For any hardcore or old-school gamer, Capcom is one of the biggest bright spots in the gaming industry. With franchises like Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Mega Man, Dead Rising, and Phoenix Wright, it just seems like they have a great portfolio of games that gamers want to play. But recently, I’ve started to get a little bit peeved over their various decisions but it wasn’t until this past week that I feel like they’ve really sold out. Let’s examine the evidence.
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Dead Rising 2: Case West finally brings protagonists from the two Dead Rising games together.
Microsoft & Capcom had Dead Rising 2: Case Zero and Dead Rising 2: Case West on sale the week after I beat Dead Rising 2, so I picked each of them up for $5 a piece to continue supporting the franchise. It wasn’t until this past weekend, however, that I finally got to play through Case West. cmfl3x has already provided a review on Case Zero, so I’m tasked with sharing my thoughts on Case West. Sadly for PS3 owners, both Case West and Case Zero are 360-exclusive. Hit the jump to see if Case West is worth checking out.
Dead Rising 2 brings forth a bigger mall, more zombies, and gambling!
One of the first games I played and reviewed on the Xbox 360 was the original Dead Rising. To this day it is still one of my favorite Xbox 360 games since it was the type of game that made me jump from the consoles of last generation. The concept of being stuck in a mall for 72 hours fighting off hoards of zombies while saving survivors and piecing together clues to understand how the outbreak occurred kept me riveted to the end. Of course, the original game did have its fair share of issues, such as the time-limits, the harsh save system, and even the fact that anything you used as a weapon would simply break after repeated use. How does the sequel fare?
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Our Awards & Holiday Shopping Guide are just about done, but today I get to talk about some of my favorite categories. Which stories really stuck with me this year? What new IPs are out there that might stand the test of time? And how do all the sequels this year stack up? Hit the jump to find out!
Shotgun + Pitchfork = fun
I bought my 360 a year or two after launch, so I never had the chance to play Dead Rising, a zombie game that holds a place in many early adopter’s hearts. Supposedly, it was a campy zombie game that despite a bunch of glitches turned out to be a lot of fun. Years later, Capcom has decided to release a sequel, Dead Rising 2. Unfortunately, most of the reviews have been saying that what was fun five years ago is lame now, so I decided not to buy the game. I still wanted a taste of the action, so I picked up Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, a $5 downloadable prequel to Dead Rising 2. Case Zero recently topped the 600,000 sales mark (I think I bought the 600,000th!) – is it worth the $5?
Last week cmfl3x and I presented you with a list of games that we felt were good value from a standpoint of being enjoyable for pretty much every type of gamer. This week we’ll share more “niche” titles – games that you can enjoy – provided you’re into the genre. Again, we want to look at games that are good value – ones that either have a lengthy/replayable single player campaign or plenty of multiplayer hours to keep you coming back while at the same time being enjoyable while being inexpensive.
Halo Wars – While the demo was enjoyable, it didn’t scream out as a Day 1 purchase for me. Still trying to decide, as the controller makes it pretty simplistic but it does have campaign co-op. But cmfl3x and I haven’t even finished Red Alert 3 co-op yet…
Dead Rising 2 - About time! Hope with the new developer it’s as good as the first one was.
Infinite Undiscovery - Wow. The game is actually a lot more enjoyable on these harder playthroughs. Who would have thought?
Starcraft - had a dream about it this past week. Talk about crazy – I haven’t played it in years, and here I was dreaming I was in a RT 2v2 mirror match with a Terran and Protoss on both sides. After an initial skirmish with my Terran and the enemy Terran, all was pretty quiet as I massed ground units. My Protoss partner was massing Carriers, and apparently so was the enemy Protoss player. I soon discover that the enemy Terran player was massing Battlecruisers, but I’m stuck with all these siege tanks and no air. Great. I plop down 4 Starports (where did I have this kind of money?) and begin massing Wraiths. I then send my squads of Wraiths to take out his Battlecruisers, and scan once in a while to take out the enemy Observer. Not sure how it ended up but then the alarm went off and I woke up. What the heck kind of dream is that? I don’t remember the last time I actually dreamed I was playing a game, especially in this much detail. It wasn’t even like made up stuff that would occur in a dream – all of these Starcraft game mechanics were still quite present and adhered to.
Dead Rising is a campy, horror game filled with fun – what other game allows for smashing zombies with random things in a mall?
When a friend saw that I was playing Dead Rising this weekend, he asked me what it was. Apparently it doesn’t have the mainstream popularity of a game like Gears of War or even Elder Scrolls: Oblivion so hopefully I can enlighten everyone about why this game is so good. It has its own cult following for several reasons.
If a gamer were to ask me what Dead Rising is like, I’d probably best sum it up in one sentence: It feels like Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil combined, but in a shopping mall. The graphics engine seems very similar to the Grand Theft Auto series on the PS2, but inserted into a mall with zombies. Of course, they look sharper and clearer due to the 360, but I wouldn’t say the graphics are amazing in this game. They get the job done but it’s no Gears of War. The gameplay is again, similar to Grand Theft Auto as well – missions and such are carried out through phone communication – you need to go to point A to rescue someone or fight someone in point B, etc. It feels Resident Evil-ish since of course you’re fighting the undead, and with Resident Evil being a Capcom property, it echoes forth the fact that it’s a Japanese game.
