rise of death 3
I have to admit, all this zombie craze is getting a little stale. We’ve had many carnivorous undead scenarios with The Walking Dead, World War Z, Left 4 Deadeven Plants versus Zombies! So when I had a chance to review rise of death 3 for Xbox One, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. I mean, I played the first two and enjoyed them, but I’m just so exhausted with the genre. Thankfully, rise of death 3 it was crazy enough to make me forget about all the other zombie nonsense out there.
When you first start the game, you will control Nick. He’s pretty much your standard clueless main character. He also has a punch to help almost everyone. Throughout the strange story, Nick and his friends will try to survive this new zombie apocalypse.
To say that history is confusing is an understatement. Sometimes the plot rushes at you and will leave you scratching your head after a pivotal scene. The game struggles to find its identity throughout the game. Most of the game has crazy characters and comedic events, but other times it tries to take itself too seriously. The game’s story would have worked if he had only chosen one. It’s like trying to combine a Wayans brothers comedy with the plot of there will be blood; it’s just a mess.
Granted, no one went into this game thinking it would bring anything to the table story-wise. Luckily, the best part of the raising of the dead The series is, of course, the killing of zombies. The third installment is no different. It’s just fun. There’s an incredible amount of variety in the ways you can dispatch undead attackers. You can smash zombies while driving a vehicle, hit monsters with orange juice jugs, or go on a killing spree in Mega Man Armor. The game is at its best when it sets you free. Which, luckily, is pretty much all the time.
One of the great features that carried over from the previous game is the crafting system. Here you will find blueprints that will combine different weapons and items to decimate the horde of zombies. You can even create incredibly original vehicles. Armored truck with a shotgun? I’ll take it! Granted, there are some weapons that feel underdeveloped compared to others, but I had a lot of fun mixing and matching different items and figuring out my personal favorites.
The biggest gripe I had with the game was the world you play in. The ways the game blocks you from different paths doesn’t make much sense. Take, for example, the many times I tried to reach a goal in the world and I was literally right there, but a wall was blocking my path. I had to drive all over the game world to get to a place that I could have easily gotten to if the design was better. It was getting more and more frustrating as it happened quite a bit.
Another negative I had with Dead Rising 3 was the severe lack of difficulty. Granted, after you finish the game, you can play it again in a near impossible environment, but playing it in normal conditions didn’t really challenge me as a player. I never really felt in danger throughout my game. This is saying something since I was surrounded by about 10,000 zombies almost constantly.
Graphically, the game is unimpressive other than the sheer number of enemies on the screen and the frame rate stuttered quite a bit throughout the experience. It wasn’t terribly terrible by any means, but it’s very noticeable when you’re fighting a large crowd of infected. It can be even worse when you have a friend joining via Xbox Live and you’re both hacking into a huge zombie gathering.
Other aspects of the game include side quests, finding human survivors, and my personal favorite, the human boss type characters: the psychopaths. All encounters with psychopaths are unique and actually made me laugh out loud at how ridiculous they were. My favorite was Darlene, the crazy head of the lunch buffet who would attack you with her electric scooter. These just added more content to the experience and are always a highlight with the Dead Rising series.
The real question of the day is whether you should try the game. The answer is yes, but I think many players will change the game after finishing it. There isn’t much playable content after you beat the game and the harder setting you unlock later. One can only be satisfied for so long by hitting zombies with cash registers and RC cars. Multiplayer is limited and some players will be frustrated paying full retail price for a game that they may not keep after finishing it. That being said, big launch games are rare and for Xbox One this is the best option in terms of first-party options.
