Review: Dead Rising Triple Pack stands the test of time

Platforms: Xbox One (reviewed), PS4

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

MSRP: $59.99

Introduction

It's been 10 years since the original Dead Rising launched back in 2006, and the franchise has carried on with multiple games and DLC due to its original take on zombie kills. We hadn't seen that many zombies on screen at once before, let alone the copious amounts of blood, and it immediately caught everyone's attention. The gameplay of weapons customization, zombie photographs, and mobile zombie slaying vehicles have made Dead Rising the most unique zombie survival series to date. The Dead Rising Triple Pack includes the first two games along with Dead Rising 2: Off the Record and gives us a few new features not included in the originals. Upgraded graphics and framerate help the games flow and play better, but it also makes some of the flaws stand out. We break down all three below in our review

Dead Rising

Frank West, the acclaimed photojournalist, heads out to Willamette mall in Colorado to try and investigate some "interesting" activity. In case you don't remember the first game, a zombie outbreak takes place in the mall, trapping Frank inside where he has three days to find out what happens. You have to rescue other civilians while taking out zombies in the most creative way possible. Clothing mannequins, makeup cases, sporting equipment or whatever else you can find is all fair game to eliminate the zombies.

Dead Rising didn't really show any issues where framerate was concerned. Often times upgrading older games to a faster framerate in a remaster causes it to run at a pace faster than originally intended. This causes some stuttering as the game attempts to catch up to itself. This surprisingly didn't happen for me, even though it's the oldest of three games. Scenes with mobs of zombies occupying the screen only gave me one very brief issue and functioned quite well the rest of the game.

Graphics wise Dead Rising was a bit different. Upgrading to 1080P made everything pop with brighter colors and more realistic zombie blood. The flaws were also upgraded and this made them stand out more prominently. By no means were they major flaws, in fact quite the opposite, but they were noticeable. Minor graphical issues were enhanced as the images were stretched to a higher pixel count, making some appear very blurry. No new features or mechanics were really introduced due to dated restrictions, but this remaster held up quite well with only minor flaws. Although flaws were more visible, the improvements were proportionally increased which resulted in simply a nicer looking version of the first game.

Dead Rising 2

This was my least favorite of the three games. It had nothing to do with the overall gameplay, but more with the game's character Chuck Greene. You see, Frank West is an outgoing, flamboyant personality. Chuck is the opposite and a lot of the game's character was lost in switching over to him. Even though it added in multiplayer, I liked the originality of the first Dead Rising better. Just as in the original DR2, there is no photography since Frank isn't in the game. We do still have the crafting, which is a nice change from the original game as it enhances the ability to eviscerate zombies. Combining different items to makes weapons, drinks, drugs etc all helps Chuck increase in level faster with the increased XP.

The performance in DR2 holds up great. There were never any framerate issues, and no stutters occurred as in the first game. Although it's been a while since I last played the original Dead Rising 2, I still remember the increased zombie count on top of Willamette Mall. There are even more zombies in this remastered version, which makes the performance even that much more impressive.