Dead Rising 3 came out 2 years ago as a launch game exclusive to the Xbox One, It’s the third installment in the “Dead Rising” series and aimed to not only improve the series but introduce “Next-Gen’ gaming to everyone and honestly it kind of did.
The “Dead Rising” series has been about letting players loose into a zombie apocalypse and really just had you surviving for 7 days waiting for the military and during those 3 days let you do whatever whether it be fighting bosses, rescuing other survivors or discovering the truth behind the outbreak and the games always had multiple endings to attribute to how you played the game, so if you just ran through it you’d probably get a bad ending with everyone dying or if you completed everything gave you a good ending, I am personally not sure because I had always gotten bored with “Dead Rising 1 & 2” mainly due to the cluttered controls, long load screens and annoying save system that didn’t have any checkpoints and only gave you 3 save slot, to quickly sum it up it was very convoluted so of course going into “Dead Rising 3” I was skeptical, I just wanted them to fix those 3 issues so did they? Yes, yes the did and more.
To start it off I am going to talk about its story which is very good, It built off of the events that happened in the previous 2 games and added a bit more back story to how the zombie parasite works, why bees have such a huge affect on the zombies (I’d be spoiling a bit if I said why the bees are such an important part in the Dead Rising series). It also introduced us to Nick, a mechanic working in Los Perdidios, a Los Angeles like town that has been over run with the zombie parasite and has been quarantined by the American Government and will be blown up with a nuclear strike in 7 days (3 days if you play on the hardest difficulty) So as Nick you are left to explore the giant city and of course fight bosses, rescue survivors and discover the truth behind the zombie outbreak. The story and characters are very good and well developed although some characters do have that “Zaniness” that Capcom is known for and also brings cool bosses that Capcom is also known for. It has also has an amazing plot twist that I personally was not expecting. What puts the icing on the cake is the fact that you can do all of this with a friend because the game supports 2 player co-op!
The biggest reason though why I love this game is its technical prowess. Now this game was only in 720p 30FPS especially since it came out around the time very pretty looking games like “The Last of Us” and “Grand Theft Auto V” but what I really liked was what it was introducing gamers to. The world itself geographically wasn’t that big but the way it was designed and the way it looked was very impressive. It felt like an actually city, that people had lived here before everything hit the fan and you could really feel the after math bearing down on you. This was also the only game besides “Skyrim” that actually made me remember the districts and locations of the city and where all the stores and safe houses are. At one point whenever me and my friend where looking for our objective I could find easily because I just knew this city inside out. It was also mind boggling at the amount of weapons, vehicles and zombies where in this game. Millions of zombies as far as the eye can see, it was a huge step up compared to “Dead Rising 2” and although there was this really weird occurrence where stuff would just spawn out of the black, it was a very good introduction to what “Next Gen” has the potential to be. Right now as I am writing this review I am currently playing “Batman: Arkham Knight” and it’s so amazing seeing what Xbox One and Playstation 4 could do and really It’s thanks to “Dead Rising 3” that we are seeing big awesome games being delivered to us gamers. As well this game has lots of replay value since there are hundreds of weapons and vehicles to collect and build thanks to a really fun combo mechanic in the game that allows you to combo certain items together and build a “combo weapon” like a bunch of grenades duct taped to a hammer causing a huge explosion or a sledgehammer on one side and buzz saw on the other. The possibilities are endless for you to create stronger and better to use against the zombie hordes, as well with the hundreds of collectibles, multiple endings, DLC and achievements, “Dead Rising 3” will keep you occupied for a long time.
All in all “Dead Rising 3” is a very fun game, it really doesn’t have any flaws, it does loose it’s luster but that’s only after you have played through it 10 to 12 times such as I have. With a strong story, co-op and lots of content this game is a must upside to it all too is that Capcom released an “Apocalypse” edition that packs the main game with all of its DLC which is actually a steal so I’d recommend picking up that version. I give “Dead Rising 3” a 9 out of 10. I like it how my reviews are getting shorter.
