4 Reasons why Dead Rising 3 will blow you awayBigger is betterWhereas the first two Dead Rising games were confined to the linear corridors of a shopping mall, Dead Rising 3 boasts an incredible open world, big enough to fit both maps from the first two games with plenty of room to spare.
It’s a massive world to explore, but at your own peril as nowhere I saw was safe. You can hop into an abandoned car to try and race to a secluded area of the map, but even that isn’t a “get out of jail free” card, as desperate zombies will cling on and try to force their way in. Running into a building won’t save you either; the undead will follow you in.
In Dead Rising 3, bigger really does mean better.
Smart teamwork, well, for zombiesThe vast increase in terrain has been matched by a significant boost in the number of zombies on screen. Watching a demonstration in the Xbox E3 booth, I was no chance of counting how many were actively on screen, but it easily would have surpassed 100.
With the influx of zombie games over the past two years, one thing has remained constant: more zombies doesn’t necessarily mean more terror. I was more frightened by two zombies stumbling towards me in ZombiU than tens of them in Dead Island because they didn’t pose a significant challenge.
In Dead Rising 3, you’re screwed if a horde of the undead buggers catch wind of your position.
They’re still zombies that lack intelligence, but they rely on basic instincts. They're attracted by light and will bash into each other if you fire a flare into the distance, but they’ll also rush in a wild pack if they hear you jumping atop an overturned car and do whatever it takes to get up there, in a clumsy, single-minded sort of way.
And if you accidentally let out a little scream, Kinect will hear you like an intrigued dog and send any of the blood-thirsty monsters within ear-shot your way.
No loading, everThe open world is, for possibly the first time in such a massive game, actually open. There is not one loading screen. It’s a live streamed world when you’re running around outside, and nothing changes by entering a door. The interior of a building doesn’t need to load because that part of the world loads long before you get there.
The world never stops.
There’s no running into a building to lose a pursing enemy, or escaping to the solace of a loading screen when it all starts to get a bit much. The world will always continue, and that’s simply terrifying.
Vicious deathsDead Rising 3 has some formidable weapons designed to inflict maximum gore — like the “sledgesaw” crafted from a sledgehammer and chainsaw — but it’s the basics that had me slack-jawed like a giddy kid.
During our demo (there were only three reporters in the room), the development team went a little off book to an area not usually a part of the 20 minute showcase.
Why?
Because it was full of zombies and they wanted to backup claims about the great many ways to cover the streets in zombie-blood. They were all terrifying and hilarious at once, but one stuck in my head more than most.
After downing one of the slow-moving brutes, protagonist Nick Ramos shoved his fingers inside the zombie’s eye sockets and ripped off its scalp in one shift motion. The poor bastard never saw it coming.