Well, it's been a while since the last Miracle's Whip, I have been too broke to buy any news games and there hasn't really been anything coming out that interested me, but this was cheap so I said I'd give it a shot. Enjoy!
First things first -Otis is nowhere to be seen. Word has it the cause of death was a group of angry gamers locked him in a room full of ravenous zombies, tied him to a chair, strapped a cellphone to his ear and harassed him with phone calls as he was agonisingly ripped into pixelated mincemeat. Somewhere Frank West is cracking a weary smile.
Dead Rising: Case Zero is an anomaly in the world of DLC in that it has been released as a prequel as opposed to a post-adventure add-on. It's not quite a demo (at 400 MS points it wouldn't want to be) and it's not quite an expansion. It sits somewhere between the two, and is a format we will likely be seeing more of in the future. Opening with a surprisingly touching and well acted cutscene, we meet Chuck Greene, a mechanic and motor fanatic whose daughter has been bitten by a zombie. She needs regular injections of the anti-zombification drug 'Zombrex' (which sounds more like an undead contraceptive) every 12 hours to keep her human. When Chuck's truck is stolen along with all the drugs we are conveniently stranded at a tool filled garage, giving us our two MacGuffins: more drugs for Katie and motorbike pieces for Chuck to assemble into an escape vehicle.
I had some scary memories resurface when I saw that text, and they weren't of zombies.
After this cut-scene is where the game will make many players' hearts sink and a select few get very excited. You are told that you must accomplish your tasks - with a time limit. This was probably the most divisive element of the first game; some players loved the tension, others (like me) found it ruined the entire experience for them as the game was more like a stressful, micro-managed chore than something fun and enjoyable. I'm not going to debate whether or not the timer is a good thing, personally I hated it and it led straight into the game's second major problem - the levelling system that requires playing through the entire thing numerous times to get the proper ending and final missions. Listen up, Capcom. Re-playability means having the option to go through a game again with different ways of playing and experiencing it, such as Fallout 3 or Mass Effect 2. Making gamers repeat exactly the same short missions 3 to 4 times is not only padding, it's a dick move, it's repetition and we don't like it.
The multiple playthrough mechanic would not be such a problem were the missions more varied, but as it is our protagonist is once again a human Yo-Yo. Every single mission in the game (bar one) involves leaving the safe-house, sitting through an excruciatingly long loading screen, running (at about the speed of a turtle who's been hit with a stun grenade) up the ugly, orange street to fetch an item, stopping by to pick up survivors (optional but also kind of essential for building XP), then running back to the safe-house before the timer runs out and watching another long-ass loading screen. That's it. That's the entire game. Oh, and you dodge some zombies while you're running up and down the street. Surely there are are more imaginative and varied ways to exploit a zombie apocalypse than running back and forth up the same street between the safe-house and the 6 ingredients for your MacGuffin pie?
'It was like he wuz wearin' some kinda suit... like a Edgar suit!'
As with the first game, Chuck can use many things in the environment as weapons. This is where the fun lies, in experimenting with the wacky and often hilarious animations for each weapon. Combat basically involves mashing 'X' over and over, but somehow it's rather compelling. Stabbing zombies in the face with scissors or mashing their heads with a crowbar is satisfying and fun, it's just a pity you're always in too much of a rush to actually just fart around and enjoy it for a while. Certain weapons can be combined too, which is a neat idea. My favorite was the spiked baseball bat, which had a sickenly brutal special move.
The controls can frustrate, as can the camera. Too often you will be grabbed form behind by a zombie you didn't know was there. In one mission near the beginning of the game I was tasked with wheeling a large wheelie bin down the street back to the safe-house with a bike part in it. The controls were extra shonky in this section, as the bin could only be pushed forward using the attack button. Chuck kept picking it up instead of getting behind it, and when he did finally start wheeling it I drove into a wall which ended up with more frustration, as there is no mechanic for dragging it backwards, you must pick it up, turn to the exact direction you need to be moving then put it down, run around the back of it try to grab it again, at which point the 300 zombies tearing at Chuck will usually have overwhelmed him. Jumping and platforming is glitchy and imprecise with some broken looking animations. One thing that has been vastly improved is the aiming. Guns and throwable objects feel much more intuitive now, with the good old Gears/Resi 5 third person formula of Left trigger to aim and Right Trigger to fire.
Hey Chuck, the Bride called. She wants her stuff back.
