Dead Rising 3 Video Game Review

Final Verdict - Definitely Worth Playing

Tried and true the Zombie Apocalypse is forever a welcome plot no matter the media. From books, to movies to even video game; everyone loves a good zombie killing spree. Back again with another video game review for you, a review that almost didn't happen cause my computers power supply almost died on me this week. Thankfully due to my awesome techie prowess in PC repair I "macgyver'd"  it back to working condition. So I guess ill be picking up a spare power supply this Black Friday. Lets jump into this review of Dead Rising 3....

Dead Rising 3 (デッドライジング 3 Deddo Raijingu 3?) is a 2013 open world action survival horror video game developed by Capcom Vancouver and published by Microsoft Studios.[1] It was released as a launch title for the Xbox One platform on November 22, 2013. The game was announced as an Xbox One exclusive during Microsoft's E3 2013 press conference on June 10, 2013 but has since been released as a Microsoft Windows port released on September 5, 2014. Dead Rising 3 is set in a vast, open world environment which is much larger than the worlds of Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2 combined. Dead Rising 3 expands upon the crafting system introduced in Dead Rising 2. Players retain the ability to create "combo weapons", but without the need for a workbench, allowing them to craft weapons and even vehicles on the fly. Dead Rising 3 offers two player cooperative gameplay. Co-op play is entered seamlessly in all game modes with the exception of an explicit single player mode. In all other modes (Casual, Completionist, Speed Run, Hardcore) players may be paired with a second player seamlessly at any time should a match be found. The primary player continues as Nick Ramos while the secondary player assumes the role of Dick, a trucker who survives the outbreak.

What’s Good:

Graphics: As is the norm the PC version far exceeds what it console counterpart brings to the table. The character models and level designs spring to life with the detail and vibrancy that one would expect to see on PC.  A proprietary engine called the Forge engine was used so the team at Capcom Vancouver could realize their expanded vision for the series.

Story-line: Being the third iteration in the series Capcom decided to go in a different direction somewhat and introduces a new protagonist called Nick Ramos. The story follows a young mechanic named Nick Ramos and his attempt to survive a massive zombie outbreak in the fictional city of Los Perdidos, California. During which time he meets and interacts with a wide variety of survivors and zombies. This enables anyone to pick up the game without feeling alienated for not knowing the back story of the other two games.

Game Mechanics: Crafting plays an integral role in the progression and difficulty of the overall game. Blueprints scattered across the open world help you build improved weaponry and vehicles to make your fight against the Zombie Apocalypse much less of a struggle. Because of this side missions and map exploration are encouraged without being actively forced on the player. This leads to more Zombie kills as well that will help level up the player to improve his various skills using points gained from leveling up.

Replay: With the newly released DLC titled Super Ultra Dead Rising 3′ Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha and the various game modes and endings to unlock there is no need to question replay value.

Soundtrack: The overall pacing and tone is well suited to the Zombie Apocalypse not to mention all the quirky sound effects and voice overs.

What Should Have Been Added:

Just for shits and giggles maybe a create a character mode would have been a good fit for this game given the wide variety of items available in game to alter Nicks overall appearance.

Final Thoughts:

Overall its a great game and I had always wanted to try out this series but could never find myself playing it on console. Glad to see that Microsoft and Capcom wised up and decided to release this on PC as well. My only complaint about this game is primarily the map and navigation system. It can be a bit cumbersome to traverse at times. It would have been nice to maybe have a proper way-point navigation system. There is also a pesky 30 FPS cap found in the PC version remnants of being ported over from Xbox One I guess but thankfully it cane be fixed relatively easy. I wouldn't recommend doing this however unless you have a pretty beefy computer that can pull its own weight specs wise. (Create a text file and rename it to “user.ini”, then paste in: “gmpcr_unlock_frame_rate = True” with no quotes. Place it in the same folder as deadrising3.exe before running the game.) With that being said I leave you this game-play footage with commentary for your entertainment...

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A Return To Former Glory or Something Else Entirely?

Game Mechanics - 1/2

Story-line - 1.5/2

Graphics - 2/2

Soundtrack - 1.5/2

Replay Value - 2/2

 Total Score - 8/10

Its Friday so you know its time for a new video game review. Trying to clear up some of the back log of games I have to review so even though this isn't a fresh release it just recently debut on the PC. From Raccoon City to the depths of Umbrella corp we have traversed the vast universe of Resident Evil on multiple generations of platforms. Today we check out the latest installation in the series Resident Evil 6. The question on everyone's mind is "How does it stack up against the earlier releases that garnered it its fan following?" Come along and see how it fares...

Resident Evil 6, known as Biohazard 6 in Japan, is an action-adventure third-person shooter video game in the Resident Evil series, developed and published by Capcom. The story is told from the perspectives of Chris Redfield, a former member and founder of the BSAA traumatized by a failed operation, Leon S. Kennedy, a Raccoon City survivor and agent for the U.S. government, Jake Muller, illegitimate son of Albert Wesker and associate of Sherry Birkin, and Ada Wong, a freelance agent framed for the bio-terrorist attacks by Neo-Umbrella. They must all confront the force behind a massive bio-terrorist attack with the newly developed C-virus in cities across the world. Resident Evil 6 allows players to select between three scenarios with connected story-lines, each with their own intentionally different design. The player characters from each scenario will have their own partners which are controlled by either the computer AI or another human player via local or online multi-player.

What’s Good:

Graphics: Definitely Resident Evil has come a long way in term of graphics; especially from what I have seen here on the PC version I played. Textures are smooth and well blended, hair detail and skin colors are definitely above average. Capcom did a fine job bringing Resident evil into this current generation of gaming from the the character models to the environments you can see the attention to detail.

Replay Value: This game will have you playing for hours upon hours on end. There is certainly no shortage of content in this game. Each campaign is broken into varying chapters and the chapters have sub chapters as well. Couple that with both online or local play and going further to factor in the skills that can be bought which you will need skill points to buy you will definitely not be going out anytime soon once you start playing this game. There is just so much content you honestly don't know who you should start off with first.

What’s Bad:

Game Mechanics: I don't know whether its the clunky movement, the occasional camera angle issues or just the annoyance of being forced to walk when I really want to run but something feels off about these aspects of the game mechanics. Don't even get me started on randomly tripping over bodies on the floor for some strange reason. I saw strange because I really don't see how having that in the game was an effective game design choice but whatever. 

What Should Have Been Added:

With how the game is structured I hope they Add other characters from the Resident Evil franchise as DLC and have intertwining campaigns as such helping to fully tell the story of how every thing happens and got to the state it is in currently.

Final Thoughts:

While the series may not be living up to the legacy set by the original Resident Evil series, this new direction that Resident Evil is venturing into is not completely a bad thing. The have definitely improved upon their initial effort to take the game in this direction from Resident Evil 5. I most definitely did not enjoy playing that at all but this game feels much better than its predecessor  So definitely don't write this game off quite yet, Capcom has done a decent job modernizing and structuring the ebb and flow of the game to cater to a wider and more diverse audience now. Not to mention even with the changes to the usual game flow we still see elements of the original games present in the game. ie. scarcity of items and bullets. Check out our introductory play-through and see if it appeals enough to you to wanna try it out.

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