Yeah, Dead Rising is great...

…but not that great. I was talking to a couple of people about this game. It seems as if most people who downloaded the 15-minute demo from Xbox Live were pretty disappointed by the full game. This seems to be a combination of the developers’ decision to start you off with a basic set of stats (since an RPG stats-building feature seems to be required in all games these days), which means that your character is next to useless at the start of the game. The demo throws you in at the halfway mark, where he can do most things without much trouble.

Then there’s also the way the game starts. The zombies invade the mall and you have to escape with everyone else in that part of the mall. Except you can’t save them. And so the game throws up massive messages to tell you THIS PERSON DIED and then THAT PERSON DIED. So, within the first five minutes of starting play, you’ve got the videogame equivalent of YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU SHOULD REALLY PUT THE CONTROLLER DOWN BECAUSE YOU FUCKED UP AGAIN

Describing it as ‘disheartening’ doesn’t even come close. And don’t get me started on the save system. Jeez.

Thank God then for Lego Star Wars II! So much fun in such a little box!