In Dead Rising photojournalist Frank West receives a tip off that something is very wrong in the town of Willamette, Colorado. Chartering a helicopter he finds the town closed off by the National Guard and the undead wandering the almost deserted streets. He ends up in the town's local shopping mall which is besieged by zombies and the last place in town where the survivors have managed to hole up. When one person's moment of stupidity results in the zombies flooding into the mall, in pursuit of the story of a lifetime Frank must survive for at least 72 hours for the helicopter's return, while also uncovering the truth behind the outbreak of zombieism. To do this he can make use of almost anything in the shopping mall to fend off zombie attacks. Plant pots, mannequins, baseball bats, chainsaws and fresh fish are just a tiny example and to name every object at his disposal would take up the rest of this review. It's enough to say that the choice is staggering and unique in both serious and novelty weapons.

One of the things that makes the game easy to play is the fluidity of the controls which allows you to put the improvised weapons to use. Items that can be picked up or used are all tagged and easily identifiable so it's just a simple case of pressing a button to pick them up and another to attack. While all items can be thrown (with varying results), some also have a secondary attack that can be triggered by holding down the attack button. Items can also be held in reserve and swapped between/dropped at will and this is essential given all of them break after a set amount of usage. This increases the tension as the player must be wary of missing the visual cue in the inventory and avoid suddenly being switched from a devastating samurai sword, able to cut a swathe through crowds of zombies, to something like a child's water pistol which does little more than make them a bit soggy.

What impresses most is how the effect of each item has clearly been given a lot of thought. Jamming buckets or masks on zombies' heads will cause them to stumble around blindly. Throwing paint cans will splash them with globs of paint or even blind them if you get it into their eyes. Hurling CD cases or drink cans will cause them to ping off both zombies and their surroundings. Smashing one in the head with a lump hammer will demolish it in a shower of blood, but bashing it with an oversized cuddly toy, as you'd expect, will barely faze it. The combination of survival instinct and entertainment value doesn't mean you'll overlook the more comedic items though. In fact some of the game's best, most memorable and downright daft moments come from using these objects especially in the heat of the moment, and it's just as much fun discovering all the items and their uses as it is exploring the expanse of the mall itself.

The little touches don't just stop with items either. It's immensely satisfying to be able to kick a football off the mall roof and watch it descend into the crowd of zombies milling around in the carpark, or just take pot-shots at them with a sniper rifle. Bashing up walking corpses results in Frank becoming heavily blood stained while attempting to throw something at enemies when unarmed causes him to spit at them. Even the mall's various clocks tell the actual in-game time rather than being static textures. Little things these may be, but they're just a small sample of the finer additions throughout which are enough to make you smile.

On one hand the game is clearly tongue in cheek, with lots of pleasing references to both Zombie genre films and Capcom's own games. On the other, it is extremely gory and grim. Not only is there a gratuitous amount of blood and body parts thrown about but the subject matter and themes are also very strong. This is never more apparent than when the human boss characters are on screen. These psychopaths, who have clearly become unhinged by believing the end of the world is upon them, range from a Pennywise-inspired Clown to an survivalist supermarket manager with a weaponised shopping cart, and represent the game's high and low points all rolled into one. Boss battles add variety to tackling the zombie hordes, but fighting some of them can be frustrating due to their over-reliance on long-range attacks. Trying to tackle a loony who's armed with a machine gun or chainsaw when the deadliest parts of your own arsenal consist of a packet of crisps, a police baton and a giant lipstick sample, is never going to work but it's a situation that will be repeated time and again due to the game's nature and strict control of the availability of firearms. While certain fights allow the player to improvise a solution, this is not always possible. Over time the player can recognise when they are being set up for one of these encounters, but it is not always obvious.

Played out over a period of days, Frank will be assigned two sorts of mission. The first involves Cases which are central to the story and finding out what has caused the outbreak. The second are Scoops that are relayed from the security room and typically involve rescuing various people who are trapped around the mall. Regardless of the mission type, time limits are involved and once this expires the Case or Scoop will automatically fail. Despite its freeform appearance, Dead Rising's mission structure is very rigid and doesn't leave much scope for failure, but it does add a fitting feeling of urgency to the game rather than being trapped in a time bubble. The time limits themselves are often quite generous and leave plenty of time to tackle the various missions or just explore.

