Will the Dead Rise Again for 2009?
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My spidey senses tell me yes, FINALLY. After a few grueling years of waiting, and taking in rumors, I was almost sure that we would NEVER see a sequel to one of my all time favorite titles, Capcom’s “Dead Rising”. An acquaintance at my local Gamestop informed me of a lawsuit initiated by George A. Romero against Capcom, claiming that the game’s setting and theme were copied from his famous horror film “Dawn of the Dead”. Now, I’m a huge fan of his films but lately, the new titles have sort of lost their charm such as Diary of the Dead. It’s okay to watch maybe once, but that’s all. This suit kind of sounded to me like he was running out of funds. I could in a rather large way see the similarity between the game and the film. However, in doing some research on 1up.com, I was pleased to see that U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg “has not identified any similarity between Dead Rising and any protected element of Dawn of the Dead”. He goes on to explain that the few similarities the company has alleged are driven by the wholly unprotectable concept of humans battling zombies in a mall.
Months before performing the research, my source did inform me that there was a possibility of the game continuing under a different developer. I recently checked around to see how the game was coming, or if it was at all, and saw that IGN.com reported that Chris Kramer, director of public relations of Capcom Entertainment states, “There has been no official announcement of a sequel to Dead Rising, any rumors of an official announcement are erroneous”. When questioned if there would be a sequel at all, he continued to state that they have made no announcements of one…sounds fishy to me! I did some more snooping around and BADABING! DeadRising2.net!
There was a post in February stating that Capcom did in fact officially confirm that DR2 will arrive for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC. There are screenshots and trailers leaked, and in taking a look at the shots, not much is different. Which I’m relieved to see as the game IS in fact being released under a different developer by the name of Blue Castle Games, the same company to bring us “The Bigs” and “MLB 2008″. Deadrising.net states that much like the first game, “Players will once again slaughter their way through thousands upon thousands of the living dead, using a plethora of weapons to butcher them. This time, however, instead of battling zombies in a shopping mall like the original Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2 takes place in a Las Vegas-inspired city loaded with casinos and flesh eating blackjack dealers and zombified showgirls”. Showgirls! Hooray for zombie smut once again! Capcom states that DR2 will take the franchise to a “new level of zombie-killing fun with tens of thousands of zombies, and a chance to kill them in fun ways in the gaming paradise of Fortune City”.
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Deadrising2.net goes on to inform us that, “DR2 is set several years after the zombie invasion of Willamette, Co. Unfortunately, Capcom tells us, that the zombie virus was not contained at the end of the first game and spread unchecked throughout the U.S. DR2 depicts a country where zombie outbreaks continue to strike”. One new weapon I had the pleasure of viewing was a giant-display cell phone, and a giant ball cage you can climb into and roll around! I can’t wait to see what else we have available! I managed to grab a glimpse of a few seconds of the game, in which I saw the cage in action, which they call the “hamster ball”, and some of the casino. We should all be excited. It’s still up in the air, however, whether our beloved photographer, Frank, is in this new game.
For those Wii wielding gamers out there with the same kind of zombie itch I have, there was a revisitation of Dead Rising released for the Nintendo Wii called “Chop Till You Drop”. Gamespot.com said it best about this new version, “DR: Chop Till You Drop is like a film adaptation of a classic book. It resembles the original in the most important ways, but a few drastic changes have made it something of it’s own.” Basically, have you ever read a simply bad ass Stephen King book, and then bought the movie and were wildly disappointed? Same concept. The previously visually-pleasing graphics were sacrificed, and as Gamespot goes on to state, “CTYD seems like it has a one-step-forward, two-steps-back design. The developers fixed a number of issues from the 360 version, but created more in the process. One of the most common complaints leveled at the original game was that it’s single-save system caused unnecessary frustration.” I can CERTAINLY vouch for that! “With only one save slot, rescuing ever person and completing every mission took some considerable time-management skills, and consequently multiple play-throughs were almost a must.” This is very true, it was a big problem I had with the game, especially, like they said, trying to save EVERYONE while completing the missions in time. And the way I am, I like to attempt to obtain ridiculous achievements. If you add me on Xbox Live and check my stats, you’ll see I’ve killed 10,000 zombies. This was by no means an easy attempt.
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Apparently the Wii version of the game gives you multiple save slots, thank you, but it also ditches the hectic seat-of-your-pants flow for a more manageable, linear structure. Gamespot states that the multiple save system is nice but not necessary given that you’ll tackle each mission at one time, in the 360 version, you’re juggling many missions at once which was a particular feature I liked. In CTYD, it requires constant trips to and from the security room to pick up new missions rather than receiving them via walkie talkie. I would imagine this is rather annoying, considering the map for this game is absolutely gargantuan…better find some quickstep! There are some good aspects of the game, such as new enemies. Particularly my favorite are the grenade-dropping parrots, however, many features were lost or not as useful in this game; for example, Frank has lost the ability to jump.
Back to the original source for this seven am rant, there has been no actual set-in-stone release date for Dead Rising 2. But I expect to see it sometime late this year, along with Dead Island, which I am also much anticipating especially since it’s been pushed back I don’t know HOW many times. In Dead Island, you are trapped on some sort of tourist island and I believe your wife has been captured. Other than those details, I’m sure it follows the same zombie outbreak flow every living dead type game would have. For one last side-note, I’m still looking around for the release of the new Left 4 Dead maps, which is supposedly an exact replica of Crossroads Mall from Dawn of the Dead. Poor Romero, you just can’t catch a break! You can find a video of the maps in the works on youtube.com.
I can haz brainz for breakfast?
-Miss Genocide
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