Dead Rising has a concept that you simply cannot beat: You're Frank West, a freelance photo-journalist whose stumbled upon the biggest scoop of his career - a zombie-infested mall. As Frank you fight your way through one of the world's biggest shopping centres by running through hordes of zombies, using anything you can find as a makeshift weapon and taking some of the most horrific photos mankind will ever see. It sounds like the perfect action game - and it almost is - Capcom has a terrific concept, amazing presentation and some superbly unique ideas on their hands with Dead Rising, but it's nearly crippled by a few nagging problems that will ruin the game for many players.

After chartering a helicopter, Frank West gets a lift out to the quiet town of Willamette, Colorado, where something very strange is happening in a mall that seems to be bigger than the town itself. From the air you look through West's camera and snap photos of what appears to be a very violent riot: you see a man atop of his car struggling to fend off a group of people. As you snap photos, the man gets grabbed by the leg and dragged off the car brutally, giving you excellent but disturbing photographs. Next up you see a group of people surrounding a bus, with more people trapped inside. Frank notices that the entire town is quarantined and blocked off, which is unusual for simple riots; then he sees a rooftop with a lone woman on top of it. She has a gun and is fighting for her life as she fires bullet after bullet at a group crowding in on her. She throws the gun at one of them as a last resort, before being tackled off the roof and colliding with the ground in an extremely gory fashion - these aren't people on a riot -this is something Frank deemed impossible; the town has been overrun by zombies! Frank's obviously never seen Dawn of the Dead, because the first thing he does is decide to have his pilot land on a rooftop of the local mall and head inside! And thus begins the worst three days in Frank West's entire life.

The first mode you can play in Dead Rising is the 72 hour mode; Dead Rising is very much time sensitive, so much so that I'm surprised the name of the game wasn't Dead Rising: Time Lowering, because it really is a little ridiculous and it adds a level of stress that you may not even need with all the zombies running around. The actual zombies themselves, which take up nearly the entire mall at all times and can range in number from a mere fifteen at a time to hundreds, don't play that big a role in the story objectives, instead simply acting as a barricade between point A and point B. Dead Rising's story is spread out over a course of Case Files, some of which are activated when you reach a certain time (and if you haven't completed the files before that time you've failed), so watching it unfold through excellent cinematic sequences is really thrilling - the game's cut scenes are some of the best in recent memory and it sports high quality voice acting to match.

The game itself is very over the top, but this is no satire; the characters take the situation very seriously - and so should you. Even though you can roam the mall at will, killing zombies in any way you see fit, you're also on a strict schedule. Pushing left on the D-Pad shows Frank's watch and a list of his current scoops. Your main case file objective is always on display, with a list of other scoops you can try to visit if you have enough time. These scoops are usually survivors that need assistance, which you give by helping them escape to the secure control room deep within the mall that you and a few key characters have barricaded yourselves inside and this room can only be accessed from the rooftop. Completing every scoop and making the time limit for the main case is very difficult and will cause a lot of stress, especially if this if your first time playing through the game.

The case files and storyline themselves are very well done, offering a good variety and some great twists along the way - you'll meet some of the most memorable characters you've seen in a game for some time! Dead Rising is a great cinematic experience that is most definitely worth partaking in, especially with a lack of games fitting that description available on the 360 right now.

The gameplay stacks up, too. Frank's animations for running vary when he's been hurt or depending on what he's carrying, and every weapon has a unique move set, which is saying something, as you'll come across a plethora of weapons inside the mall. A parasol from the food court tables can be used to charge at zombies and push them aside, while you can even grab toy light-sabers from a toy store and attempt to whack zombies with it while it lights up, though it won't do much good! Sickles, chainsaws, sledgehammers, knives, a samurai sword, TVs, paint buckets, crates, boxes, propane tanks, handbags, CDs you can throw Shuriken style, diamond jewelry, benches, and that's just scratching the blood-stained surface! There are even weapons you can push, ride or drive, including shopping carts, lawnmowers, motorcycles and a car - though you'll have to kill a group of escaped convicts who hijacked a turret-mounted jeep to get it!

Every weapon has an impact to match; if you hit a zombie with a steel pipe you don't just swipe through them - instead, the pipe collides with them and bounces back at you, and I can't even describe how satisfying this feels. Swords cut through the zombies' rotting flesh with ease, while TVs or cash registers hit them over the head and knock them to the ground with amazing impact. As you progress and Frank levels up, you unlock a huge selection of moves that are always at your disposal from that point onwards. Frank can jump-kick zombies to the ground, or kick off zombies that latch onto him - he can even jump onto a crowd of zombies and run across the top of them all instead of trying to fight his way through! Later on you get access to really over the top moves, such as a German suplex that explodes the zombie's head on impact! Indeed, the game is violent, but what do you expect from a game with thousands of zombies overrunning a mall? The gore level is taken to the extreme, and this is not a game for the weak-stomached amongst you; heads explode, pieces of flesh hang off Frank's body in real-time and people are eaten, their insides stretched out like a stubborn piece of taffy. The game is full of over-the-top disgusting gore that will please any fans of zombie films or just horrific violence in general. [Sounds awesome! Homicidal Ed.]

And the game looks great doing it all; with so many enemies on screen you'll be surprised at how smoothly it runs and how well it holds up with so many body parts flying around and guts spraying through the air. The mall itself is incredibly detailed, with some great store designs, while the enemies look fantastic, and they're surprisingly varied considering they're all just plain ol' zombies. Fat ones, small ones, ugly ones, tall ones; there are all sorts here. Frank himself looks excellent and is animated very convincingly, as are all the other survivors you come across in the game; it's just a shame they aren't that smart.