Scoops can be failed or ignored with little consequence (at least not to Frank), however the Cases are a different matter altogether. Failing a Case breaks the storyline completely and while it is possible to continue playing for the remainder of the 72-hour period until rescued, new areas of the mall will not be unlocked and eventually the Scoops for the available areas will dry up. This means that it can get stale with little to do except fight zombies in the same areas while waiting for help to arrive.

The catch is that the game clearly needs to be played this way initially due to its levelling system. Taking part in Cases and Scoops or killing zombies will raise Frank's Prestige Points and once a certain number of points have been reached he levels up. This increases skills such as his attack power, range of moves, life meter and the number of items that he can hold. Being a photojournalist, Frank is also able to take photographs to document his potentially award-winning story. Intuitively done, the controls make snapping pictures a cinch, and the fact that this is tied into the levelling system with the player being awarded Prestige Points depending on the content of the snap and type of category it fulfils, means it is much more than a superfluous afterthought.

The levelling system does mean that attempting to complete all the Cases straight off will cause problems, since Frank will be seriously underpowered. While still possible, it will certainly be an uphill struggle. The rigidity of the mission structure is initially made worse by the save feature which only allows one save game per gamer profile. Once zombie-feed, the player is given the option to either continue but with all their Prestige Points and upgrades stripped from them (not a decision to be made lightly) or loading the last save. Certainly not as game-breaking as some would have you believe, it requires the player to take a little time to get used to it and think carefully about when and where they save.

Overall the time-limit balance that needs to be struck between Cases, Scoops and exploration, combined with the levelling system and multiple endings, actually works in the game's favour. It adds a high level of replay value from wanting to go through it again and tackle the scenarios that were missed previously, along with earning additional skills to help make things easier.

After years of experiencing small crowds of undead in confined spaces, Dead Rising caught everyone's attention when it was announced due to the sheer number of zombies on screen and the wide open spaces of its shopping mall. While the game's visuals have changed dramatically for the better since then, the number of zombies on screen at any one time is not diminished. During certain points of the game the player is literally swamped with undead enemies and has to claw their way out with whatever they have to hand.

Zombies also behave as you would expect, shambling about aimlessly until fresh meat races by, chewing on severed limbs, falling over clumsily at the slightest incline or change in height and even just waving their extremities at the sky in silent zombie contemplation (about whatever it is zombies contemplate). Due to their behaviour being so close to what we've come to expect in movies, some disappointment seems inevitable. For example, when the player locks themselves in a store with windows, any nearby zombies will simply attempt to shuffle through the glass rather than hammering on the windows in order to try and gain entry. Similarly the lack of full audio for characters is extremely disappointing, with most in-game conversation being text-based. This often makes it difficult to fend off zombies and read conversations or mission updates and is even stranger given all characters have limited audio cues which are repeated over and over again. Funny at first, they soon become annoying and leave you wondering why a few more lines of dialogue couldn't have been recorded. For a game that pays so much attention to lots of the lovely finer points and seems to take pride in getting them right, things like the above are made even more obtrusive and puzzling.

So, while the zombies are nearly spot on, human behaviour is a different thing altogether. It is impossible to play the game without becoming totally frustrated with the human AI, especially during the Scoop escort missions. Attempting to rescue multiple humans is more often than not a sure-fire recipe for disaster due to their tendency to blunder into crowds of zombies and not be able to fend for themselves. When freeing them you may extend the courtesy of trying not to hurt them but they will not do the same for you, bashing you over the head with a 2x4 or, even worse, firing at point blank range with a shotgun and stripping you of your health.

Despite the gripes and bugs which could have done with polishing out (such as bosses refusing to die when on zero health, clipping of people through walls/clothing and suddenly respawning zombies), Dead Rising still manages to be an obscene amount of fun and offer some exemplary gaming moments. But it is undeniably a game that will polarise opinions more than a certain yeast-based extract that you slap on your toast. Some will be able to adapt and forgive the problems in light of the level of fun, gore and the sheer amount of things there are to interact with. Others will simply not be able to move past these and the often-heavy element of frustration, which is a shame because underneath them the game is a thoroughly enjoyable experience that tries something a little different, even if it doesn't quite get it entirely right. Those expecting the Best Game Ever™ may be disappointed. For every zombiephile however, the game is a wet dream come true.