GameCareerGuide.com analyzes Dead Rising
On GameCareerGuide.com, Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh takes a close look at the game design behind Dead Rising in an interesting article he titles “Dead Rising: A Trope Down Memory Lane.” Waugh’s take is that Japanese game designers are now looking back to Western games for inspiration, something he claims they abandoned back when Miyamoto brought some brand new refreshing styles to game design some twenty years ago.
So, much like how Kurosawa redefined many aspects of American and British cinema, especially the Western above all things, producers like Keiji Inafune are doing the same — at least that’s Waugh’s theory. In this case, exhibit A is Dead Rising which is essentially a Dawn of the Dead meets Groundhog Day video game whose gameplay, as Waugh points out, is equal parts Grand Theft Auto sandbox and Gauntlet survivalism — with a dash of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as one astute reader points out in the comments section of GameSetWatch. For all it’s flaws, I think it’s a good first game out of the gate for a game that mixes its metaphors so readily and so well done. Although as Waugh mentions, the potential for stellar online play wasn’t tapped into. Hopefully this is something we’ll see in Dead Rising 2.
There will be a sequel, right?
Via GameSetWatch
(Hi Simon!)
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