Publication Date: 22/11/2025

Dead Rising (Xbox 360)

It feels just like yesterday that the zombie craze was in full force. The Walking Dead was the biggest show on television, World War Z was a massive disappointment as a film, and games like Left 4 Dead ruled the roost. It was a different time. A better time. Occasionally a worse time, but usually, a better time.

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews, or even just glanced at my archive, you’ll see that I had a great time reviewing and discussing the original PS2-era trilogy of Call of Duty games. Seeing a series develop over a handful of years, but change so much so quickly was fascinating. And so I decided I wanted to do that for a different franchise whose entries were spread across the timeline a little more than the annual franchise that is Call of Duty. Dead Rising is a franchise that I’ve always had my eye on. Years ago, I listened to the early years of The Drunk Tank Podcast, and I was fascinated by the concept of the game’s Seven Day Survivor Mode.

Yeah, I remember when the Rooster Teeth Podcast was The Drunk Tank. Again, better times.

So, following my retrospective reviews of the PS2 Call of Duty titles, I’ll be taking a look at each major entry in the Dead Rising series! Finally getting into this series had been really exciting to me, and whilst the original Dead Rising is far from perfect, its foundational elements, and the pure zombie-slaying and time-management gameplay enthralled me in a way few other games have this year. You want me to have a good time? Just give me a timer and a list of priorities, and we’re golden!

I apologize for the length of this review. There are a LOT of moving parts to discuss in Dead Rising, so I’ll try and break it up a little more than I usually do on this website. Enjoy!

Frankly, Of The Dead

Dead Rising is the kind of game whose first impression belies a surprisingly unique combination of genres. At first, it almost feels like an off-shoot of Koei Tecmo’s long-running Dynasty Warriors franchise. You play as a sole individual, battling against a genuine unending horde of zombies, of course with the odds stacked in your favour. But Dead Rising isn’t solely an action game - in fact, pinning down the game’s exact genre is a little tricky.

Dead Rising runs on a realtime clock, with the game’s entire campaign taking place across six-ish real world hours, represented as 72 hours in-game. Within these 72 hours, you’ll have to adhere to the clock if you want to complete the main quest, along with rescuing a huge suite of other survivors which make up the bulk of the game’s side content, and of course, bre ready for pick-up once the 72 hours are elapsed. If you haven’t completed a step of the main story, or are late to a certain area to start the next mission, you’ll outright fail and be left to just try and simply survive the rest of the 72 hours, leaving the truth unsolved.

For the most part, the timer keeps your pulse up and your brain constantly working to find the most efficient path to complete both main and side missions. At the same time, you'll be factoring in time to gather weapons and supplies to keep yourself healthy and amred. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll have enough leeway to not be sprinting everywhere, but there are a handful of moments where you’re just left with… nothing to do. Slaying endless zombies is fun and all, but Dead Rising isn’t particularly exciting when you’re just waiting for things to happen. Sometimes, it’s nice to just be on the backfoot, just a little bit. Thankfully, the game usually keeps you busy enough - though there was one segment where I was essentially waiting an entire in-game hour during the game’s secret Overtime Mode for the plot to continue.

So, I don’t think I’d be wrong in describing Dead Rising as a blending of a zombie beat’em/shoot’em up with the genres of time management and general strategy. I’ve played a lot of games over the years, and warts and all, I’ve never played anything that feels close to the overall vibe Dead Rising gives off. It’s a blending of genres that almost feels like a masterstroke, and I genuinely could see this theoretically being amongst my favourite games of all time… if not for many of the supporting elements of the game didn’t have notable structural issues.

A Full Arsenal At Rock-Bottom Prices!

Whilst the game does blend genres brilliantly, there is an action-based core to everything you’ll be doing. The vast majority of the gameplay is battling the unending hordes of the undead in what I can only describe as ‘Psuedo-Musou’ action; one man against a million. Of course, fighting the undead is rarely your actual objective; I wouldn’t be surprised if you could somehow beat this game with less than a hundred zombie kills. But anyway, the general vibe of the main story missions involve our hero, Frank West, navigating the mall, reaching a certain location and usually doing some benign task, maybe spiced up with a boss battle. But really, it’s trying to survive, defeat, or outright evade the horde that makes up the nitty-gritty.

