When making the decision at the beginning of this generation between picking up a PS4 or an Xbox One, the game series which tore me between the two console power houses was the Dead Rising series – I knew if i went for the PS4 that I wouldn’t be able to go Zombie slaying for the foreseeable future.
So then, it is with my great fucking delight that I am here reviewing Dead Rising 4: Franks Big Package for the PS4!
NO LUKE! I hear you all cry… “THEY HAVE CHANGED EVERYTHING AND IT’S NOT DEAD RISING ANYMORE” but to you my fellows I ask: Do I still get to kill Zombies with increasingly ridiculous weapons and mow them down in their thousands? Yes? Then that’s STILL Dead Rising for me.
But for real now… I see a lot of hatred about many of the mechanics that have changed in Dead Rising 4 since the last few games (Didn’t play 3 so not sure of the differences there) but as long as I get to mow down thousands of Zombies then colour me happy – perhaps I am pretty simple in my ways. The main difference in Dead Rising 4 from the previous entries in the series I am seeing tears over is the dropping of the countdown mechanic which was arguably one of the main features of gameplay with the Dead Rising series, but in all honesty, to me at least, the dropping of this mechanic was a good move. I could see Capcom making more and more stupid reasons to include the timer so just allowing me free reign in the world to mow down the Zombies instead was a fresh take on this (Seriously, I fucking love killing Zombies).
The rest of the gameplay has had a few tweaks as well, such as the incorporation of the weapon wheel and being able to make new weapons on the fly instead of having to fill up your inventory with trash in order to make one good weapon – Again to me these are all tweaks to the gameplay for the better increasing the games main appeal to me – Having shit tons of fun and god damn am I having shit tons of fun with Dead Rising 4.
The story in Dead Rising 4 is…. there. Honestly I just finished playing for like 6 hours and I couldn’t tell you the last story bit I remember because I just don’t car…. OO LOOK MORE ZOMBIES TO KILL. (An accurate representation of my attention span to Dead Rising 4’s story) but nah I think Frank has been sent back to Willamette to find one of his old students who has gotten themselves into a spot of bother with Zombies and the virus has evolved affecting a load more people – All in all its your standard Zombie affair.
With Franks Big Package the content that comes with the game is fucking mad, as well as the main game and ALL the DLC from when it release on Xbox One (Ive not played Bowling or Frank Rising yet, but I will update this review once I beat the main game and get to them) you get the Capcom All Stars which is a new take on the story letting you play through the whole campaign finding “Capcom Stars” to unlock classic Capcom characters to use on a Rampage. Initially I believed this was just a gimmick allowing me to dress Frank West up as Jill Valentine or Dante but upon opening the tutorial here I learned that you also inherit the abilities. I will say it right here and now… I DARE you to find something as fun in this generation as seeing Frank West dressed up as Morrigan from Darkstalkers just absolutely fucking shit up.
The visuals of Dead Rising 4 however are definitely that of a game which came out some time ago – Frank just looks off and the change in voice actor was really jarring initially when I was kidding myself that I care about the story at all before realising I was only here to fuck shit up and kill a ton of Zombies. There are a few technical hitches here and there – a couple of times I had a more than unacceptable frame rate drop when there was crazy survivors and zombies on the screen which irked me for a good few minutes before it perked back up again, this coupled with a few crazy glitches with unkillable zombies pissed me off a little but nothing gamebreaking or ruining all in all.
All in all I am having a fucking blast with Dead Rising 4: Franks Big Package, the christmas setting of the game and the general dicking about atmosphere has made it super fun for me – Whilst there is a few technical issues here and there and I am yet to see ALL the DLC I highly recommend this game at this price point even if just for the amount of content you get out of it.
8/10