Aside from being a game where you run around a shopping mall murdering the living dead, the original Dead Rising from 2006 is a clownish satire of sleazy tabloid photojournalism. It expresses this by way of its scoring system, where you earn "Prestige points" for snapping pictures that fit one of five categories: "Brutal" scenes of characters being slain; moments of "Horror", such as the spectacle of an approaching horde; comical "Outtakes", like characters caught in bizarre poses; moments of "Drama", such as people reacting to discoveries; and "Erotic" photos of women alive or undead, which range from snaps of exposed underwear to close-ups of cleavage.
The Erotica tag has, however, been chopped from the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, in what Capcom gingerly suggest isn't "a response to a changing cultural climate", but expressive of the view that earning points from such photos is not "an appropriate reward for survival and not a skill required of a journalist trying to stay alive".
]]>Dead Rising is a proper gem, taking an overdone trope - zombies in a shopping centre - and turning it into a brilliantly quirky and challenging survival game that fully delivers on the madcap joy of using anything you can find to mow down hordes of the undead and then snap photos of them. Truly a proto-Instagram-era Nostradamus. Almost ten years after the first game came to PC, and upsettingly close to 20 years from its debut, the original Dead Rising is coming back in a fresh remaster.
]]>I’m fairly sure that zombies are the perfect video game enemies. They’re relentless, for one thing, happily chomping their way through anyone who gets in their path. The undead are faceless as well, so you don’t feel too bad about escorting them back to their graves. Yet they can be poignant, dramatic reminders of friends and family that meant a lot to characters too, depending on who the shambling corpse used to be. If I was going to hire any enemy for a game, I’d hire a zombie. Then they’d eat my brain. That’s why I hired them! So to celebrate our very iconic, vitality-challenged friends, I've put together a list of my favourite zombie games.
]]>Friends, let me admit something up top. I am the most tedious of Dead Rising apologists. I love its in-game timer. I adore its linear mission structure that is completely at odds with the expansive semi-open world shopping mall in which it takes place. Hell, I even like its severely stripped down Wii port. I firmly believe that Dead Rising is an all-time great, but also understand why folks have (reasonably) cooled on the game’s particular quirks.
]]>Capcom Game Studio Vancouver - the team behind Dead Rising 2, 3 and 4 - is no more. Confirmed in a statement to Kotaku, the Canadian outfit formerly known as Blue Castle Games is closing their doors today after a series of cancellations. While "a skeleton crew" will remain at the company until January, a total of 158 will lose their jobs.
The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Back in February, Capcom Vancouver shed a third of its staff, along with cancelling a yet-unannounced project in production, but it seemed like Capcom still had plans for the studio. Apparently not, and I wish everyone at the shuttered studio the best of luck.
]]>Worrying news for fans of the Dead Rising series today, as Capcom have officially confirmed reports initially circulated on Kotaku that the Canadian studio formerly known as Blue Castle Games has shed almost a third of its staff.
Leaks suggest that projects affected include a mystery game that was supposedly early on in production which has been entirely scrapped, and plans for the next Dead Rising game have been notably scaled back.
]]>Humble is back with a brand new bundle - the Humble Capcom X Sega X Atlus Bundle which, for some reason, groups together those three publishers for one big bundle that offers you the chance to pick up games featuring blue hedgehogs, robot arms with stories to tell, FMV silliness, and a mall full of zombies, among other things.
Head over to the main site and you can drop some money on the bundle, with some of the proceeds going to charity as well.
]]>I've always had a soft spot for the first two Dead Rising [official site] games. Soft spots are the second cousins of nostalgia, and similarly mean that I'll happily make concessions for a series' flaws. The Dead Rising games have rudimentary combat, horrible time limits, and dodgy AI, but I forgive them because the brutal absurdism of the series has always tickled me (except for the grimy, obnoxious third game). I'll happily jump in just to save a couple of survivors, and while I'd get angry whenever I lost 20 minutes of progress because I died and forgot to save, I'd be all smiles again as soon as I encountered the next eccentric boss.
It's been a long time now since the original first came out, and I wonder whether the passage of time has atrophied a game whose systems and mechanics already felt unwieldy ten years ago. And with the super-similar but generally superior sequel already out on PC for a quid less, is there even a need to go back to the original?
]]>The first Dead Rising [official site] has just arrived on Steam. I installed it and played it for five minutes just to make sure it didn't make my computer bleed or crumble into dust, and so far so good. The reception seems positive, in terms of performance, and this looks like it might be a solid remaster of the 2006 original.
Although I've barely touched it since the year it came out, here's why I'm extremely glad this ridiculous game is on PC, and why I'm looking forward to playing it again: it's as weird and experimental as any big budget game that has ever waved a horde of zombies in your face.
]]>Dead Rising is coming to the PC for the first time, remastered alongside Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off The Record as part of the series' ten year anniversary celebrations. All three will be released on September 13th and there's a Steam page to prove it.
]]>Delightful pre-E3 news has just arrived from the Microsoft bunker. The Kinect will be attached to all future versions of Windows 8, which will in turn be attached to every PC in the world through the magic of Cloud-based infiltration. Empty your recycle bin by performing complex semaphore! Attempt to discover the start button by cartwheeling around your front room, or scratching your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time!
That would be horrible. Thankfully it's a load of old cobblers. The news that has emerged in the form of an excitable trailer is that preposterous zombie smasher Dead Rising 3 is coming to your PC this summer. You already knew that though because of the headline.
]]>