The vast, vast majority of the rank and file zombies do not present any real threat, nor notable mechanics to deal with - they’ll slap and grapple at you, but little more. But mistakes that’ll take a piece or two of your limited health bar are very easy to make. Thus a death by a thousand cuts is the most likely way you’ll end up consumed by the horde. And it is a horde - some sections of the mall can have hundreds upon hundreds of zombies on screen at any one time. But, despite being a relatively early Xbox 360 game, the frame rate remains pretty consistent throughout, which is honestly the most stunning element of the game outright.

Whilst Frank can battle the undead with just his fists, typically, that’ll not take you far. Generally, pretty much every non-nailed down object present within the Shopping Mall can be used as a weapon; blades, guns, cardboard cutouts, giant perfume bottles, chainsaws, still-living zombie hands, a twelve-pack of lemonade. All bets are off in regards to the sheer variety you have at your fingertips. Some of them are overpoweringly effective against the undead. You’ll be best served using plenty of knives, swords, and chainsaws during your survival tour, but it’s just as entertaining how many items aren’t useful. The amount of times I was cornered, without a good weapon, and I was just flailing about with a beach umbrella succeeding in killing… well, exactly zero zombies… Well, it didn’t only happen once, I’ll say that.

Weaponry is constantly breaking, so you’ll frequently be needing to replenish your supply, and in the more protracted encounters, utilize everything around you. My battle against an early clown min-boss was an almost wonderfully desperate engagement, scrambling to find gumball machines and giant plastic lipstick to ward them off. It makes every major encounter feel that much desperate, and generally makes a lot more sense then Frank being a gun-toting badass. Sure, he’s covered wars, but I find it much more believable that just anyone could swing some chairs around and take down some zombies. Maybe not the thousands upon thousands Frank does, but I think I could hold my own with a gumball machine. Or a chainsaw. Or Mega Man’s buster.

As I said earlier, the game’s main missions are just a vehicle to drive the story and exploration of the mall. Outside of occasionally collecting one material, and a bomb disposal job, most main missions will just have Frank being sent here or there for a plot reveal, sometimes with a boss encounter to spice things up. Few of these are genuinely particularly interesting, an issue I have with the story overall. But like I said, it’s a vehicle that allows me to explore more of the mall, which I love. And just battling the hordes of the undead is never a remotely bad time to be had by all.

Plus, having the time being such a crucial element makes every choice you make, and all that exploration I craved, feel a lot more weighty. The game asks you: Are you good enough to juggle all these balls, make it to your next appointment in the best state Frank can be in? Well-armed, well healed, all with time to spare? I think I just really, really like time management-style games, and blending it with a musou-esque foundation? I’m in heaven. The game consistently having a little counter in the corner of the screen denoting your kill count is a nice addition that feels satisfying to rack up more and more.

Dead Rising, in one key fashion, sometimes actually feels a lot like the grandaddy of the survival horror/zombie genre; much like the Mansion from the original Resident Evil, the mall Frank navigates feels like it’s own key character in the world. As you progress, you’ll find new shortcuts, new avenues of attack to skirt the hordes, and where to find the best health items to keep your vitality going. Most importantly, weapon drops are fairly static, so there’s a lot of value in learning how to get to certain zones easily to restore the best in your arsenal. The amount of detail present in the mall is staggering. Each shop has its own name, with the vast array of weaponry and items matching what the business actually has. You won’t be finding a shotgun in the candy store, but how about a fantastically overpowered gumball machine?

Protecting The Infested Masses

Between your main, appointment-viewing missions, much of your time spent exploring the mall will include responding to various rumours and tips your allies in the Safe Room will send to Frank at certain times. These ‘scoops’, as the game calls them, make up much of the game’s side content. Generally, these will inform you about a survivor, or groups of survivors who are trapped in a certain section of the mall. You’ll get a smidge of story from each of them, usually how they ended up in the situation. But outside of some being a bit funny (some tourists shittalking Frank in Japanese) or one which had some of the most harrowing implications in the whole game (the mother in the jewelry store), the real reason you’ll be picking up the survivors due to the shower of EXP each one saved provides Frank.

