Zero Punctuation: Dead Rising 4

[darkrage6]

And so even Dead Rising becomes a dead franchise for me.

Been replaying DR1 on Steam and remembering why it is the best one.

I think that game had a lot of bad design choices, for me 3 is the best one.

Most of the issues people had was because the game had intended challenge and people did not like that. The only complaint I hear that I think was fair is the poor AI which could stand to be fixed. But the single save slot, the time limit, the escorting and difficult bosses all made a fairly challenging survival horror game. Each game after just made it easier and easier, and the games were lesser for it. Sometimes games are about difficulty. It would be like if Dark Souls removed the single file autosave, had souls not disappear after dying without retrieving them, and had everything spoon fed to you.

I liked that and wish they improved the AI and expanded the challenge and survival aspects more. That your level progress carried over should have been enough for most. Worked great for Rogue Legacy.

There was also respawning bosses(stupid fucking convicts, why can't you stay dead?) and not being able to jump or defend yourself while you're talking to people on the radio(and them bitching at you for interrupting them so you don't fucking die, thank fuck Off the Record fixed that bullshit)

I disagree with the whole "challenge" thing, I didn't mind the game being challenging, but the original game was very rough around the edges and had some just straight up bad design choices(enemies with guns being able to stunlock you to death)

I don't buy the whole "Dark Souls" argument, because unlike that series, Dead Rising was never sold on difficulty, it was sold on all the different ways you could kill zombies, I vividly remember the ads in Gameinformer for that game, nothing was mentioned about the game difficulty. So people had every reason to expect the game to be a zombie kill fest.

I agree with Miracle of Sound and Jim Sterling, I don't think the games were "lesser" at all, I think they were better for it, the problem with the difficulty in the original game felt too much like Fake Difficulty a lot of the time because of the bad A.I. and mechanics, that ended up screwing me over far more then the timer ever did.

The whole die and keep your level progress to try again says otherwise.

I think they could have fixed some of the unfair stuff without making it literally easy as fuck. If DR3 did not tie up the plot nicely, I would not have cared for it.

I don't think they made it too easy, and DR3 did kind of leave some loose ends with one character from the previous games in the series(Whose change in character makes no sense, and I was annoyed that DR4 didn't bring that character up at all).

DR3 literally made the default mode with no actual time limit.

And which character?

Isabella.

 

[darkrage6]

This sounds like the first good Dead Rising game. Especially if they got rid of that time limit which had no business in an open-world game.

It wasn't an open world game. It was a survival game set in a mall.

And here's the thing. If you were one of those people who got triggered by the mere existence of the timer, I've got a tip for you.
- Start DR1
- Play until black guy opens grate between entrance hall and plaza.
- Kill black guy.
- Hit continue.
- Have fun killing zombies for the next 5 and a half hours.
- Repeat until you are satisfied/bored.

The timer was only a hindrance if you wanted to complete the main story AND save a lot of people. That was the point, y'know, so that the game's actually challenging? If you ignored the plot and survivors, you could literally fuck about for the entirety of a 6 hour playthrough. Have all the shallow & boring zombie bashing you want.

And DR3 already had a timer in name only, you would have to leave the game running for like 4 days straight for you to run out of time, and you can 100% the game 7 times over by then, at a comfortable pace.

Had Dead Rising continued along the path set by the first game it would up there with Dark Souls as a really distinct style of game that enjoys popularity. DR1&2 already sold millions of copies. But instead they turned it into a generic Ubisoft-knockoff collectathon shitfest with 0 charm or creativity. And the games aren't selling any better for it.

people who unironically use "triggered" as an insult are not the least bit funny or clever, they just sound painfully ignorant and cringeworthy.

Ubisoft games are not "generic" and zombie bashing is not "boring" at all and DR4 has plenty of "charm" and "creativity" and is not a "shitfest" at all.

 

[Saelune]

And so even Dead Rising becomes a dead franchise for me.

Been replaying DR1 on Steam and remembering why it is the best one.

I think that game had a lot of bad design choices, for me 3 is the best one.

Most of the issues people had was because the game had intended challenge and people did not like that. The only complaint I hear that I think was fair is the poor AI which could stand to be fixed. But the single save slot, the time limit, the escorting and difficult bosses all made a fairly challenging survival horror game. Each game after just made it easier and easier, and the games were lesser for it. Sometimes games are about difficulty. It would be like if Dark Souls removed the single file autosave, had souls not disappear after dying without retrieving them, and had everything spoon fed to you.

I liked that and wish they improved the AI and expanded the challenge and survival aspects more. That your level progress carried over should have been enough for most. Worked great for Rogue Legacy.

