, 2007 21:38:46 GMT -5
I'm starting up a little thing called "Videogame Review",I will review games twice a week.
here's my first one on Dead Rising!
Hope ya like it!
Capcom’s zombie festival of campy gore is so much more than it seems on the surface, but at its core succeeds in the one thing that sets video games apart from other forms of entertainment: It’s unrelentingly fun and still has something to say.
Looking for nothing more than a playground of undead destruction, I approached the game as many of you will. I was hoping that the action wouldn’t get too repetitive. With any luck, I thought, the cheesy dialogue and setting would be an asset and not a source of droll cutscenes I would want to skip through. I started the game. I literally mowed over zombies. I cackled every five minutes when a newfound weapon sliced through the thick hordes in an over-the-top mockery of slasher flicks and secret dreams of the biggest Dead Alive fan. I outright horrified the other editors by walking Frank around in a cute little sundress for a full day.
But the little surprises around every display rack couldn’t shock or delight me as much as the underdog feature in this game: Dead Rising’s story. It’s political, steeped in condemnations of consumer culture, sympathy for those wronged by the government, and patriots disillusioned by the establishment they were once fighting for and are now battling against. It’s about the freedom of press and imperialism. Most importantly, it manages to balance heady political commentary with the aforementioned silly action – I don’t really know how, but it does, trust me.
There must be some sort of braniac magic going on with the team that developed Dead Rising, but they aren’t perfect. Of the handful of boss fights, two are miserable, two are mediocre, and one is so awesome that even dying brought a weirdly pleasurable case of the adrenaline shakes so bad that I had to take a break after each attempt. Of the icky fights, the big problem is that they’re just too much like what we’ve always seen – an overpowered enemy with superhuman predictive abilities, frustratingly powerful weapons, and who can only be injured by using the game’s least innovative mechanics (Guns? I don’t want to use guns – there’s a bowling ball and sheets of plywood right over there!). In short, they’re hard and they’re boring.
But the rest of the game…well, figuring out where the thing actually ends is hard. I think that you could go through a dozen times and see at least two entirely new, large-scale events each time. The game is huge on replay in the main mode and offers even more after the tale is done. Without spoiling anything, let’s leave it with the promise that you’ll be popping this in for months to come. And do you want to know why? For more than the bounty of content, or interesting twist of social commentary, or even the collection of secret touches – you’ll keep booting it up because it’s an artsy brand of fun that you can’t get anywhere else.
here's my first one on Dead Rising!
Hope ya like it!
Capcom’s zombie festival of campy gore is so much more than it seems on the surface, but at its core succeeds in the one thing that sets video games apart from other forms of entertainment: It’s unrelentingly fun and still has something to say.
Looking for nothing more than a playground of undead destruction, I approached the game as many of you will. I was hoping that the action wouldn’t get too repetitive. With any luck, I thought, the cheesy dialogue and setting would be an asset and not a source of droll cutscenes I would want to skip through. I started the game. I literally mowed over zombies. I cackled every five minutes when a newfound weapon sliced through the thick hordes in an over-the-top mockery of slasher flicks and secret dreams of the biggest Dead Alive fan. I outright horrified the other editors by walking Frank around in a cute little sundress for a full day.
But the little surprises around every display rack couldn’t shock or delight me as much as the underdog feature in this game: Dead Rising’s story. It’s political, steeped in condemnations of consumer culture, sympathy for those wronged by the government, and patriots disillusioned by the establishment they were once fighting for and are now battling against. It’s about the freedom of press and imperialism. Most importantly, it manages to balance heady political commentary with the aforementioned silly action – I don’t really know how, but it does, trust me.
There must be some sort of braniac magic going on with the team that developed Dead Rising, but they aren’t perfect. Of the handful of boss fights, two are miserable, two are mediocre, and one is so awesome that even dying brought a weirdly pleasurable case of the adrenaline shakes so bad that I had to take a break after each attempt. Of the icky fights, the big problem is that they’re just too much like what we’ve always seen – an overpowered enemy with superhuman predictive abilities, frustratingly powerful weapons, and who can only be injured by using the game’s least innovative mechanics (Guns? I don’t want to use guns – there’s a bowling ball and sheets of plywood right over there!). In short, they’re hard and they’re boring.
But the rest of the game…well, figuring out where the thing actually ends is hard. I think that you could go through a dozen times and see at least two entirely new, large-scale events each time. The game is huge on replay in the main mode and offers even more after the tale is done. Without spoiling anything, let’s leave it with the promise that you’ll be popping this in for months to come. And do you want to know why? For more than the bounty of content, or interesting twist of social commentary, or even the collection of secret touches – you’ll keep booting it up because it’s an artsy brand of fun that you can’t get anywhere else.