Escorting survivors is still a repetitive drag but nowhere near as hair-pullingly frustrating as in the first game. People always argue 'but it was optional!' I don't accept that... optional things in games should still be fun, especially in games that are so stingy with their XP. Thankfully, the survivors are now a bit more capable of bashing the undead hordes away, and there is a handy carry mechanic that lets you kick zombies which is usually the best option for wounded survivors. It could have done without the friendly fire though, once they get crowded there is no good tactic for saving them without getting a few hits in on them yourself. ONce saved, there is no interaction with them, they are just more tools in the garage.
I was almost about to forgive the escort missions until one of them robbed me of my most important item without the game telling me it had done so. Because the conversations are all done through text as opposed to cut-scenes, look away for one moment and you will fail to realise that yummy MacGuffin pie you were baking is now spoiled and you will have to start the entire story over again when it ends. I cannot fathom how such a design choice was left in the game.
Other minor niggles got to me too. A frame-rate that often could not keep up with the amount of zombies the engine tried to show off. Ugly, badly textured environments. Badly rendered hair. Sound bytes and dialogue that repeated infinitely in head-wrecking loops. It all added up to make the whole experience seem pretty underwhelming, especially noticeable considering Dead Rising 1 had presentation and environmental graphics better than almost anything else on the console market at the time. The save system has been improved and made more forgiving (except, maddeningly, before one important and difficult section) which was a welcome addition.
This is a hard one to judge, as a lot of the things I hated about it, some gamers may love. The question I find myself asking is 'Does it make you want to buy the full game?' Well, put it this way... if the first game didn't appeal to you, then this won't either. It's pretty much exactly the same thing, a bit more playable but not as pretty. I know I for one won't be buying the full game when it is released and I probably would have, had I not played Case Zero first.
Miracle's Whip - Dead Rising: Case Zero
First things first -Otis is nowhere to be seen. Word has it the cause of death was a group of angry gamers locked him in a room full of ravenous zombies, tied him to a chair, strapped a cellphone to his ear and harassed him with phone calls as he was agonisingly ripped into pixelated mincemeat. Somewhere Frank West is cracking a weary smile.
Dead Rising: Case Zero is an anomaly in the world of DLC in that it has been released as a prequel as opposed to a post-adventure add-on. It's not quite a demo (at 400 MS points it wouldn't want to be) and it's not quite an expansion. It sits somewhere between the two, and is a format we will likely be seeing more of in the future. Opening with a surprisingly touching and well acted cutscene, we meet Chuck Greene, a mechanic and motor fanatic whose daughter has been bitten by a zombie. She needs regular injections of the anti-zombification drug 'Zombrex' (which sounds more like an undead contraceptive) every 12 hours to keep her human. When Chuck's truck is stolen along with all the drugs we are conveniently stranded at a tool filled garage, giving us our two MacGuffins: more drugs for Katie and motorbike pieces for Chuck to assemble into an escape vehicle.
I had some scary memories resurface when I saw that text, and they weren't of zombies.
After this cut-scene is where the game will make many players' hearts sink and a select few get very excited. You are told that you must accomplish your tasks - with a time limit. This was probably the most divisive element of the first game; some players loved the tension, others (like me) found it ruined the entire experience for them as the game was more like a stressful, micro-managed chore than something fun and enjoyable. I'm not going to debate whether or not the timer is a good thing, personally I hated it and it led straight into the game's second major problem - the levelling system that requires playing through the entire thing numerous times to get the proper ending and final missions. Listen up, Capcom. Re-playability means having the option to go through a game again with different ways of playing and experiencing it, such as Fallout 3 or Mass Effect 2. Making gamers repeat exactly the same short missions 3 to 4 times is not only padding, it's a dick move, it's repetition and we don't like it.
The multiple playthrough mechanic would not be such a problem were the missions more varied, but as it is our protagonist is once again a human Yo-Yo. Every single mission in the game (bar one) involves leaving the safe-house, sitting through an excruciatingly long loading screen, running (at about the speed of a turtle who's been hit with a stun grenade) up the ugly, orange street to fetch an item, stopping by to pick up survivors (optional but also kind of essential for building XP), then running back to the safe-house before the timer runs out and watching another long-ass loading screen. That's it. That's the entire game. Oh, and you dodge some zombies while you're running up and down the street. Surely there are are more imaginative and varied ways to exploit a zombie apocalypse than running back and forth up the same street between the safe-house and the 6 ingredients for your MacGuffin pie?
