Platform: Xbox One

Developer: Capcom Vancouver

Publisher: Microsoft

Release Date: November 22nd, 2013

Genre: Survival Horror, Beat ’em Up  

Nerd Rating: 8.5 / 10

Reviewed by Rhutsczar

Welcome everyone to the world of Dead Rising 3…well the end currently. In honor of Nerd Bacon’s 3rd level, I decided to jump ahead and join in this three party right as the train is pulling into the station. For those of you new to the Dead Rising franchise, well there isn’t much…EXCEPT PLENTY OF ZOMBIES! Now that I got that out of the way, let’s bring on the zombie mayhem.

Just the right amount of chaos.

Let me put this out there right in the beginning. Except for the original Dead Rising (which was passable at best), none of the other Dead Rising titles had a solid and decent plot. Dead Rising 3 is no exception.

Ten ears have passed since the events of Dead Rising 2′s Fortune City. In Dead Rising 3, you take control of survivor Nick Ramos, a mechanic who is trying to escape the city of Los Perdidos after a zombie outbreak. Sounds pretty generic right? That is because it is! The plot pulls out all of the traditional zombie game tropes. Are there survivors in need of saving? Of course! What about a failed military cleanup or corrupt military officials? Wouldn’t be Dead Rising without it. Unlike the rest of the other games in the franchise, Dead Rising 3 does have alternate endings. If you receive the best ending then you are treated to a nice interesting twist that ties two of the games together. Thank god that the Dead Rising series isn’t about plot and just about murdering hordes of zombies in different ways.

Courtesy of BloodfromHate

Now how does Nick compare to our the other series protagonists, Frank West (Dead Rising) and Chuck Greene (Dead Rising 2)? I would place him directly in the middle. Nick has plenty of charisma, personality, and skills to actually be a protagonist…even if he starts off as rather the whiny bitch early in the story. In comparison to Chuck though, Nick earns the gold star. For those who haven’t played Dead Rising 2, Chuck is a single father that is trying to find Zombrex (a short term cure for the virus) for his daughter. While this gave him some depth, it simply wasn’t enough to save him. Oh, and no one can surpass Frank West. He is the poster boy of the franchise, because “He’s covered wars, ya know.”

Plenty of areas to explore!

One thing the Dead Rising series does really well is that they learn from their mistakes and try to constantly improve in each new title. A big problem for fans of the series is that both Willamette and Fortune City are both relatively small and don’t take much time to explore. That simply isn’t the case in Dead Rising 3, as Los Perdidos is massive in comparison. This isn’t a surprise though, as even the creators of the game mentioned that the city draws inspiration from the real-life city of angels Los Angeles, CA. Now there is so much room for activities…and more zombies.

Originally introduced in Dead Rising 2, combo weapons come back on a much larger scale. For those familiar with the series, you know that the weapon catalog is pretty over the top and ridiculous. When you add Nick’s skills at tinkering, they go from 0 to 11 pretty damn quickly. While fan favorites such as the “Nail Bat” and “Defiler” have made it to the sequel, there are now over 300 different blueprints for combo weapons to create. My personal favorites range from the “Tactical Handgun” (just a flashlight attached to a handgun) and the “Chop ‘N’ Talk” (an axe that speaks every time Nick swings it) to the super combo “Ultimate Grim Reaper” (A scythe that also shoots fireballs).  But wait, there’s more! You no longer have to find a workbench to create said combo weapons, as most of them can be created in your own inventory.

This isn’t going to get bloody at all…

Not only are combo weapons back, now you can make combo vehicles! Since the in-game world of Los Perdidos is much more expansive than that of Fortune City or the Willamette mall, you are going to need some pretty bad ass vehicles to find survivors and flatten zombies along the way. Just to give you an idea, my personal favorite is the “RollerHawg” simply consisting of various parts of a motorcycle and a steam roller. You can even attach a few flamethrowers onto it to take it to the next level. Unlike the majority of the combo weapons, you actually have to be in a garage to make these bad boys.

For those gamers that actually use the Kinect, it actually works pretty damn well with Dead Rising 3. The Kinect works in two different ways depending if you are dealing with a survivor or a zombie. If you have a survivor as your companion, the Kinect will register where you point on the screen and allows you to give commands to the survivor to attack particular zombies. On the other side though, when you have the Kinect active it is much harder to sneak past the horde of undead. While the Kinect is on, it picks up all incoming sounds allowing the zombies to actually hear you coming. While this can be drastic, you can use this to your advantage and yell at zombies to attract them away from an escort.

As one of the launch titles of the Xbox One, Dead Rising 3 was one of the first titles to utilize the Xbox One Smartglass app. You can do quite a bit just from your cellphone while you are playing, but through Smartglass your phone essentially replaces your in-game communicator. You can set way points, receive information about survivors and quests, as well as call in additional survivors when you are in a pinch. While Smartglass is rather under-utilized nowadays, Dead Rising 3 was definitely a solid choice to show off what exactly Smartglass had to offer to the average player.

Dead Rising 4: How Nick and Rhonda got their groove back.

As most gamers know, Dead Rising 3 isn’t the essentially game for everyone (at least this is a common trend in the franchise). Featuring a rather disappointing plot (with an okay twist) and not exactly pushing the Xbox One to its limits, Dead Rising 3 has plenty of mindless zombies for the player can take out their aggression on. Zombie popularity may be on a severe decline and despite the title’s shortcomings, I will take plenty of time to play Dead Rising 3…at least until Frank West is back in Dead Rising 4. 

Still need to finish off your craving for killing? Check out some of Nerd Bacon’s other titles!

• Resident Evil 3: Nemesis by InfiniteKnife
• Dead by Daylight by JusticeScooby
• Dead of Winter on the RBG in Beyond Bacon