For the franchise’s 10th year anniversary of the original Dead Rising game, Capcom has released a 3 game collection featuring remasters for Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising: Off the Record and I must say, the remasters are long overdue especially for the original dead rising. I was super excited to get back into dead these especially because the new one is set to release pretty soon.
My first dead rising journey began back in 2010 when I sneakily snuck home a copy of Dead Rising 2 whom my very orthodox, rigid mother made extremely clear that if she saw malevolently hacking down zombies in any shape or form I would be grounded and have my computer taken away – but I did anyway and I finished it in all its silly and bloody glory on my shitty 30fps laptop.
Returning to the game 6 years later (this time on a console) made me realized just why I punted so many hours into combined weapons and toying with zombies – I prepared to have my time sapped once again as I entered the time constricted world of Dead Rising, this time with the luxury of revamped textures 1080p and 60fps, a far cry from my coughing and spluttering i3 HP laptop.
Look, I’m and not necessarily a graphics guy I don’t always judge videogame by its looks, but it’s definitely a plus when things just look easier on the eyes. A lot of the time it can make or break the game for an individual, so the remasters I would say is a good idea for both making money off these older games, as well as for the new players coming into a new generation of Dead Rising games.
Although I didn’t play the original game I watched many a gameplay video on CD that used to coming with gaming magazines (much to my mother’s dismay), but I can honestly see how ten years ago it must have been a work of art. Don’t go in with high expectations though, sure, it definitely looks better than the original 2006 game and is “comparable” to the smoothness of any new title, but it still looks like a PlayStation 2 game (although it was released on the 360). Obviously, this doesn’t detract from the fun in any sense, it’s still cool fighting psychopaths and zombies, but at least now you can journey on with more “aesthetically pleasing” Frank West.
Dead rising 2 is pretty beautiful for a 2010 remastered game – of course, it is nowhere near the standard of a 2016 release but it does the job. So far I didn’t see any framerate dips when using high CPU usage weapons such as the Blambow ( a personal favourite of mine, a bow with dynamite attached to the arrows) or the Blitzkreig (an electric chair with LMG’s). that cause the screen to be filled up with blood and explosion particles.
The final title included in the dead rising pack is Dead Rising 2: Off The Record – as soon as I began playing it I realized that it’s basically the exact same game as the remastered Dead Rising 2 but with a challenge mode an extra area and a slightly deviant storyline – It’s more of an expansion pack than anything so if you are justifying your package purchase think of it more as two games and an expansion with a bit of extra content.
As for online – I did attempt to give the coop mode of “Off The Record” a shot to see if people are actually playing these remastered versions and unfortunately I couldn’t really find a game. The leaderboard was stacked though with scores by hundreds of players which should mean that a decent amount of players should be online as the remastered release was recent, but this obviously wasn’t really the case.
If you are an existing fan of the series or a newcomer who is willing to take the challenge of endless hordes, dead rising is a must must, must. And now you can do it looking better. Start chronologically and end with Off The Record. If you have a friend DEFINENTLY play it coop, I mean to me personally, it is the ultimate zombie coop game. Take on challenge mode and just mess around with the environment or divulge into the storyline of Dead Rising 2 or ‘Off the Record’ – but don’t go in expecting more content than the 3 titles originally had, it’s literally just the 3 games but with better frame rates, textures, and 1080p.
Disclosure: Review code for the game was provided by the publisher.