There was also respawning bosses(stupid fucking convicts, why can't you stay dead?) and not being able to jump or defend yourself while you're talking to people on the radio(and them bitching at you for interrupting them so you don't fucking die, thank fuck Off the Record fixed that bullshit)

I disagree with the whole "challenge" thing, I didn't mind the game being challenging, but the original game was very rough around the edges and had some just straight up bad design choices(enemies with guns being able to stunlock you to death)

I don't buy the whole "Dark Souls" argument, because unlike that series, Dead Rising was never sold on difficulty, it was sold on all the different ways you could kill zombies, I vividly remember the ads in Gameinformer for that game, nothing was mentioned about the game difficulty. So people had every reason to expect the game to be a zombie kill fest.

I agree with Miracle of Sound and Jim Sterling, I don't think the games were "lesser" at all, I think they were better for it, the problem with the difficulty in the original game felt too much like Fake Difficulty a lot of the time because of the bad A.I. and mechanics, that ended up screwing me over far more then the timer ever did.

The whole die and keep your level progress to try again says otherwise.

I think they could have fixed some of the unfair stuff without making it literally easy as fuck. If DR3 did not tie up the plot nicely, I would not have cared for it.

I don't think they made it too easy, and DR3 did kind of leave some loose ends with one character from the previous games in the series(Whose change in character makes no sense, and I was annoyed that DR4 didn't bring that character up at all).

DR3 literally made the default mode with no actual time limit.

And which character?

Isabella.

Supposedly the side-game Case West elaborates on that, but I never played it. I remember being surprised when she showed up in 3.

 

[darkrage6]

I played DR2 and the Timelimit was the biggest annoyance I had with it.
It didn't allow me to properly explore the map for stuff to get - something the game encourages you to do due the whole "Needs Zombrex every 24 hours" stuff. And yet it deliberately sabotages that as well by saying you can only continue the story within the next 3 in-game-hours. Or even worse, you can't do shit towards the story for the next 3 hours then have 2 hours to do it...
So, yes, getting rid of the timelimit was an improvement.

See, that was the point. YOU were the one who had to adhere to the world of Dead Rising, and not the other way around. Things don't wait for you to happen, you are the one who has to judge whether you have enough time to achieve certain goals, and if need be, forego certain events if you managed your time poorly.

You have a set 6 hour timer (72 ingame hours), in which to either uncover the plot, save survivors or fuck about, in any variation of these 3. It is meant to emulate a progression of time in a zombie outbreak, with things deteriorating further every day. The core idea behind this, is that you can carry over your levels, unlocks and in DR2 combo cards every time you start a new game, so instead of an awful'n'generic open-world that takes 18-25 hours to complete, you have a set 6 hour playthrough you would replay about 1-2 times, depending. You are meant to either familiarise yourself with the map, events and timing, so that you can say, complete the main story, while saving most survivors or only fighting psychopaths or just straight up do a playthrough where you just explore and fuck about.

Personally, I didn't really like the zombrex stuff, felt kinda redundant with the cases being at set times, but it was added with a goal in mind. The idea is that you would start searching the strip more thoroughly, to find extra zombrex, so there is further incentive for exploration.

The big breaks between the cases are there for a reason too, as they exist to allow you take a break after longer connected case sequences, and give you an oppurtunity to fuck about or do side quests(rescuing survivors and fighting psychos). It literally gives people time to do their zombie bashing & exploration, something that allegedly the game doesn't allow.

The time limit is literally the reason why the zombies would be a threat. By themselves, it's pretty easy kill them by the hundreds. With the timer however, you can't just spend 3 hours murdering every single zombie to achieve everything, you actually have to carve paths across the hordes, trying to find openings and avenues of progression amid hundreds of zombies, while you have only so much time to save survivors or get to plot triggers. It makes you takes risks, and turns the zombies from fodder, into obstacles you have to resourcefully traverse, otherwise you will be overwhelmed by them very quickly.

It's not like you are forced to save survivors, fight psychopaths or even progress with the story. You'll of course miss out on them on that specific run of the game, but you can mix and match at your leisure. In DR1 you are free to do whatever pretty soon, and the only hard time limit in DR2/OTR is getting a zombrex every 2 hours. That's it.

And OTR literally had a sandbox mode, where you are free to just explore the strip. It did the right thing, and made the primary game be designed around the timer, while adding a secondary mode where you just go around the strip. DR1 had something similar called infinity mode, though you could only unlock it by completing overtime mode and it was more like a hardcore survival mode type thing where you fight every other character in the game and you have to eat food to keep your health from depleting continuously until your death.

