SDCC 2013: Dead Rising 3 Preview

Just like the last time I saw it, my first impressions of Dead Rising 3 at the San Diego Comic-Con were worrying. I was treated to an eyes-on demo, the same one I saw at E3, in a theater before the game's official panel. This time around, however, the demo was plagued by slowdown issues and had to be restarted when the game's protagonist Nick glitched into an infinite series of throwing animations. These are tech bugs that can surely be squashed before November, but they were a bit troublesome nonetheless. 

Following this demo, I was ushered into the Exhibit Hall where Capcom and Microsoft would be showing off their new collaboration. At the start of the presentation, Capcom put up two screenshots. One was of Dead Rising 2, and the other of Dead Rising 3. The intended effect was undoubtedly to show how far Capcom Vancouver had come since their last project, but it actually had the opposite effect. Dead Rising 2's screenshot was bursting with color and personality, and Dead Rising 3's screenshot was almost entirely brown, and so dark I could barely make anything out. Hardly a step forward.

So it was with a sense of trepidation that I went into the bulk of the Dead Rising 3 panel at the San Diego Comic-Con. And while the game's developers themselves admitted to adopting a darker, "more survival-horror" tone, it was with a renewed sense of optimism that I walked out of that panel an hour later. So what happened?

Simply put, Capcom continued showing off screenshots. I was largely unfazed with additions such as the Smartglass-enabled airstrikes and the weird phone interface that allows in-game characters to send texts to your real-world phone. Those are funny gimmicks that might amuse for a few minutes before wearing out their welcome. What I'm interested in, what I really want to see out of Dead Rising, is a guy in funny clothes mixing milk and cooking oil in a blender and chugging it 'til he vomits all over a zombie. And while Capcom didn't go that far in their presentation this weekend, they did at least promise that players could "make their own slapstick" using the game's traditionally silly costumes to offplay the seriousness of the main story.

As an example, they showed off Nick wearing full-on knight armor and wielding a laser sword against a zombie. Capcom confirmed that the laser sword will still be one of the craft-able items, and that players could still wear any piece of clothing through any of the game's cutscenes. That's a significant step in the right direction for me.

In the next screenshot, Capcom showed off a zombie up close. They detailed how the zombies are now randomized so as to not appear the same. Additionally, every zombie has innards, brains, and a skeleton, which will spill out onto the pavement thanks to dynamic wounding tech that will accurately show off organs when zombies are wounded. When Nick chipped a zombie's skull with that laser sword, for example, a small glimpse of its brain was revealed through the gash.

Driving was also detailed. Since Dead Rising 3's map is four times the size of the last game's and features no loading times, driving will be much more important this time around. Driving physics are also improved - the car will stutter and start when carving through a hoarde of zombies, and can even be stopped altogether should the hoarde be thick enough. That emphasis on physics goes for the rest of the game, too. Smashing through a window, for example, will cause the glass shards to animate with real physics. 

As long as Capcom can get the slowdown and glitching issues patched up, Dead Rising 3 sounds like it will be a better-playing game than its predecessors thanks to an increased focus on physics and weapon control. Still, I'm not certain it'll be the Dead Rising game that I want. I've always enjoyed the series' goofy antics and colorful locations in the past, and those are aspects that are still ambiguous in this latest entry.

Stay tuned for more as the year wears on.


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