Evil Dead television series, but in the same wheelhouse.īetter or worse than Christmas with the family? A Reason For The Season - Gameplay
Not as over-the-top as the current Ash vs. It's an interesting balancing line for the game's overall story and one that actually works out pretty well.
("I though that would work.") West is full of an endless bravado that's not actually backed up by his abilities. There's an early scene where he tries to escape from Park by throwing a chair at a window, only to have the chair harmlessly bounce off. West is painted as an old timer and a bit of a screw-up. The overall story is still serious, but it's punctuated by moments of dark humor. Frank West and Nick Ramos just wanted to survive and Chuck Greene wanted to save his daughter. Dead Rising 2 leaned into the gameplay a bit, but otherwise, they're these wacky games that try to tell their stories in a straight-faced manner. Frank tries to save himself from fighting zombies.ĭead Rising has always had this tension between what you can do in the game itself and the overall story it's trying to tell.
It's up to Frank to get in there, figure out what's up, find Vicky, and kill some zombies. ZDC operative Brad Park draws Frank back in with a living carrot: young activist journalist Vicky is in Willamette trying to get the story of a lifetime. The story jumps forward a few months and Frank is hiding - as wedding photography teacher Hank East - from the Feds. One of his students, Vicky Chu, draws Frank into the shadowy dealings of a secret group experimenting on zombies and in the course of showing her the ropes, Frank West becomes public enemy number one. He fought his zombies and covered his wars he's out. The opening of the game shows Frank West as a retired Professor of journalism. The latter is Frank's motivation for returning to Zombietown, USA. There's cell phones and newspapers detailing life in Willamette in the early stages of the outbreak, or recordings from one of Frank's students detailing her whereabouts in the city. Use your camera to find hidden hand prints and safe codes. There are secrets hidden away: find a key in one spot, and it'll open a treasure trove or panic room in another (everyone has zombie panic rooms in Willamette now). In armor and a sombero with a burning sword? Yep, that's Dead Rising. You'll come across a horde of zombies, but there are also the soldiers from the secret organization Obscuris, other hostile humans, and survivors. There are a ton of a weapons, a modest selection of vehicles, and various clothing items to find in the stores and homes of Willamette. Like Dead Rising 3, Capcom Vancouver has spent a lot of time populating the open-world of Dead Rising 4 with a things to find. Dead Rising 4 isn't constrained to the mall though, as it splits its time between the shopping megaplex and the town of Willamette. On Black Friday, the biggest of sales holidays, folks flocked to the mall's grand opening for the best of deals only to fall to the worst deal of all: zombie outbreak. The mall was the setting of the first Dead Rising, but here it has been rebuilt and revamped as something closer to the immense Mall of America. Instead of a zombie game show in faux-Las Vegas or an outbreak in not-Los Angeles, Dead Rising 4 returns to Willamette, Colorado.
After two other embittered everymen up against hordes of the undead, Capcom Vancouver has returned to Frank West. Dead Rising 4 is an odd game, moving away from the series' roots while looking back to the first game in the series.