I have to admit, this whole zombie craze is getting a bit stale. We’ve had plenty of carnivorous undead scenarios with The Walking Dead, World War Z, Left 4 Deadeven Plants versus Zombies! So when I had the opportunity to review rise of death 3 for Xbox One, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. I mean, I played the first two and enjoyed them, but I’m so exhausted with the genre. Thankfully, rise of death 3 it was crazy enough to make me forget all the other zombie nonsense out there.
When you first start the game, you will control Nick. He’s pretty much your standard clueless main character. He also has a punch to help just about everyone. Throughout the strange story, Nick and his friends will try to survive this new zombie apocalypse.
To say that history is confusing is an understatement. Sometimes the plot rushes at you and will leave you scratching your head after a crucial scene. The game struggles to find its identity throughout the game. Most of the game has crazy characters and comedic events, but other times it tries to take itself too seriously. The story of the game would have worked if he had only chosen one. It’s like trying to combine a Wayans Brothers comedy with the plot of there will be blood; it’s just a mess.
Granted, no one went into this game thinking it would bring something to the table story-wise. Fortunately, the best part of the raising dead The series is, of course, the killing of zombies. The third installment is no different. It’s just fun. There’s an incredible amount of variety in the ways you can dispatch undead attackers. You can smash zombies while driving a vehicle, hit monsters with jugs of orange juice, or go on a killing spree in Mega Man Armor. The game is at its best when it sets you free. Which, thankfully, is pretty much all the time.
One of the great features that carried over from the previous game is the crafting system. Here you will find blueprints that will combine different weapons and items to decimate the zombie horde. You can even create incredibly original vehicles. Armored truck with a shotgun? I’ll take it! Granted, there are some weapons that feel underdeveloped compared to others, but I had a lot of fun mixing and matching different items and discovering my personal favorites.
The biggest complaint I had with the game was the world you play in. The ways the game blocks you from different paths don’t make much sense. Take, for example, many times I tried to reach a goal in the world and was literally right there, but a wall blocked my way. I had to drive all over the game world to get to a place I could have easily gotten to if the design was better. It was getting more and more frustrating as it happened quite a bit.
Another negative I had with Dead Rising 3 was the severe lack of difficulty. Okay, after you finish the game, you can play it again in an almost impossible environment, but the game in normal conditions didn’t really challenge me as a player. I never really felt in danger throughout my game. This is saying something since he was surrounded by about 10,000 zombies almost constantly.
Graphically, the game doesn’t impress other than the sheer number of enemies on screen and the frame rate stuttered quite a bit throughout the experience. It wasn’t terribly terrible by any means, but it’s very noticeable when you’re fighting a large crowd of infected. It can be even worse when you have a friend joining via Xbox Live and you’re both hacking into a big zombie gathering.
Other aspects of the game include side quests, finding human survivors, and my personal favorite, the human boss characters: the psychos. All encounters with psychopaths are unique and actually made me laugh out loud at how ridiculous they were. My favorite was Darlene, the crazy boss of the lunch buffet who attacked you with her electric scooter. These just added more content to the experience and are always the highlight with the Dead Rising series.
The real question of the day is whether you should try the game. The answer is yes, but I think many players will change the game after finishing it. There isn’t too much playable content after you beat the game and harder settings that you unlock later. One can only be satisfied for so long beating zombies with cash registers and RC cars. Multiplayer is limited and some players will be frustrated paying full retail price for a game that they may not keep after finishing it. That said, big launch games are rare and for Xbox One this is the best option in terms of first-party options.