While there is something wonderfully brain-scratching about locating each of these survivors and guiding them to safety and defending them at all costs, the weakness of these escort missions quickly bare their fangs. Firstly, they are incredibly, incredibly repetitive. The vast majority of them are: Go to the location. Talk to them for a little bit, maybe do something incredibly basic (like give them food) to gain their trust, and then finally guide them back to the Safe Room, defending them all the while. Honestly, this alone wouldn’t be awful, since the time-management and zombie Musou slaying is already fantastic.

The issue comes with the second major weakness of these side quests - the survivor ally AI is awful. Awful, awful, AWFUL. Even when you equip them with some of the best weapons in the game, survivors will frequently be overwhelmed by the smallest squads of zombies. Worse, a decent clip of survivors - most of them women, more on that later - require you to either carry them or guide them by the hand, limiting your own ability to defend yourself from the hordes. There is fun in finding the most efficient routes back to the safe room, and in slowly filling out the rooms within with the rescued fruits of your labours, but dealing with the AI is maddening. When combined with the time limit, this element alone makes Dead Rising hard to recommend for completionists. Seriously: seeing and doing everything in one run is nigh on impossible.

Psychos Of Steel

There are also the boss encounters - described as ‘Psychopaths’ - who are deranged survivors who have been broken, or are taking advantage of the zombie infection. With some taking place as a part of the game’s main missions, and many more taking stage in its survivor rescue segments, they are the biggest departure from the game’s overall gameplay loop. Which is to say, they’re enemies who take more than a few slashes of a knife to go down, and’ll usually have some mechanic to cause you strife. They might have guns, they might have a vehicle, or maybe, just maybe they’ll be able to beat you to death with their bare hands.

Trust me, the last boss of this game is really, really bad.

But the bosses, themselves, are just individuals who take more than the handful of hits the rank and file zombies do - to an almost ridiculous extent. Seriously, I slapped a gun nut around with a chainsaw, how the hell does he survive a dozen of those!? These fights are… fine, I suppose, and they do good work in breaking up both the main and side content of the game.

But the fact of the matter is when the game departs from the overwhelming crush of the zombie horde, the combat does feel a little less engaging and loose. This doesn’t really apply with the more unique bosses, such as the food shop owner who fights with a heavily armoured shopping cart, or the woman on a motorcycle. These are a lot more interesting to engage with ‘generic man with gun’ which is repeated more than a few times. Honestly, the best reward that comes from these are the weapons that usually become a static drop - kill that clown, folks, because that chainsaw will take you places. Beautiful, gory places.

But at least the benefits of rescuing all those AI-impared survivors and carving up those broken psychopaths is mostly worth it. Upon gaining arbitrary amounts of EXP, Frank will level up, and gain a randomized perk; these could be simple upgrades to his physical strength, boost his level of health or the amount of item slots he has. Hell, you can even learn some martial arts to more efficiently (in theory) take on the undead.

Frank does get a pretty decent amount of combat moves across the game, but I really didn’t feel the need to use any of them. By the end of the game, with all his stats buffed and his repertoire filled out, performing a lariat or one of his many other wrestling-esque attacks can take down zombies without an issue… but it never, ever felt as remotely satisfying or efficient as the cool blade of a knife or samurai sword. It’s not a bad level up system, not by a longshot, but the only times I really felt I was actually becoming more powerful, funnily enough, was when I got a new item slot. Being able to hold more weapons, and more health foods, feels more impactful than any incremental stat upgrade ever could.

But How Am I Meant To Feel?

I was holding off on talking about this, because it’s hard to state my disappointment with the game’s story. Having to navigate the story in pseudo real-time is a fascinating hook, but the fact you’re on the clock is maybe the only thing actually interesting about its narrative. The game’s story is heavily tied in with the foundations of the time-managing, zombie-slaying elements. You play as Frank West, a somewhat sleazy and unscrupulous journalist who manages to infiltrate the zombie infested Willamette, Colorado. He quickly becomes embroiled in the massive zombie outbreak and the deeper governmental conspiracy and mystery that lies at its source.

