LEVEL 6 - DEAD RISING DELUXE REMASTER>MENU

i see, the dead dead a-risin'

It's a classic it's a staple, Dead Rising tastes like maple. The remaster to the first installment of one of my favourite franchises came out in 2024, and its soul finally showed up in the alley behind the arcade. It looks great, maintaining the familiar chunky ui but sanding a few edges down to make it a bit more streamlined for the modern age. The zombie physics are the best they've been, ready to burst like an overripe watermelon when sliced in twain or bashed in brain. The lighting is also vastly improved, now when survivors aren't in direct light they don't look like shadow creatures anymore and the night actually looks like night. Crucially, even though animations and graphics have been updated, there's still a trace of Dead Rising's signature jank to be found. There's a consumable item that doubles your speed, but instead of using a run animation it just plays the regular walking animation at double speed. The majority of the jank comes from survivors, a staple of the Dead Rising series (apart from 4 because it sucks) who all seem to have the durability of a binbag filled with jelly. Most survivors can only take a few hits from zombies before they bite the dust, and stand no chance whatsoever against special enemies like the cultists. If a survivor gets grabbed by a zombie, the only way to free them (another survivor will sometimes free them which is pretty cool) is hitting the zombie, which will almost always hit the survivor as well. They'll then proceed to make an angry face at you and leave themselves open to being grabbed again, because the Z in zombie stands for Zangief and they're all expert grapplers. You need to periodically call out to them to make sure they're still following and haven't got lost behind a rack of shoes or something, encountering survivors that needed to be carried by Frank is actually a relief as you can be sure they don't suddenly decide to jump the railing. The improvements made over the original include being able to tell survivors to head to a specific area, which is ideal for getting them to wait out of harms way while you deal with a Psychopath or something. They'll also sometimes call out powerful items or collectibles, which can be pretty handy. Each survivor also has favoured weapons and food items that they can be given to increase their loyalty, but it's not really worth doing when you just want to get them back to the safe room as quick as possible.

It's woke!!!! Frank's camera allows you to take pictures around the mall, gaining experience for snapping impressive pics. These are divided into categories, like Horror and Drama, depending on the elements captured. Zombies give horror, a screaming survivor gives Drama, it's fairly intuitive. Missing from the original game however, is the Erotic photo category. You can still take pictures of every female character's boobs if you want but you won't get any points for it. i wish this was a little bit better removed, it was the right decision to make but several aspects surrounding it remain. One survivor, Cheryl, requests you take several photos of her in provocative poses - this sidequest is present in the remaster but instead of awarding Erotic points Cheryl's pose now gives Drama instead. This feels like a 'that'll do' fix when i was hoping her request would be adjusted, like what if she wanted you to take her picture on a skateboard while she did a kickflip that'd be awesome.

The game's character's are massively improved and elaborated on thanks to the improved graphics, adding more details that weren't possible in....2006? Jesus. Take Adam, the chainsaw-juggling clown and one of the series' most memorable characters. His new character model adds bloodshot eyes and noticeable stubble, doing wonders to make him seem more like a man broken by the outbreak. i even got creeped out during his cutscenes thanks to these new details and the added capacity for facial expressions, not to mention his classic 'maniacally laughing while falling onto his own chainsaws' death animation. Just clowning around, honk honk. All of the changes i've mentioned have been very successful at making a Dead Rising that retains the spirit of the original while refining choice mechanics for a less frustrating experience. Them deads will rise.