Considering that a huge part of the game is helping survivors through the mall, it's very unfortunate that the AI for your team mates makes them act like zombies themselves! You call them or tell them to move, but they really are just hopeless without you 'holding their hand' the whole way. They can't even open an automatic sliding door on their own, as I had one survivor stuck inside a store right next to the door while his friend was on the outside getting annihilated by zombies, but he refused to move or attack until his friend figured out how to get out. I had to go back, manually open the sliding glass door and stand there until he could correctly position himself to run out. It really is a pain in the ass and hurts the overall experience - not to mention that I ended up being killed by a survivor trying to help me on numerous occasions… if only they could actually kill some zombies!

The other, much more serious problem with Dead Rising is the save system; you can only save at very select key points throughout the mall, none of which are apparent without consulting your map first. With so many enemies looking to kill you between Point A and B, and even more of a chance of dying at B, having to restart and travel through the mall numerous times is really frustrating and wears thin quickly. Considering that the game is meant to be played multiple times and isn't very long, it's obvious that the designers didn't want you to get through it quickly. The real serious matter at hand, however, is the fact that since the entire game is on a time limit and every mission on a mini-time limit, it's unfortunately possible for you to save it and then not be able to reach your destination on time, no matter what you do, or you can get just about get there but have a very limited weapon selection with no time to search the mall for those scarce weapons that really deal damage. Since you only are allowed one save file, this means that you have to restart the entire game - and this isn't an accident. The team behind Dead Rising includes some members from the RPG Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and they've borrowed an aspect from that game that allows you to restart the game with Frank's level and skills intact; but honestly, who finds it fun to get halfway through a game only to have to restart again? Especially when the story gets really interesting the further you progress! Here's a note to developers: Time limits in video games are generally not very enjoyable and they certainly aren't any fun when they force players to begin the game again! And they REALLY aren't when they drag down an otherwise absolutely superb game!

This issue puts Dead Rising into the category of hardcore games; it's very rewarding for those who can put up with the ridiculous and flawed saving system - there are multiple endings, skills and side-quests to play and plenty of new modes once you complete the game. There's a lot to be discovered and experience in Dead Rising; it's just a shame that the time limits make it so tedious to do it all. The game is an absolute blast, but that still doesn't mean that returning to a save point very far away over and over is any fun. At least you do get to keep Frank's stats though, as I mentioned.

To level up and earn stats you have to earn a certain amount of PP points, which can be obtained in dozens of different ways. Killing zombies gains points, as does pure destruction of the mall itself. Rescuing survivors, or multiple survivors at once, is also a biggie, but the most important and touted way is photography; despite being able to play through almost entirely without taking any photos, they really do play a big part of the game and the system is quite in-depth as well. You get a PP rating based on numerous aspects of your picture, including the genre it's in (violence, horror, comedy, erotic, etc.), the amount of people in it (be it zombies or survivors), and what is taking place. Capcom have crafted an intelligent system where the game can detect drama in a photo and give you more points based on what's taking place. If a zombie is just creeping around you won't get much for it, but if he is lunging at someone, or you, you'll get a nice bonus. If a survivor is attacking the zombie at the same time, you'll get even more, or if you just photograph a horrific scene you get one as well. It even gives you a bonus if you take a photo of survivors hugging, yelling at each other or just interacting in some way. You can get some really nice shots if you have time, but with so many zombies and such a strict time limit, you may feel like you're in too much of a rush to even bother with it.

Something you will want to bother with however is the unique healing and skill modifying systems. By eating food you gain health, but you can take certain foods, like frozen veggies, to a kitchen in the food courts and create a more powerful food by cooking or microwaving the items (generally zombies do not roam into these areas, allowing you to heal yourself without much danger of being killed). Throughout the mall you'll find various books and magazines, and having them on you will boost certain skills. A sword fighting book, for instance, means that your bladed weapons last twice as long as usual. There are plenty of different books to equip yourself with, but again, the structure of the game makes it hard to want to venture off to a bookstore and find the right book for the next mission when there's a risk of being killed by the hundreds of zombies between there and the way back, thus having to do it all over again. It's definitely a great and very unique idea that adds some depth and more RPG elements to the gameplay, but one that's sadly marred by the problematic time limits.

Another very well executed portion of Dead Rising is the sound effects, which are simply phenomenal. Every weapon has a great effect to match, complete with brutal impact and loads of really squishy and gory sounds. The groan of the zombies, the cries for help in the distance, the voice acting - it's all very well done and the music itself is different in a good way. Upon pausing the game in the middle of a zombie infested war you'll hear casual elevator music playing as you'd hear in an everyday mall, or if you go outside into the park placed in the middle of the mall you'll likely hear the rap/rock music blaring from the convicts' jeep as they run over zombies (and you).

The juxtaposition of an open ended world and a harsh, unforgiving save structure is a bit odd - usually the saving style present here is only seen in a linear game (where you can't really mess up too much) and it's terribly unfortunate that you can't simply restart a mission or boss fight upon failing. Dead Rising is open ended, but not in the same style as you've come to expect from the term; you can explore all you want, kill enemies, obtain items and get Frank's level up, but doing so will more than likely cause time to expire. It sure is fun running around mindlessly as you attempt to survive by finding food and weapons, but you won't finish the game this way. Oddly, there's an unlockable mode called Infinite mode where you still are hindered by something: this time Frank's life slowly drains! The more and more you play Dead Rising, the more apparent it becomes that many of the features end up shooting the game in the foot. If you can handle the structure of the title then you're in for perhaps not the best game on the 360, but potentially the most fun. With excellent sound, superb graphics, an intriguing and entertaining storyline and a very solid fighting engine, Dead Rising is a great action title with some very odd choices in game structure that will likely infuriate you, but shouldn't stop you from playing what is otherwise a great game that's pushing the genre, and the power of the Xbox 360, in a diverse number of unique ways.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).