Frankly, I don’t think the story in Dead Rising is that great. None of the characters are particularly interesting, even Frank, who’s mildly entertaining just based off how out of step he is with everyone else in the story. Everyone else? Man, I can barely even remember their names, mere weeks after finishing it up.

The emphasis Capcom has placed on cutscenes and long, expository dialogue - coupled with how seriously everyone takes what they’re saying - really had me rolling my eyes more than a few times. It feels like the worst version of the silliness the Yakuza series gives us these days - a generally serious main storyline, surrounded by some of the most utterly silly and over-the-top content on the console. It’s really hard to enjoy the ‘serious’ storytelling. It’s even harder when I’ve got Frank wearing a women’s business suit, skirt and all, since you can dress him up in all the latest fashions (of 2006) available throughout the mall.

They really should’ve just gone sillier with the narrative than the frequently generic and forgettable storytelling. It almost feels like a parody of a zombie film, but played completely straight to its own massive detriment. It all culminates in a terrible ending - following a genuinely terrible final boss fight - that just has text on a black background explaining the game’s aftermath, the ultimate reversal of the ancient proverb ‘show, not tell’. There is an interesting narrative beneath all this - Dead Rising has a lot of themes that criticize the idea and implementation of consumerism and capitalism in the West, but it’s just so frequently hamstrung by its own - genuinely funny - silliness that it’s kind of lost.

Also, I just think the game can be a little gross at times, in a moral sense. I’m not saying pretty much anyone outside of Frank - and that’s a stretch alone - has that much depth, but pretty much every female character in the game exists just to look sexy or provide exposition, frequently before dying. Some of the Psycopaths, too, lean into some really gross stereotypes - the evil Asian butcher just feels icky, to say little of the stereotypically ‘fat butch’ lesbian police officer who is implied to be inflicting sexual violence on her female captives. Large stretches of the game are fine, but there’s just enough smattering of this grossness that makes it really hard to ignore, and just serves to already push me away from the game’s surprisingly generic, boring narrative.

But there is one core reason to see Frank’s investigation to its end. For those who manage to conquer everything Dead Rising’s main story presents, the game offers you one final challenge - Infinity Mode. As per its name, you are thrown into the mall with no time limit - simply the goal of survival for as long as possible - with the caveat that Frank’s health is CONSTANTLY dropping, requiring you to constantly seek out food from the Mall, and the various NPCs that’ll spawn across the game’s calendar. Really, the mode should just be called ‘This boy gotta eat!’.

You need to constantly be scavenging for the limited supply of food throughout the mall, constantly putting you in harm’s way and making each zombie bite that much more devastating. It’s nerve-wracking and I am really, really, really bad at it - but I couldn’t stop playing it regardless of that ineptitude. Overall, it’s such a simplistic idea that works so, so well. If it was just fighting zombies endlessly without any other real complications, it’d get boring quick, but it’s a fantastic way of keeping the time-based elements of the game sans any real remaining narrative.

I think at its foundational level, Dead Rising is fantastic. It feels totally unique - not only for its 2006 debut, but even today, there’s very little else like it. Once you get into the swing of things, slaying the hordes and managing your time between various missions feels almost euphoric, and watching the mall develop as a place you interact with is delightful. It’s just a lot of the supporting elements that really needed refining - chiefly, the amount of downtime and the atrocious ally AI. Plus, I would like to reiterate that the serious story played straight in the wacky dimension Frank West seems to inhabit really didn’t work for me. Still, the foundation of the game is really, really, REALLY good, and having an endless mode to play with the most fun parts of the title give this game legs unlike anything else. Insanity incarnate, Dead Rising is very much a game that is greater than the sum of its parts - if many of it’s pieces just clicked a little bit better, it could be considered a masterpiece.

I’m really excited to tackle the rest of the Dead Rising series; whilst I know that the later entries in the series, particularly in the Xbox One/PS4 era, don’t quite live up to the promises set by the initial duology, but Dead Rising scratches such specific itches in such specific ways that I can’t help tackle everything the series has on offer. And with a nice gap in my schedule, my playthrough of Dead Rising 2 might be a lot sooner than I planned…