I’m a big fan of zombie mayhem, and with the Xbox 360 hovering just above my price range, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Dead Rising: Chop ”˜till you Drop. Screenshots of the Wii version have been heavily criticized for having bad graphics, and not being able to simulate zombie hordes of the same size as its 360 predecessor. I’m sorry to say that despite some valiant efforts, the “Trial Version” on demo at Nintendo’s Fall Media summit lived up to the negative hype.
Hit the jump to find out why.
It may only be because it’s a remake of a 360 game, but expectations for Dead Rising have been high. The most common gripe is that screenshots from the Wii version don’t seem to have enough zombies. The Xbox 360 version of the game could display hundreds of zombies on screen at one time, but the Wii version only seems to be able to display dozens. During my time with the demo, I counted only between 15-25 zombies on screen at any given time, and usually it was on the low end of this range. Possibly worse, the few zombies I did see were so spread out that walking around them was almost no challenge. If the enemy isn’t a threat, why would I bother to engage them? The rebuttal to this complaint is obvious: The Wii is not the Xbox 360, and can’t hope to compete with it in terms of high-end graphical processing power. It’s a valid counterargument, but it’s too true. The demo was an aliasing nightmare, besides, Dead Rising’s selling point is the abundance of mindless zombies, a big empty mall doesn’t make much of a thriller.
The modified Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition engine the game runs on feels solid in terms of gameplay, and actually works pretty well with the new melee weapons. The player can pick up and throw benches, cash registers, merchandise, pretty much everything you could in the old game. Certain items like the baseball bat can be charged up by waggling the Wii Remote, and the game utilizes the remote speaker for weapons sound effects. Another important thing to mention is that the text is large and easy to read, addressing a common complaint with the 360 release. The only real problem with the control setup and the RE4 engine is that you can’t jump, which means climbing flower beds and other obstacles to escape the zombie horde is out of the question.
I sought out Tim Ng, Capcom’s representative at the Press Summit, in hopes that he could address my complaints. Hopefully, I thought, there was a better build of the game out there somewhere. “This is the likely build,” he told me, ””¦it’s actually a very early build.” I asked him if this was the only demo the company had out, and he told me what was showing in Japan may be different. Although it’s been reported that vehicles are making a comeback in the Wii edition, Ng told me that vehicles and the zombie filled parking structure from the 360 version were still “to be determined.”
Dead Rising: Chop ”˜till you Drop is slated for release in Winter 09, which means Capcom still has until March to polish this title up. If they can manage to add a jump button, clean up the aliasing problem, and get closer to their previous goal of 100 zombies on screen, Dead Rising for Wii will be a great Mature title for Nintendo fans. Until then, we’ll be keeping track of Capcom’s progress. Hopefully, the final build will be much different than the “likely” build.
No jumping? Half the fun is jumping from zombie to zombie to get places. Although since there are significantly less zombies that's not really a realistic gameplay element anymore. But still. LAME.
I think the RE4 engine was simply a bad choice. More companies really need to get it together and spend the money making really wii engines, not just using old GC ones, even if it is one of the best for the cube. Capcom has been dipping into the low cost high return bucket alot and it's just a little disappointing to me at this point in the systems life.
LESS PORTS, MORE ORIGINAL CONTENT.
Would probably make a better music game than WiiMusic.
hmm- too bad. empty mall is pretty funny though.
though, if I only had a wii…. I kinda am starting to feel like this game still might be fun.
the sad part is, we've already seen games on the *PS2* that prove that with just a LITTLE bit of effort and budget, Capcom actually COULD have made a Dead Rising game on the Wii that is 98% comparable to the 360 version.
Unfortunately, this is just a rushed, shitty port with no budget that's being plopped out in time for Christmas. This seriously better not cost more than $30 bucks.
Some could say this would make a good point for having needing more power on a console (in this case for larger character count, not fancy effects). My question is… how is it that developers manage to make these games look and feel so poor when this thing's supposed to be AT LEAST a Gamecube and a half? Obviously they're not trying hard enough because they're shoving a 360 game into the RE4 engine (and let me guess, it's the PS2 version instead of the Gamecube one? :P)
Honestly if it was going to turn out this bad, they should have changed the "realistic" style and stylized it to allow for simpler characters to actually allow for massive hordes of the things. Instead we get a dozen blurry polygonal blobs that only resemble zombies because they're not pretty to look at.
I never was really excited about it. It's always kind of sounded like a half-butt effort. I know a 360 to Wii port would have to be downgraded some but I agree that trying to force it into the RE4 engine limits it even more.
I really hope if RE5 does ever get to the Wii that this isn't the same treatment it will get because it will be even uglier. DR on the 360 hardly pushed the limits on that system, and yet it's looking like the Wii version is going to look noticeably inferior, so RE5 would look even moreso.
i have to agree this doesn't look like it's going to be close to the fun of the x360's version. i could go on and on about it, but i'll just simply pass on this one…
@ sam
98% comparable? hahaha. right.
i mean, wrong.
"and with the Xbox 360 hovering just above my price range"
Here in the UK you can pick up a pre-owned 360 for £99.99, can get a pre-owned 360 elite for about £180 (a preowned wii costs £130)
Not that i'm advertising the 360, in fact, don't buy one, stick with the Wii version, but, I won't be getting this game, not into the whole gore fest idea
elmer: That video was stunning. Thanks for that link.
elmer: Nice link, but I gotta say that the crowd in Hitman had basically no AI, which means they use up next to now processor power and whatnot.
Still, I hate to use this term, but . . . fail.
@ Paul 2
True, but how smart are Zombies anyway? And it's not like that scenario was the crux of Hitman. And it's not like it was running on 2 gamecubes duck taped together. And it's not like the Zombies were varied. And it's not like the Zombies had great collision detection. And it's not like the crowd did nothing. They meandered, they cowered, they ran away, they shot back, they died.
Replace that with zombie aimless shuffle, zombie notice, zombie stagger for meat, zombie maul and zombie crunch and you have a game.
I have to say that video is pretty damning, even if the Hitman 2 people only ran away.
Well really I'm glad this game sucks I never liked it any way. Yet monster hunter and the new VS game looks great from capcom. I think capcom giving this one directory a hard time LOL.