I’m really getting worn out by the whole zombie thing. I know I can’t be the only one who feels that way. That being said, Dead Rising 4 is one game I can forgive. Yes, it’s about zombies and I’m bored to death of zombies, but at least Dead Rising 4 doesn’t take itself incredibly seriously.
The announce trailer on display was testament to that lack of seriousness. We see Frank West, freelance photographer and the protagonist of the original Dead Rising, sit down on a recliner, put down his barbed wire club next to him, and go through his Twitter feed on his phone. Most of his remaining downtime in the trailer is spent taking selfies with zombies and lighting a Christmas tree made up of the undead. “Jingle Bell Rock” is playing in the background throughout the trailer.
That is basically what Dead Rising 4 is in a nutshell, folks: zombie dismemberment and dispatching surrounded on all sides by silliness. I can live with that.
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The gameplay that does show up in the trailer highlights the dismemberment and the silliness. Frank rips through massive crowds of zombies with standard weapons like an RPG and shotgun, as well as with more unconventional devices such as a candy cane gun and a dinosaur mask that breathes fire.
There was no mention of the story in the announce trailer, but we know that Dead Rising 4 takes place 16 years after the events of the original Dead Rising. Frank returns to that game’s location, the Willamette Memorial Megaplex Mall in Colorado during Black Friday. The outbreak has infected the entire mall and the surrounding area, and Frank has to once again find out what’s behind the outbreak.
The game is not restricted to the mall’s interior however. A goodly portion of the city outside is accessible, as well as a sewer-like area below the city. The outside areas include some of the city, not just the parking lot area, so Frank will have plenty of space to mow down hundreds of walkers with his fire-spewing zombie catapult jeep.
The zombies aren’t all just mindless shamblers. There are the Fresh, people that are newly zombified but not reduced to slow walkers. They’re pretty fast and will chase you over and around obstacles like the fast zombies in ”28 Days Later”. And then there are the Evo, essentially super-zombies with super strength and hunting abilities.
To help in taking all these zombies out, Dead Rising 4 allows four-player coop play. Your friends can join your match in-game, or you can all start from scratch together. This is new to the Dead Rising series and a welcome addition. Being able to smash a horde of zombies with my electrified battleaxe is more fun if my friends are nearby smashing them with an EXO suit or blowing them up with a grenade launcher.
If I’m gonna be playing another zombie game, it might as well be one that knows how to poke fun at itself. Dead Rising 4 does. It will be available for Xbox One and Windows 10 during the holidays later this year.