Of course, DR3&4 managed to completely fuck everything up and turn these games into another generic, coat of paint open-world game, like the later Far Crys, Mad Max, Mordor and whatever else that is in that vein.

it's not "pathetic mediocrity" at all, open-world games are not "awful" or "generic" at all, they are awesome.

 

[darkrage6]

And so even Dead Rising becomes a dead franchise for me.

Been replaying DR1 on Steam and remembering why it is the best one.

I think that game had a lot of bad design choices, for me 3 is the best one.

Most of the issues people had was because the game had intended challenge and people did not like that. The only complaint I hear that I think was fair is the poor AI which could stand to be fixed. But the single save slot, the time limit, the escorting and difficult bosses all made a fairly challenging survival horror game. Each game after just made it easier and easier, and the games were lesser for it. Sometimes games are about difficulty. It would be like if Dark Souls removed the single file autosave, had souls not disappear after dying without retrieving them, and had everything spoon fed to you.

I liked that and wish they improved the AI and expanded the challenge and survival aspects more. That your level progress carried over should have been enough for most. Worked great for Rogue Legacy.

There was also respawning bosses(stupid fucking convicts, why can't you stay dead?) and not being able to jump or defend yourself while you're talking to people on the radio(and them bitching at you for interrupting them so you don't fucking die, thank fuck Off the Record fixed that bullshit)

I disagree with the whole "challenge" thing, I didn't mind the game being challenging, but the original game was very rough around the edges and had some just straight up bad design choices(enemies with guns being able to stunlock you to death)

I don't buy the whole "Dark Souls" argument, because unlike that series, Dead Rising was never sold on difficulty, it was sold on all the different ways you could kill zombies, I vividly remember the ads in Gameinformer for that game, nothing was mentioned about the game difficulty. So people had every reason to expect the game to be a zombie kill fest.

I agree with Miracle of Sound and Jim Sterling, I don't think the games were "lesser" at all, I think they were better for it, the problem with the difficulty in the original game felt too much like Fake Difficulty a lot of the time because of the bad A.I. and mechanics, that ended up screwing me over far more then the timer ever did.

The whole die and keep your level progress to try again says otherwise.

I think they could have fixed some of the unfair stuff without making it literally easy as fuck. If DR3 did not tie up the plot nicely, I would not have cared for it.

I don't think they made it too easy, and DR3 did kind of leave some loose ends with one character from the previous games in the series(Whose change in character makes no sense, and I was annoyed that DR4 didn't bring that character up at all).

DR3 literally made the default mode with no actual time limit.

And which character?

Isabella.

Supposedly the side-game Case West elaborates on that, but I never played it. I remember being surprised when she showed up in 3.

I did play Case West and it still does not really explain why Isabella suddenly turns all evil for no apparent reason in DR3, I hate it when games turn characters evil for bullshit reasons(Sly Cooper 4 and Army of Two: Devil's Cartel also pulled that shit and it really pissed me off, the latter especially).

Oh well maybe she'll show up in the DLC.

 

[darkrage6]

I played DR2 and the Timelimit was the biggest annoyance I had with it.
It didn't allow me to properly explore the map for stuff to get - something the game encourages you to do due the whole "Needs Zombrex every 24 hours" stuff. And yet it deliberately sabotages that as well by saying you can only continue the story within the next 3 in-game-hours. Or even worse, you can't do shit towards the story for the next 3 hours then have 2 hours to do it...
So, yes, getting rid of the timelimit was an improvement.

See, that was the point. YOU were the one who had to adhere to the world of Dead Rising, and not the other way around. Things don't wait for you to happen, you are the one who has to judge whether you have enough time to achieve certain goals, and if need be, forego certain events if you managed your time poorly.

You have a set 6 hour timer (72 ingame hours), in which to either uncover the plot, save survivors or fuck about, in any variation of these 3. It is meant to emulate a progression of time in a zombie outbreak, with things deteriorating further every day. The core idea behind this, is that you can carry over your levels, unlocks and in DR2 combo cards every time you start a new game, so instead of an awful'n'generic open-world that takes 18-25 hours to complete, you have a set 6 hour playthrough you would replay about 1-2 times, depending. You are meant to either familiarise yourself with the map, events and timing, so that you can say, complete the main story, while saving most survivors or only fighting psychopaths or just straight up do a playthrough where you just explore and fuck about.

Personally, I didn't really like the zombrex stuff, felt kinda redundant with the cases being at set times, but it was added with a goal in mind. The idea is that you would start searching the strip more thoroughly, to find extra zombrex, so there is further incentive for exploration.

The big breaks between the cases are there for a reason too, as they exist to allow you take a break after longer connected case sequences, and give you an oppurtunity to fuck about or do side quests(rescuing survivors and fighting psychos). It literally gives people time to do their zombie bashing & exploration, something that allegedly the game doesn't allow.

