Dead Rising 4 Review

A series back from the dead?

Dead Rising has always seemed to have mixed fortunes with audiences, even if they have been generally well received critically. With a return to original protagonist Frank West, can Capcom recapture the spirit of the original?

Story:

It’s been over a decade since the first game, and Frank West is all washed up, no longer the ‘hero of Willamette’. Old, jaded and tired of life, ‘Hank East’ is now a simple photography teacher at a school. ‘Zombism’ has been cured, and there’s no place in the world for relics like Frank. But when one of his students pulls him into a reporting gig, he finds evidence of zombies being experimented on, and then, on Black Friday, there is a zombie attack at the opening of the Willamette memorial mall, he’s brought back in by the government to investigate the situation.

The story is pretty much the best part of the game, gloriously silly in nature for the most part, whilst still making a few cutting remarks about the state of society. The ‘new’ Frank West may not be quite as bumbling and loveable as the West of a decade ago, but whilst a slightly darker character, still has plenty of great one-liners and humorous banter to make him a good lead character. The only issue I have with the plot is the ending – which I won’t spoil – but it locks up the game world, which is something I loathe in open world games.

Gameplay:

Capcom Vancouver have chosen to not really mess with the part of the game where you kill mountains of zombies – you can carry a number of melee, ranged and thrown items, all of which have limited ammo or durability – but the best way to kill things is to make combo weapons. There’s a huge number of these to find around the open world (over 60), and whilst many are similar (or the same) as weapons in previous games, there’s no doubt that the exercise of killing the undead is as fun and ridiculous as ever. By the end of the game I could easily get 500+ combos of the shambling corpses in one go!

Capcom have taken the axe to many other parts of the game though in order to brutally streamline many aspects of the series which were once integral to it. There’s not even the rudimentary timer of the last game, whilst Zombrex is also gone. The skill trees have been simplified, and you can even get regenerating health via one of the routes as well. Photography is still part of the game, but beyond a specific achievement and certain areas of the game that force you to use the camera, there’s actually very little in-game use. Even when you do have to bring it out, it feels pretty contrived and overly-simplified. Some of these things aren’t all bad. The first game was a pretty niche title, and felt very Japanese. Personally I always hated the timer and having to restart the whole game anyway.

But there are certain parts of the game which have been changed for the worse. You now no longer have to escort survivors or go on relatively complex side-missions with them. You just complete a small event around where you find them and that’s it. Psychopaths have been dumbed down completely, presenting little to no challenge, and there’s also no introductory cut-scene for them.