A few weeks ago my friend George invited me over to play Dead Rising. I brought the beer and George supplied the use of his XBox 360 and nice big TV.

Dead Rising follows photojournalist Frank West as he investigates a zombie outbreak. It starts out with you (playing as Frank) on a helicopter ride into the center of the outbreak. The pilot flies around and your job is to take pictures of the scene. There is almost too much to see with all riots, car crashes, and zombie attacks going on, but the game gives you the freedom to zoom in and take pictures of whatever you want. It employs a unique rating system that judges your pictures on the amount of drama and gore in the composition. After playing this section of the game a few times, I was able to anticipate the events that occur and get some cool shots of people falling off buildings and gas stations explosions. This introduction served as a brilliant way of setting the mood - you are quite literally flying into the middle of hell.

The helicopter lands on the roof of a shopping mall (ala’ Dawn of the Dead) and the pilot takes off, leaving Frank for few days before coming back to take him home. Frank’s job is to uncover the mystery surrounding the outbreak in time to be picked up again. There are other humans trapped in the mall as well, each with their own story. Many times they will find themselves surrounded by zombies and you are given the option of trying to lead them back to safety or leaving them to fend for themselves.

Much like Grand Theft Auto, you are given a sprawling “sandbox” environment and there are thousands of ways to interact with it. The highlight of the game is being able to fight zombies using whatever is at hand. You’ll find firearms in some locations, but just about anything in the game can be used as a weapon. You can swing around a lead pipe, throw a cement planter at the zombies, or even run around with a large market umbrella and push them out of your way. At one point we found that you could smash the gumball machines which would cause the candy to spill out like marbles, causing the zombies to slip and fall. This creates an immersive environment that really puts you in the shoes of the main character.

While exploring the mall is fun, you are on a race against time if you hope to finish the goals given to you. The entire game runs on a clock and many tasks must be completed on schedule. For example, a character may have some information for you and wants to meet in the food court, and you have a four hour window to get there and meet him. While it does work to move the story along, it can be frustrating at times when you have too many tasks and not enough time.

One of the main aggravations of game are the save points. Every time you die you have to start again from your last save. Each save point is located in the restrooms of the mall, which are few and far between. Worse still, if you are running low on health and save the game, it may take you several attempts to go from the save point to an area to recover your health. When this happens it’s irritating, repetitive, and just plain no fun.

When all is said and done, exploring the game and finding new ways to kill zombies is the meat and potatoes of the game. We had a blast running around dressed in children’s clothing with a pony mask on (you can change your outfit at the clothing stores in the mall) fighting zombies with the chainsaw. Who cares about the story when you can live out your Dawn of the Dead fantasies?

Overall, Dead Rising is an enjoyable game and probably the closest you’ll ever come to a “real” zombie apocalypse. The developers really created a polished experience that you’ll want to play over and over again.

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