Dead Rising

2026-02-01
Amongst the inept masses of survivors, a high level Frank must appear as a god descending from the heavens. Herculean strength picking up and tossing zombies over his head, wielding all manner of implement to dismember and disembowel from 2x4s to chainsaws to sickles to Mega Man blasters. He even moves different. No janky waddle or stopping to breathe. No, he moves at 3x the speed, deftly juking and dodging every stray grab and lunge. Hell, or you might just see him striding atop the heads of a crowd of zombies, taking his rightful place as a deity amongst his hellish subjects. All the while robed in a cornucopia of colors as he plucks outfit after outfit from the mall's countless racks: black leather jacket one day, a white suit the next, children's clothes or a prisoner's outfit on the morrow. Frank was not born of this earth, in fact there are many Franks and each is stronger than the last. Frank was sent here, on a helicopter—literally from the sky—to save each and every one of us. He’s our only hope, our one true savior. God bless you Frank West.

But before the apotheosis there is pain. It's the pain I felt when I first played the demo way back when on 360. "God, it's so fun fucking up zombies with batons and chairs and benches and soccer balls and sledgehammers--but why is there a time limit?! Why am I being rushed? Just let me have FUN!" But like all pain this is temporary if you're willing to accept it. Willing to embrace Dead Rising and play it on its terms. For me it was only on this playthrough after reading someone saying “Dead Rising is a roguelite” that it all clicked. That you are meant to fail. This is only Frank West's first life in this swirling mall-based multiverse. You are here to learn the mall, learn its layout, find the shortcuts, learn where you can get an Uzi, a shotgun, a scythe, or books on how to buff each of those weapons up. You are here to grow in strength by taking pictures of bums, by holding an old lady's hand and pulling her stupid FUCKING ass Susan FUCK just keep moving, and by running over so many god damned zombies in a car in the mall basement. And when you do you will be ready to win. To complete that one final run to tie everything off.

Along the way you will feel pain. You will reload and reload because save points are sparse and because survivors are dense. Survivors will get stuck, they will fall behind, and in Yuu Tanaka's case they will walk in front of you as you are repeatedly swinging a sledgehammer into a crowd of zombies and have their head exploded in one shot and a big ol' "YUU TANAKA HAS DIED" message will flash on the screen. And to some extent this is part of the fun: learning how to get a survivor through the quagmire of the mall is a navigational and combat challenge, all under a time limit. But it does stray into bullshit territory. And the big one is the human bosses.

Their one saving grace is that they’re often insane, a true menagerie of ugly, sad freaks with stupid over the top looks and lines. I love them. And I love their music more. Nu metal in the grocery store and Beastie Boys in the plaza. Yeah we back in the aughts, bitch. Strap in. But their freakdom is their one saving grace. They’re fun from afar but once you have to fight them with their beefy health bars, endless staggers and knockbacks, and generally unfair tactics you’ll learn to hate them. Exacerbating it all is the fact that 1) for some of them save points are frustratingly distant and 2) they require some prep beforehand which requires time and planning which often means reloading an earlier save when you hit them the first time. They are work and I genuinely don’t think I had fun fighting a single one of them. Well outside of stunlocking Carlito with the hockey stick shooting puck after puck into his nuts. Yeah that was fun.

It’s funny then that fighting them feels like a root canal because when Frank West is fighting zombies it’s pleasing, tactile and varied in that classic Capcom way. Zombies can be stunned and staggered, cut in half, limbs blown off, or you can just put silly hats on 'em. And Frank himself has an absurdly expansive list of skills that grows as he levels up. First you're able to kick zombies, then jump on top of them, and finally you're able to bare-handed disembowel any zombie or non-psychopath human enemy in the game. This shit RULES.

But for some the pain on offer will be too much to overcome. I mean when I had 2 survivors with me then accidentally ran into a psychopath and was running back and forth saving the survivors' brainless asses while simultaneously stopping the psychopath from tazing her prisoners and all the fucking while Otis won’t FUCKING stop paging my on my beeper–I thought I was going to have a mental crisis. But if you're able to stomach its friction, the joy of learning the Willamette Parkview Mall and growing Frank from pitiful pipsqueak to demon demigod is such a joy. The thrill of finally getting back to base with 4 survivors after finding the perfect route and herding those dumb motherfuckers through trial after trial and seeing that experience rack up and Frank unlock a new rank in speed. Ah! That's that good shit.