Breaking Through: My first few hours with Dead Rising 3
Dead Rising and Lost Planet were early bright spots in the Xbox 360’s lifespan. Their large scale combat focus, great graphics, and the venerable MT Framework graphics engine helped to solidify that, indeed, the next generation cometh. Well, the better part of a decade later, with several of those years being quite poor for Capcom, Dead Rising 3 is here at the launch of the Xbox One to hopefully brighten up your day, week, month, or century.
Full disclosure, when I first sat down with Dead Rising 3, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. Graphically the game seemed impressive and the opening tutorial mission does something involving a plane that really blew me away. But, once I got past the tutorial and the world opened up and Dead Rising 3 seemed to be just more of Dead Rising but bigger, I didn’t know how I felt about that. A couple of months ago, Microsoft gave Dead Rising 2 away for free and I played through it again with a friend. So, with that memory so fresh in my mind the idea of doing more of that solo because none of my friends have an Xbox One yet didn’t seem incredibly mind-blowing. So, after trudging through the game for around two hours, I sat the game down to go play Forza 5 for a few days.
Well, I am happy to report that last night I picked Dead Rising 3 back up and I am really happy that I did. Dead Rising 3 has begun to open up more and has proven to be a game that will reward you for all of your hard work with a crazy story, weird world, and the best weapon customization system I have ever seen.
The weapons of Dead Rising 3 are different than weapons have ever been in the series. So, I will start from the beginning. Anything you ever pick up is flagged in your home base locker as an accessible inventory item. So, anything you ever see you should pick it up, even if it is for a moment. The same goes for vehicles, if you haven’t driven a kind of car or motorcycle before, you should drive it so that it is flagged in your garage inventory as an accessible vehicle. The combo system for weapons and vehicles from Dead Rising 2 has returned. But, this time, you will need to find a blueprint before you are able to craft an item at all. Every neighborhood in the Dead Rising world has different weapon blueprint drops. From what I can gather there are four versions of every combo weapon, one standard combo, two super combos, and an ultimate combo. Super combos are enhanced versions of standard combo weapons that will add an extra effect like explosive splash damage or fire to an existing combo weapon. The ultimate combo blueprints only spawn once you have found the first three blueprints and completed that combo. Don’t worry about finding the blueprints being like looking for a finger in a gib pile. All blueprints are located on your mini-map as a blue circular icon. Getting to some of the blueprints can be a pain, as most tend to be located on top of buildings and require some thought to climb. But, your hard world will pay off. In my first four hours of gameplay, I had already acquired an Ultimate Reaper weapon that looks like a giant Grim Reaper sickle that is on fire and shoots grenades. I strongly recommend picking that one up in the starting city as soon as humanly possible, as it will help you level up your character amazingly fast.
Your main character still earns PP for all of your kills and completed mission objectives in Dead Rising 3. The difference now is that instead of your health and inventory slots continually upgrading as you level up, you now have skill points to spend to improve your character. The upgrade system is deep enough to be meaningful. But, it is considerably less arcane than your average RPG. I leaned hard into the Smarts category to start, as that category has several upgrades levels that increase your PP per kill, which in turn will help you climb that upgrade ladder much faster.
The campaign is still largely open as of now and I will avoid spoilers on main plot points. But, my experiences have included meeting goofy survivors who love tarot cards, killing bikers on steamroller motorcycles, and plenty of expository dialogue that feels incredibly Canadian/Japanese in the way that only Dead Rising can. With all the talk of tech specs, resolutions, and framerate issues, the big thing that seems to be lost in the launch madness is the quality of Dead Rising 3. Yes, the game may be running in 720p and the framerate can chug when you are riding a rollerhawg in a mob of 300 zombies, but there is something amazingly fun and crazy about that game that I love. So many games are incredibly self-serious in their attempt to tell a “human” story. Dead Rising 3 doesn’t seem to have any interest in that. This game is content to stand alone with a dildo gun and a karate gi. So far, I am just happy to be along for the ride.
Stay tuned for a full review of Dead Rising 3.
