Zombie nation

After a quiet period on my Xbox 360, where I've really only being playing Halo 2 or re-visiting Ghost Recon, I was excited to notice that, finally, after a lull in the available games (mainly due to the US summer, when apparently even geeks need to get out in the sun, and thus games companies don't release many new titles), there have been a few good new games released for the 360. The game I've been eagerly awaiting is Dead Rising, which I bought over the weekend.

Dead Rising is all about zombies. Lots of zombies.

The game draws many similarities with George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead", about zombies in a shopping mall. You play as a photojournalist, who is searching for the scoop of a lifetime and has heard something is "up" in a small country town. You are flown in by helicopter and dropped on the roof of a shopping mall, determined to find out what is going on. You've got 3 days (game time) to survive, and thousands of zombies to avoid.

Dead Rising is crazy. The shopping mall has been constructed amazingly well, with all sorts of plazas, food courts, cinemas etc. The zombies are awesome; gory, shuffling monstrosities, intent of eating you alive. And thanks to the abilities of the Xbox, there are literally hundreds of zombies on screen at once. Makes for a pretty intense atmosphere... you, a deserted shopping mall (with a handful of survivors, some helpful, some scared and some just plain psychopathic), and hundreds of zombies coming for you. Fortunately, you aren't without help. The number of weapons in this game is outstandingly brutal...everything from baseball bats and golf clubs from the sports shop, chainsaws and hedge clippers from the hardware store, sledgehammers from the janitor's closet, through to guitars from the music store, pans from the cafes, rubbish bins, bowling balls, dumbbells...whatever you can pick up, you can kill zombies with. Attacking the zombies with each of these weapons creates nastily authentic sound effects and visuals, in conjunction with serious zombie carnage.

What more is there to say? Zombies. Crazy zombie violence. Awesome. (Apologies to anyone with zombie friends).