Dead Rising 3 Review

Dead Rising 3 is a third-person zombie action game by Capcom Vancouver and published by Microsoft. This game was a launch title for the Xbox One and was released on November 22, 2013, with a port to Windows PC in 2014. Dead Rising 3 takes place 10 years after the events in Dead Rising 2.

PLOT:

Dead Rising 3 takes place in the fictional city of Los Perdidos in California. A new zombie outbreak has occurred within the city and the government has decided to bomb the city in six days to keep the zombies from spreading throughout the country. You play as Nick Ramos, a mechanic at an auto shop.

Nick Ramos after finding some nice clothes.

Nick and a few other survivors need to get the parts and fuel to a plane so they can fly out before the bomb goes off. You'll learn the story of how the outbreak started as you make your way through the game.

GAMEPLAY:

Dead Rising 3 is an open-world sandbox game set within a post-apocalyptic zombie setting but I'm sure you already know that. You'll move Nick around from a third person perspective as you fight the zombie hoard. The Dead Rising series has never taken itself too seriously and this game is better for it. The violence is way over the top which makes the game a blast to play.

I ruined my nice white suit.

There aren't a lot of games that allows you to beat back zombies with the Mona Lisa.

Each day will end with a boss battle but the clock never stops. The game cycles throughout the day and the more time you take fooling around the less time you'll have to survive before the bomb is dropped. There is a chance that you are killed when the bomb goes off.

While doing the main story missions you'll receive phone calls from a guy who relays you locations where people need help. These missions aren't required but will help you level up and unlock areas allowing you to get more collectibles. You'll find statues that will give you xp all around the city. There are also blueprints that once found allow you to build combo weapons which is a must. The standard weapons are OK but the combo weapons will help you mow down zombies with greater efficiency. There also is tons of different clothing options to find in the game. These do nothing except allow the fashionista inside of you to blossom.

All throughout the city, you'll come across locked boxes. What you need to do is download Xbox smart glass app. I tried this but it was a bit confusing and I was near the end of the game so I just skipped the lock boxes. I nearly used the Internet to contact Al Gore about these lock boxes but I decided against it.

You'll even get to fight inside a cemetery, a must for any zombie game.

I like that the game, despite being over the top, feels like a zombie apocalypse has actually happened.

You'll also come across zombies that are still trying to do their job even though they are dead. Cops and soldiers will be in uniform shooting at you whenever they see you. You can also go to strip clubs and find zombies strippers working the pole.

VEHICLES:

With the map being pretty big you have access to all kinds of different vehicles within the city to get around with. You find typical civilian vehicles including sedans, motorcycles, muscle cars, and SUVs as well as commercial vehicles used in construction.

The only way to ride a motorcycle.

Due to the nature of the apocalypse, most of the vehicles you'll encounter will not work. The creators set cars that are drivable to have their lights blinking which makes it easy to find a vehicle when you need one. It's a simple solution to what could be a problem when you are surrounded by hundreds of zombies you'll know what I mean.

I had a blast with the driving in this game. Nothing was more fun for me than driving throughout the city killing hundreds of zombies at a time. Unlike more realistic games like Grand Theft Auto when your cars take damage and explode you'll be able to survive the blast. The physics of the vehicles is a bit off but not bad enough to cause a problem. The real fun begins when you start creating combo vehicles. They are heavily armed and equipped with weapons which will help you get around this city and have more fun.

The biggest issue I had with driving vehicles is that there are many places both in the city areas as well as on the highways that are barricaded off. This makes sense for the story but is not very fun while playing the game. Many times I would have to backtrack to find an open road or even abandon my vehicle, sometimes right after getting in because the path I need to take is blocked.

For those of you that are worried about it can set your minds at ease, yes you can do burnouts in this game.

PROBLEMS:

No game is perfect and unfortunately for me, I found that out the hard way. The game crashed for me five times, two of the times my Xbox itself froze as well. I had to backtrack every time because my progress since the last time I saved was lost. My advice is to save, and save often.

I did have a bit of the corpses doing some shimmying and shaking but nothing too bad. The only other issue I encountered was one of the side missions broke for me and I couldn't finish the mission. Half way through the battle with the enemy she disappeared and nothing I could do would bring them back. I quit the game and started it up but it did nothing. I also tried reloading my last checkpoint but again it didn't help. Eventually, I had to quit and continue on while I watched the time limit on the mission get to zero. I was not happy.

This is the opposite of the way I felt.

SUMMARY:

I really liked this game, I had a lot of fun killing zombies, especially with vehicles. It took me 28 hours to complete the story. I was at level 47 and I had found the majority of the collectible items. If I was to rate this game I would give it an 8 but because of the issues I had I, unfortunately, have to rate Dead Rising 3 a 5 out of 10.

Also be careful inside the fireworks factory.