At the time when the series premiered in 2006, it would've been hard to believe that that Dead Rising would still be going strong over a decade later with its fourth installment. While the franchise gained a kickstart with witty photographer/journalist Frank West during the initial zombie outbreak in Willamette, Colorado, the second and third games made way for protagonists Chuck Greene and Nick Ramos respectively. Now, with Capcom heavily pushing the idea of going back to the series' roots, Frank West has made his return, and so has the town and infamous mall of Willamette.
The game takes place 16 years after the events of the first Dead Rising, and a mere year after the outbreak in Dead Rising 3; the year is now 2022, during early December, and Frank is now a 52 year old college professor. After being tricked into revisiting Willamette by one of his students, Vick, the duo soon discover that the town is being used by the military as a massive zombie research facility. The pair escape, only for Frank to be approached by a ZDC agent known as Brad Park, who then convinces Frank to return once more to Willamette to investigate a new zombie outbreak that began on Black Friday. Frank's incentive? To have his name cleared and also to gain exclusive rights to the entire story.
Dead Rising 4 is a game that you're either going to love or hate due to a plethora of contributing factors. Many purists are upset at the fact that Frank's voice actor has been changed, and many are unhappy about his new Bill Murray meets Michael De Santa character model. The dialogue is just as cheesy as it has ever been, and the seven chapter story isn't overly captivating, but it all gets the job done for a game that centers around mindless zombie slaughter. Another huge change is the removal of the 72 hour timer, which gets rid of unnecessary in-game stress and allows for an abundance of exploration leisure time. Capcom have also done away with all post-completion modes, as well as the highly favored co-op mode that was present in the last two titles.
Instead of campaign co-op, this title features a multiplayer mode that can be done either solo or with 3 other people. It has four distinct episodes, wherein you and your buddies must kill X amount of zombies and complete various, menial tasks. In order to unlock combo weapons you need to complete trials, and you also gain PP to level up and distribute skill points as you do in the main game. Honestly, it's a very mundane addition to the series, and most players would've rather had co-op once again. In the future, Capcom should note to sticking with their campaign for this series and not venture into the unneeded multiplayer world.
Along with the aforementioned changes, Capcom decided to nuke the well known Psychos from all of the previous titles. Long gone are the crazy, unique Psychos that we have even come to know and love by name, instead replaced with generic Maniacs that have no personality of their own. Even many of the bosses that are faced in Dead Rising 4 feel commonplace and they are without the eccentric personalities that made the series what it is today. Instead, we've been given "mutated" zombies, such as the fresh zombies which are faster than the normal ones, and evolved zombies that are even faster than the fresh ones. Around the town, you will also find various military personnel who have it out for you, with two special types being the EXO Suit military dudes and the flamethrower guys.
Returning with the new release are combo weapons and vehicles and their respective blueprints. While some old favorites, such as the sledgesaw, return, most of these craftables are new, including the introduction of element-based items such as the flame sword, ice sword, and various weapons and vehicles that shoot snowballs. Many of the new items are based on holiday festivity, such as a wreathe that shocks zombies, a grenade launcher that jingles bells while shooting ornaments, and my personal favorite... a nutcracker helmet that shoots bullets while playing the nutcracker theme. Needless to say, the weapons are both fun and inspired, although the vehicles are rather lackluster; save for the go carts and their combinations.
One of the innovations that Capcom has pushed with Dead Rising for is the new EXO Suit, which is basically mechanized armor that allows you to pick up heavier weapons like a giant axe, Gatling gun, and road signs, as well as find power-ups to transform the suit into an unstoppable zombie killing machine. The suit is just okay, and it's nothing to rave about, the biggest downside is that it just doesn't last long enough; in most non-story scenarios, the EXO Suit lasts for a couple of minutes at best after equipping it, and once its power depletes you also lose the upgrade that you found for it. Just like any other weapon in the game, it simply breaks and then ceases to exist at all until you find the next.
Willamette is no longer just limited to the mall, and now you have free reign of the entire town which is split up into four sections. There's plenty to do so long as you are interested in completing trials, collecting blueprints, and gathering collectibles like newspapers, iPods, and cellphones. There are also random events that occur, but there are only four types; save the survivor from the zombies, save the survivor from the military, loot the military cache, and destroy the military equipment. While these events give you a good amount of PP that will help you level up fast, to the cap of 100, the only ones that are really worth doing are the ones with survivors... so long as you haven't completely upgraded your four safe-houses yet. Yes, each section of Willamette has its own safe-house where you can purchase weapons, vehicles, clothing, and collectible location maps, and each are leveled up by saving a certain amount of survivors.
As far as optimization goes, this game has been running like a dream on my i7 6700k + GTX 1080 + 16GB DDR4 3000 RAM (full specs in my profile). With everything on ultra at 1080p, I found myself topping out at around 124 FPS, and seeing a low of 62 FPS, but having an overall average of 85-95 FPS at any given time. However, Capcom have still not ironed out the glitches in this title; more often than not, I found that Frank had lost his voice overs and I would need to exit to the main menu and then load my save to get his voice working again. Also, zombies love to get stuck in the walls and in other objects quite often, making them very hard to kill if they're required to die to say, save a survivor. It doesn't look like Capcom are going to be fixing these minor issues any time soon.
While it's hard to recommend Dead Rising 4, it's also just as difficult to not recommend it. On one hand the game does have a vast amount of content that one can easily sink 20-30 hours into and still not completely finish everything, but on the other hand it's missing some core elements that made the franchise in to what it is today. The removal of the timer is a wonderful change for those who like to do things at their own pace, but Capcom have shot themselves in the foot by getting rid of campaign co-op, as well as not taking the time to create noteworthy enemies. If you're still on the fence as to whether or not to purchase this game, take into account all of the changes that the developer has made and go from there, otherwise I highly recommend waiting for at least a 50% off sale. If you haven't played Dead Rising 3 yet, grab that instead.
Rating: 3.5/5.0 - Average, can take it or leave it.The Horror Network
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