The time limit is literally the reason why the zombies would be a threat. By themselves, it's pretty easy kill them by the hundreds. With the timer however, you can't just spend 3 hours murdering every single zombie to achieve everything, you actually have to carve paths across the hordes, trying to find openings and avenues of progression amid hundreds of zombies, while you have only so much time to save survivors or get to plot triggers. It makes you takes risks, and turns the zombies from fodder, into obstacles you have to resourcefully traverse, otherwise you will be overwhelmed by them very quickly.

It's not like you are forced to save survivors, fight psychopaths or even progress with the story. You'll of course miss out on them on that specific run of the game, but you can mix and match at your leisure. In DR1 you are free to do whatever pretty soon, and the only hard time limit in DR2/OTR is getting a zombrex every 2 hours. That's it.

And OTR literally had a sandbox mode, where you are free to just explore the strip. It did the right thing, and made the primary game be designed around the timer, while adding a secondary mode where you just go around the strip. DR1 had something similar called infinity mode, though you could only unlock it by completing overtime mode and it was more like a hardcore survival mode type thing where you fight every other character in the game and you have to eat food to keep your health from depleting continuously until your death.

Of course, DR3&4 managed to completely fuck everything up and turn these games into another generic, coat of paint open-world game, like the later Far Crys, Mad Max, Mordor and whatever else that is in that vein.

Mad Max and all the Far Cry games(aside from Primal) were fucking awesome

 

[darkrage6]

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THANK YOU!!! You 2 put this way better than I possibly could have. I find myself laughing at how immeasurably ridiculous and unreasonable all the people who hate the time limit are being and especially how they think Dead Rising is better off without it, it very very obviously isn't. People want to complain about the A.I. or the story or graphics or whatever that's fine, but no reasonable person should ever complain about the time limit. Saying the time limit is bad is like willingly jumping in a lake and complaining that you're getting wet, it's missing the whole point despite the fact that it couldn't possibly be more obvious. This is complaining about a Football game having Football in it, an Action movie having action in it... Hell, it's like complaining about a zombie survival game having ZOMBIES in it! The time limit is core to the entire Dead Rising experience, what makes the IP have any value whatsoever over so many other games much like it. Capcom has made the franchise killing mistake of having taken away the precise thing that out of everything about it makes Dead Rising rare if not unique from so many other zombie survival horror sandbox games out there to satisfy these people. This is despite the fact that every single one of them should've known exactly what they were getting into the moment they ever heard about Dead Rising and thus shouldn't have ever even touched it much less complained about it, just like how someone who hates romantic comedies should know that and not watch one.

People are allowed to complain things if they feel they are badly implemented, the time limits on their own would be fine, but they get compounded by the terrible A.I. and bad mechanics(getting stunlocked to death by automatic weapons), your analogies are terrible and make no sense, because I can tell you that Dead Rising was not sold to people on the basis of time limits, it was sold to people based on all the different ways you could kill zombies, I vividly remember the full-page ads in Game Informer and bought the game based on it, so you can hardly blame people for being caught off-guard by the timer in the game when that's not at all how it was marketed.

 

[Winnosh]

To me Dead Rising is just boring without the tension the time limits provide. It makes it into an actual living world where things are happening reguardless of your actions and you need to figure out what to do. You can be halfway across the map and know that time's running out to get to an important story mission so you try to figure out the best way to get there before the scoop is lost. Without the time limit you can just take your time and casually walk through the horde without worrying about anything.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm just pissed they killed off Frank.

Apparently there is going to be a DLC that adds a follow-up called "Frank Rising" - it also returns the timelimit mechanic for these missions and is set directly after the main game.
Basically what Overtime mode used to be, but apparently more of it.

I'm just pissed they killed off Frank.

I'm sure they'll find some way to bring him back in the DLC.

Hope that's true, I hate it when long-running characters are killed off. So unceremoniously at that.

 

[darkrage6]

I'm just pissed they killed off Frank.

Apparently there is going to be a DLC that adds a follow-up called "Frank Rising" - it also returns the timelimit mechanic for these missions and is set directly after the main game.
Basically what Overtime mode used to be, but apparently more of it.

I'm just pissed they killed off Frank.

I'm sure they'll find some way to bring him back in the DLC.

Hope that's true, I hate it when long-running characters are killed off. So unceremoniously at that.

I don't like it either, there are times when it can be well-done(I.E. Gears 3) but in general it's not.

 

[Rect Pola]

What if Yahtzee hit the nail on the head and it turns out they pull a Captain America and say it was an impostor in the next game?