'It was like he wuz wearin' some kinda suit... like a Edgar suit!'
As with the first game, Chuck can use many things in the environment as weapons. This is where the fun lies, in experimenting with the wacky and often hilarious animations for each weapon. Combat basically involves mashing 'X' over and over, but somehow it's rather compelling. Stabbing zombies in the face with scissors or mashing their heads with a crowbar is satisfying and fun, it's just a pity you're always in too much of a rush to actually just fart around and enjoy it for a while. Certain weapons can be combined too, which is a neat idea. My favorite was the spiked baseball bat, which had a sickenly brutal special move.
The controls can frustrate, as can the camera. Too often you will be grabbed form behind by a zombie you didn't know was there. In one mission near the beginning of the game I was tasked with wheeling a large wheelie bin down the street back to the safe-house with a bike part in it. The controls were extra shonky in this section, as the bin could only be pushed forward using the attack button. Chuck kept picking it up instead of getting behind it, and when he did finally start wheeling it I drove into a wall which ended up with more frustration, as there is no mechanic for dragging it backwards, you must pick it up, turn to the exact direction you need to be moving then put it down, run around the back of it try to grab it again, at which point the 300 zombies tearing at Chuck will usually have overwhelmed him. Jumping and platforming is glitchy and imprecise with some broken looking animations. One thing that has been vastly improved is the aiming. Guns and throwable objects feel much more intuitive now, with the good old Gears/Resi 5 third person formula of Left trigger to aim and Right Trigger to fire.
Hey Chuck, the Bride called. She wants her stuff back.
Escorting survivors is still a repetitive drag but nowhere near as hair-pullingly frustrating as in the first game. People always argue 'but it was optional!' I don't accept that... optional things in games should still be fun, especially in games that are so stingy with their XP. Thankfully, the survivors are now a bit more capable of bashing the undead hordes away, and there is a handy carry mechanic that lets you kick zombies which is usually the best option for wounded survivors. It could have done without the friendly fire though, once they get crowded there is no good tactic for saving them without getting a few hits in on them yourself. ONce saved, there is no interaction with them, they are just more tools in the garage.
I was almost about to forgive the escort missions until one of them robbed me of my most important item without the game telling me it had done so. Because the conversations are all done through text as opposed to cut-scenes, look away for one moment and you will fail to realise that yummy MacGuffin pie you were baking is now spoiled and you will have to start the entire story over again when it ends. I cannot fathom how such a design choice was left in the game.
Other minor niggles got to me too. A frame-rate that often could not keep up with the amount of zombies the engine tried to show off. Ugly, badly textured environments. Badly rendered hair. Sound bytes and dialogue that repeated infinitely in head-wrecking loops. It all added up to make the whole experience seem pretty underwhelming, especially noticeable considering Dead Rising 1 had presentation and environmental graphics better than almost anything else on the console market at the time. The save system has been improved and made more forgiving (except, maddeningly, before one important and difficult section) which was a welcome addition.
Overall Opinion:
This is a hard one to judge, as a lot of the things I hated about it, some gamers may love. The question I find myself asking is 'Does it make you want to buy the full game?' Well, put it this way... if the first game didn't appeal to you, then this won't either. It's pretty much exactly the same thing, a bit more playable but not as pretty. I know I for one won't be buying the full game when it is released and I probably would have, had I not played Case Zero first.
Night Of The Living Dead:
Good voice acting and cut-scenes
Neat, involving story
Mashing zombies is fun
Combining weapons
Improved aiming
Lots of save points
Gangs of the Dead:
Horrible graphics
Lots of slowdown
Looping dialogue
Text instead of VA in-game
Yo-Yo mission structure
Escort missions
The timer
Wonky controls
Forced multiple playthroughs
VERDICT:
You can't rent from XBL, so I'm going to have to go with Avoid.
Good voice acting and cut-scenes
Neat, involving story
Mashing zombies is fun
Combining weapons
Improved aiming
Lots of save points
Gangs of the Dead:
Horrible graphics
Lots of slowdown
Looping dialogue
Text instead of VA in-game
Yo-Yo mission structure
Escort missions
The timer
Wonky controls
Forced multiple playthroughs
VERDICT:
You can't rent from XBL, so I'm going to have to go with Avoid.
