Dead Rising: Kill Zombies in Ways You Never Thought Possible

Zombie movies have always been quite popular. Re-animated corpses running around spreading terror is always quite amusing to watch. But how about taking down these blood hungry buggers in a violent and gory video game? Sounds like fun? Then try out Dead Rising.

Dead Rising first gives the appearance to be nothing but a charade of decapitating and bashing zombies. While you do get to hack and slash, there is also a very in-depth and captivating storyline.

You play as a freelance photo journalist named Frank West. Frank thinks he is a big hotshot and is on his way to a juicy lead in a small town. Well, his hotshot brain got him in trouble because his juicy lead ends up taking him to a small town over run with zombies. Frank ends up in Willamette mall, where he thinks he'll be safe. Wrong!

Frank has free reign on the mall. You must be creative to use anything and everything you see to defeat a never ending flow of zombies. The mall has tons of stores including: jewelry, music, clothing, hardware, food, toys, salons, sporting, and more. You can literally use anything for a weapon. Some examples are: swords, shotguns, hockey sticks, CD's, bowling balls, cash registers, squirt guns, ketchup bottles, and more. Yes, I said ketchup bottles.

Your goal is to survive and kill the hordes of zombies. You also need to rescue other survivors throughout the mall. These people often give clues as to what is up with all these zombies! Lastly, you need to take pictures of the many bosses called psychopaths. All of these aspects help you gain Prestige Points. Prestige Points give you more item slots, speed, and moves to take out the zombies. Speaking of zombies, the zombies are just hilarious for walking dead people. They stare, shuffle, moan, and oh yeah... they try to kill you.

The game has an initial 72 hour mode. After defeating this, you play Overtime mode. These modes reveal the story and offer a variety of cut scenes and depth to the mystery of the zombies that have overrun the town. The entire game only takes about 10 hours to beat. But I promise you it is quite entertaining and very much worth it. The last mode is Infinite mode which allows you to see how long you can survive with a constantly depleting health bar. The only annoying part of the game is that there is only one save slot to use as you play through.

The graphics of Dead Rising are quite good and highly detailed. Be forewarned that it is quite gory and visceral. Hooray! The soundtrack is not so bad either.

Dead Rising is available only for the XBOX 360. It has an ESRB rating of M for mature. This is because the game features blood, gore, language, intense violence, partial nudity, and the use of alcohol. Sorry kids, you shouldn't play this game without your parent's permission. If you want to see all that the game has to offer, a strategy guide is available.